Ukrainian Refugee Says “Thank You” for Help with Cancer Treatment

• Ella Rodionoff

Dec 19, 2017 5141

Alla is grateful for the help she has received.

Alla had experienced war, homelessness and multiple diseases when she accepted Christ at Gospel meetings in early 2017. Eliezer Gonzalez, one of the speakers at the meetings, met Alla and learned she had cancer with no way of affording treatment. He promised he would try to find someone to help her with her treatments, making an appeal in a story about her testimony. Thanks to those who have generously given to help Alla, she has been able to start treatment.

Alla and her husband became refugees in 2014. They were living in Lugansk, in the East of Ukraine. It was at this time that conflict came to their city, and they decided to leave soon after a bomb detonated near their house, which threw them into the air. Alla says,

By then we were sleeping in the hallways and in the bathroom for safety. There was less space between the walls in these places so they were the strongest part of the building. And there were no windows.

After they left, Alla and her husband stayed in hotels, but this soon became too expensive. Some nights they were able to stay at hostels, while others they slept at the railway station, with nowhere else to go.

Before the conflict began, Alla had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She also has thyroid hyperplasia, hepatic disorder and cholelithiasis. The government had provided her with some medicine, which would have been expensive for her to buy without their help. However, after the conflict began, they stopped helping her, leaving her without the medicine she so desperately needed.

Thanks to this treatment I can go on living.

Alla and her husband ended up in Poltava, sleeping at the railway station until they found somewhere else to go. It was once they were in Poltava that Alla read an advertisement about evangelistic programmes being run by GNU’s Dr Eliezer Gonzalez and Dr Philip Rodionoff. She says, 

I first met the evangelists from Australia, as well as a GNU pastor, at the evangelistic programme in 2015. The advertisement read that each visitor would receive a Bible as a gift. I had had a Bible, but it had been left in Lugansk, so I decided to go to the programmes to receive a new one.

The church that was running the programmes gave me food and clothes, as well as assistance in buying essential household appliances and kitchenware. That helped me greatly.

After the meetings, Alla continued to study the Bible. In 2017, Dr Eliezer Gonzalez and Dr Philip Rodionoff returned to Poltava to hold more meetings, and Alla attended those as well. It was after these meetings she decided to be baptised.

While in Ukraine, Eliezer promised Alla he would try and find someone to help with her treatments. Thanks to generous donors, Alla has now started treatment. She says,

I have received help through GNU for my treatment. I am very grateful. It was extremely helpful for me because my entire retirement pension is needed just to pay for food and a place to live. Thanks to this treatment I can go on living. I thank God for bringing Eliezer Gonzalez here, who has been able to get help for me.

– Ella Rodionoff