When we checked this morning’s latest news, it was a good news/bad news kind of thing. The bad news is that Ukraine has given up their long fight at the giant Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol. The good news is that the Russians have taken the 264 surviving soldiers alive, though as POW’s. But officials state that as many as 20,000 inhabitants of Mariupol have been killed. Unimaginable, and for what?

We’re up early this morning to get to the central train station in Kyiv. Once again, we’ll make the 13-hour ride from eastern to western Ukraine. We’ll then have a 3-hour ride to Krakow, Poland.

The train is not quite so full traveling away from Kyiv. In fact, one report said that twice as many Ukrainians were returning to their homeland as were leaving. One can certainly feel that the tide has turned in this war, and that the Ukrainians are feeling vanquished. There is a sense of jubilation in the air that Ukraine will prevail. The world hopes so!

I have a jumble of thoughts and emotions and reactions going through my mind. Perhaps there will be another time to share them.

For now, though, I, along with the rest of the world, will ask myself what I should do in the face of this horrific disaster.

Ukrainian doctors are asking us for medications and supplies, particularly wound vacuum systems, as well as medical volunteers to join them in treating the wounded.

As I asked myself two years ago as the COVID pandemic exploded… “If not now, when? If not me, who?”

Please consider supporting the efforts of Global Care Force as we continue to send supplies and medical professionals to Ukraine.