Happy New Year
I hope that you’ve all been able to enjoy Christmas and New Year celebrations and have had time to catch up with loved ones. You might also have had time to stop and reflect on the previous year and consider priorities for 2025. I’ve spent twenty five hours on my bike since Christmas Eve riding in different parts of the beautiful UK. Dawn chorus of birds, sun and hills emerging from the clouds and plenty of drizzle and limited winter sunshine. Some days and sometimes it’s been tough, but mostly joyful as I’ve ridden with friends or just taken in the beauty of a winter landscape and the peace of it all.
As I neared the end of completing the 500km challenge for DHM, I also felt a sense of ‘what’s next?’ as I got ready to sit down to a third Christmas dinner last Sunday! The end of long journey and the sense of ‘what is to come?’
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces is rapidly approaching the third anniversary this February and the country has spent three Christmases since the illegal invasion. On Christmas Day, the thirteenth large scale attack on Ukraine’s already battered power infrastructure took place. I reflected on that as I rode out into the dawn on Christmas day; how fortunate that there was light and warmth and no air raid warnings. Yet, in very small ways we are all able to make some difference and each pedal stroke was helping towards DHM funding another Ecoflow battery power pack to bring light into the darkness.
As we stand at the beginning of 2025, we might wonder what we can do to make some difference for the people of Ukraine at this grindingly hard time. I’ve reminded myself as I’ve ridden of how Nehemiah was called to pray faithfully as he began the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding. As we continue to pray for a just peace and end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, I hope that we might also see the start of rebuilding lives and communities this New Year. Dnipro Hope Mission remains committed to this wider vision and our Ukrainian partners will continue to work selflessly to serve their communities whatever 2025 holds.
Mark.
