You You may have heard a number of callers on the show in recent days talking about people from right here in the Upstate who were caught up in the Russian Invasion of Georgia as well as former Georgian’s now living here.

I wanted to share some of the news and photos with you that those listeners have made available to me.

First here’s the latest on Carolyn Rice, who’s served with Abortion Recovery Center in Georgia.

Safe Arrival in Georgia Carolyn Rice Aug 20, 2008

Dear faithful prayer partners, I arrived safely this morning in my beloved Georgia. At passport control, the officer smiled big and said, “thank you for coming to our country at such a time and we thank your country for the help they are giving us. Welcome!” Today I have been to Beteli center and we have planned a day of training on crisis and trauma for Saturday. They had already been thinking of which people would be invited to take this training, and decided the people had to be good listeners.

My interpreter’s name is Nino. (Katherine, it’s your Nino from camp!) Please pray for her as she has lots of work to get the materials in order before Saturday and to learn lots of new terminology. And pray for me – for wisdom in what and how to teach on Saturday. Pray for the participants who will be doing crisis debriefings among the refugees after the seminar.

After the planning meeting, I visited with some of the refugee children, played games with them, and held some babies there. Then I talked with some of the mothers about their experiences. Most of the refugees’ homes were burned, so they have no home to return to. Others left ahead of the soldiers and don’t know the state of their homes. They will stay at Beteli as refugees until the Russian soldiers leave and homes can be rebuilt.

The head Baptist pastor went to Gori today, and he said most of the Russian soldiers were lying around drunk or hungover. After all the looting and rioting, they apparently celebrated with lots of drinking. I know they too need to know God.

Many young girls and sometimes even the elderly from the villages were raped. These poor people have experienced so much trauma. Please pray that they will come to know Yahweh Rafah – our Healer. Many of them are angry with God and don’t understand why He would allow this tragedy to happen.

Now the Russians have said they will be out by Friday. But this is the third date they have given for withdrawal, and no progress made yet. However, there are no new reports of looting and burning.

I so appreciate your prayers! I want so much to be a blessing to these people, to help them see God’s character, His love for them. Thank you for partnering with me in this ministry!

Love,

Carolyn

Then there’s this email I received from Sean Reeves. His wife is originally from Georgia.

Then there is this email I got from Sean Reeves, his wife is from Georgia and her relatives are still there.

Hello Bob, Here are some pics that my wife’s Aunt has sent to us. Please know that the Russians have set fire to most of the forests to burn the wood needed for rebuilding. We are still grateful and Blessed that our family and friends there are still alive and accounted for. The situation for anyone outside Tbilisi is dire, people are homeless and starving. The Russian’s have looted nearly everything they could, and are actually setting up more permanent military equipment within Georgia’s borders while lying to the world that they are moving out. This situation is far from over, and I thank you for all the attention you are giving this situation. As Americans, we must know that the world is becoming much more dangerous place for our way of life, not safer as Democrats would like everyone to believe. Keep up the good work, more photos (terribly graphic) are forthcoming, but my in-laws are so busy helping other’s that time to download and send things to us is not a priority, and I am glad for that. My very best regards to you and your listeners, Sean Reeves and Mariam Demurishvili-ReevesThe pictures are below. Caution, they may be disturbing.

 

 

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