Filled with Life at Annual Conference 2022
From August 25-28, 2022, Save a Life International staff, volunteers, partners, and donors gathered in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine with feelings of both joy and sorrow. We gathered from near and far, and were joined by representatives from Chernivtsi, Khmelnitsky, Zaporizhzhia, Odessa, Poltava, Lviv, Mariupol, Pokrovsk, and Philadelphia, PA, and other parts of the United States.
Many of our women have, in a single moment, found themselves stripped of the life and home they knew. Many have husbands, sons, and fathers on the front line defending Ukraine. Many have gotten accustomed to the daily sound of air-raid sirens. There is not a soul in Ukraine who is not affected.
We considered canceling our Annual Conference in light of the invasion in February 2022. But, as we considered the options, we understood that community, friendship, and celebrating life together is important now more than ever.
Officially beginning Annual Conference 2022!
The opening session was full of excitement, hugs, and smiles as friends were reunited after months of trouble and uncertainty. As the group started to join together in a time of worship, it was evident that our hearts were all re-acclimating to being together as part of one body of Christ and one family of Save A Life International. Our good friend Georges Houssney, Founder and President of Horizons International, shared God’s word with us and reminded us that each one of us is truly made in God’s image. All volunteers, staff, mothers, children…every one of us is God’s idea!
The next several days of Annual Conference were filled with breakout workshops, joy-filled and inspirational talks, and restful fellowship around the resort property. We were joined by Ellen Foell, of Heartbeat International, who expressed to us how important it is to understand that all of the women we work with are innately endowed with the dignity of God.
Our Founder and President, Nadia Gordynsky, joined us for workshops and spent many hours with staff and volunteers from each Life Center, discussing how to make each Life Center as effective and life-giving as possible.
Director of the Zaporizhzhia Life Center, Elina Brynza, shares her experiences of serving during war.
We were honored to hear many testimonies of faith and experiences of this time of war from our very own Life Center Directors. From Elina Brynza, Director of the Zaporizhzhia Life Center, we learned about her experience of the war by the feeling of the ground shaking and the explosive sounds of bombs and rockets out her window. When asked why, through all of this, with her husband Erik and two small children, her family decided to stay on the front lines of occupied territory, she confidently said that “I would rather die than walk away from the will of God.”
“I would rather die than walk away from the will of God.”
Elina’s confidence in her Creator and selflessness in the face of danger are so inspiring to us. Despite all the dangers of living so close to the front lines, she inspires us by her example of having a constant focus on the needs of all the women in crisis in her city that desperately need help. She never wavers from her faith that God has placed her and her family where they are to serve.
At the end of the conference, we were able to run a donor-match event and raised over $50,000 to be used for our programmatic work in our Life Centers that are providing critical support and resources to women in crisis in Ukraine, Poland, and the USA.
In a time when many Ukrainians feel fearful and alone, Annual Conference 2022 gave us an opportunity to bond and encourage one another. God truly was in our midst and we feel his blessings and protection over us every day. More than ever before, we know that God has placed Save a Life International in this place and time for such a cause as this.