Through your generosity a huge £31,900 was donated to support our February aid delivery to Lviv. Thank you for your donations and for your very kind and much appreciated messages of support.
Following a significant amount of preparation and support from the Tove Benefice Team, we departed from Towcester after a send-off by Dame Andrea Leadsom MP and Towcester Mayor Martin Johns on Friday the 10th of February, arriving some 1,350 miles later in Lviv on the Sunday. Thankfully the journey was uneventful with us missing on Saturday a day of air raid warnings across the country, and explosions close to Lviv.
We took out two pickups full of aid, some destined for the front-line, and the rest for civilian use elsewhere in Ukraine. Once handed over, the pickups with the front-line aid were driven some 700 miles by a group of three brave women whose husbands are serving on the front-line and who, uncomplainingly, drove through a war zone to make delivery. There follow some photographs of that.
We went on to deliver the humanitarian aid to the Church of St Andrew in Bucha and to temporary housing given by the Polish people for displaced Ukrainians in Hostomel both near Kiev. Unlike in Lviv, there was evidence of widespread destruction here, and of course Bucha was the scene of unspeakable atrocities. Fr Andriy who received the aid delivery had been personally involved in the collection and subsequent burial of the mutilated bodies of some 160 civilians, some of whose photographs are now displayed in silent remembrance in his church. Photographs of the burial site and Fr Andriy also follow. It is beyond doubt that our help makes a difference and I can do no better than reproduce here the message of thanks received from Iryna following her return from the front:
"We returned home. Everything went well, although it is very hard on the front line. Our soldiers die in battle... but they are fighting and I am sure that we will win. Our soldiers is incredible!!! Thank you for your support. Pick-up's are already on the front line, already ... . Cars rescue the wounded. Your support helps us a lot..."
We are now preparing for our April delivery and have some £10,000 unspent with which to start buying medical aid and an additional pickup.
Our sincere thanks,
Paul Parsons, Oleh Naida Charles Manners, and Alex Donaldson
