We boarded our train in Przemysl, Poland, and arrived tonight after a 13-hour train ride. We made stops in Lviv and a few other large cities, before disembarking at the gigantic, but dark train station in Kyiv. The train was full of Ukrainians returning to the homeland they had fled just weeks before.

I was leaving not only Poland, but the wonderful team from Church of the Resurrection and Pastor Adam Hamilton, who I had traveled with the past few days. We shared communion at the Przemysl Methodist Church, and then Poland’s General Superintendent Andrew prayed for my safety as I traveled into Ukraine.

Shortly after our arrival, we were greeted by air raid sirens, signaling a possible air attack, of which there were two missile strikes today. It’s an eerie feeling being in a huge city that has been under siege. Sandbags are stacked in front of doors and windows, soldiers man checkpoints where we have to show our passports, and anti-tank barriers are everywhere. Yet there is a palpable sense of optimism and confidence in the air that Ukraine will triumph, that victory will be theirs!

Some of our travel across Kyiv is by subways, built in grand style during the Soviet era. They are some of the deepest subways in the world, built to be nuclear bomb proof. The huge subway stations serve as bomb shelters, where thousands of Kyivians sleep at night.

We were met at the train station by many friends of Bob Skinner, who pastored them for 17 years as a former missionary to Ukraine. It was a beautiful homecoming for Bob, who I knew when he was a student at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City.

We will be staying in the home of Sergie and Iryna, local pastors, where several other families have moved in with them during the war.

Tomorrow we’ll visit one of the hospitals that are using the medicines and supplies we’ve delivered.