It was all arranged. At 9am we were set to meet and partner with high school students to hand out boxes of food to the Survivors. We had done this last year before the lockdowns began, so this was great to get to them again. These boxes of food were supplied by the 
army.
At 8:45 I was just getting into my car when my phone rang.
“Hold up! Don’t come! We had to cancel as some students tested positive for Covid.” Oh my. Good thing they found out before the students got into my car AND before they delivered meals to the Survivors.
I called Liza, my translator, to call the Survivors for whom we were responsible. She let them know we would not be coming today and will call when it will happen. All were okay to wait except Lillian. She began to cry.
“I was so glad you were coming! I need the food!”
Survivors usually do not ask for food and are not in that kind of need. But the pandemic has changed everything. Locked down, kept at home by government edicts, fear driving 
their decisions about going out… a different world in less than 12 months.
During the lockdowns we have continued to deliver challa, birthday flowers, cards and letters and give out masks. The government has requested we do not go in their homes so we only go to their doors. But even then, they are so desperate for a touch, a hug.
In Lillian’s case- we are going to buy food and take it to her and her husband in the morning. Chicken, rice, bread, cabbage slaw, tea, cake and a few extras. Enough for a big meal supplying leftovers. She cried out for help and that is what we do. We answer.
In the last 10 months with 3 lockdowns, now a vaccine push and the country borders closed to all entries, the Survivors are remembering being locked into ghettos and concentration camps, labor camps and hiding in forests. Their terrible memories, which never left, are being jabbed back into active life.
We will continue to show up at their doors, call them on the phone, wave to them from the 
street, supply their needs and cry with them through the screen. And we pray for them, and with them.
They need more. They need to know someone cares. Please pray for them to know God loves them. And if you want to write to them, let us know. The Survivors would love to hear from you, and so would we.
