The Ukraine is located in southeast Europe. Belarus borders it on the north, Russia on the northeast and east, Moldova and Romania on the southwest, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland on the west. Its area is 233,100 square miles, a little smaller than Texas. Its capital is Kiev. One of its major cities is Kharkiv with a population in 1995 of about 1.6 million, the size of Philadelphia or Houston. It is from here that I received a letter from one of our Vincentian missionaries. He writes... "It was about lunch time. I was waiting for the traffic lights to change at a busy crossroad. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, an old and shabby-looking woman appeared beside my car. She bowed, crossed herself, and stretched her hand asking for a handout. I was taken by surprise, and at that moment it occurred to me that the old woman incarnated the adversity of Ukraine itself."

The Children Suffer Most
"If only you could see the condition some people live in, you would be amazed. And you would be really shocked if you saw the abandoned children. For example, some days ago two children, ages 2 and 3, were simply left on a park bench by their mother---in the middle of winter.

"These are the appalling life stories of little abandoned children. But are their parents the only ones to blame? A grave crisis of the family is obvious here. There are a lot of children who have a second or even third mother or father."

"But not all are that way. If you approach a person with attention and love you may discover that deep inside he or she has a responsive heart longing for righteousness, for God."

Part 2

Our story continues as we learn how God is coming to the people of Kharkov through your Vincentian missionaries. His letter continues... "Step by step people discover in themselves an intrinsic need for spirituality. But there exists a great danger that this need may be used by the various sects which are abundant here. "Our new parish is very large (it comprises about 1.5 million people). But we have no church, no parish house, or any other place where we could meet people and speak to them about God, where we could invite orphans and let them feel the warmth of the home they lack so much. The only place for our meetings is an old, half-ruined, one-story building without heating, where the window frames are covered with polyethylene film instead of glass, and the ceilings look as if they could collapse at any moment. The temperature inside is about the same as outdoors, and besides there are a lot of mice. To warm the room where our sermons are given we use electric heaters. As a result, only last month we paid an electricity bill of 45,000,000 krb. (US $250). It is a great sum of money when compared with the average salary (5,000,000 krb.) and pension (about 2,000,000 krb.) in the Ukraine. Considering all this, we can hardly expect any financial support from our congregation. So with these words, I appeal to all people of good will, asking for help. "Help us, please, so that we can gather at the table of God's word and Eucharist in a proper place. "Help us, please, so that we, priests, could build a new parish house and be at the disposal of our congregation. "And please, help those poor children by giving us a chance to build a center for them. "Let Ukraine and Kharkov learn that God is love, mercy, and charity."

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It is an opportunity for you to answer Christ's call to "make disciples of all nations." Jesus said to his disciples, "But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8) Vincentian missionaries bring the faith to the remotest and poorest places of the earth. And you can help them.