How God redeemed my comfort seeking to provide comfort to a war widow and her orphans, part 2

https://gofund.me/ee16b7fa1

This is a request for both prayer and practical help for a cause that has become dear to me:

In my time being blessed by this ministry I've met many battling with and experiencing freedom from porn addiction etc, and while it's great as a bunch of men to encourage each other and celebrate each other's victories and support each others' journeys towards purity and living sancitified more powerful lives, by the blood of Jesus and our obedience to him, it's important to recognise that porn is NOT a victimless sin, and there are women caught up in the porn industry, most through entrapment, trafficking and or necessity, and I can testify to personal experience of encountering this first hand, through a supreme act of God's redeeming power in my own moment of weakness and loneliness... For the full story, see my blog post below. But for any who would like to help a genuine Ukrainian war refugee mum with two small kids on the verge of homelessness (her husband abducted to provide cannon fodder for the war with Russia), who I myself have been trying to help to the best of my ability for several months now, so that she's not forced to endure what no mother should have to endure to feed and keep a roof over her children, who is part of a community of such affected families/mothers that have fled with no support to Bulgaria, please see the GoFundMe link here and, well... I'll leave you with the verse that God gave me which guided me to get involved.

'Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.'

James 1:27 NLT

Not forgetting 

'If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord— and he will repay you!'

Proverbs 19:17 NLT

'Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. [7] Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. [8] And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. [9] As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” [10] Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. [11] You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

2 Corinthians 9:6-11 NIV

'Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. [16] If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? [17] In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.'

James 2:15-17 NIV

Actually, although anything given to the GoFundMe is much appreciated, it takes several days to withdraw the money and the need is currently urgent - for more details message me, but for speed feel free to use my Paypal account, I'll forward any money donated straight on via Paypal:

https://www.paypal.me/JamieBat68

Can I share any specifics to pray into?

Well, to bring it close to home for many guys here...

There are many guys here who are or were engaged in that battle for purity, the battle against porn/sex addiction, in which we cheer each other on and hold each other accountable etc. and celebrate each others' victories and pray for each other in our battles.

It's great when men can find freedom from and victory in the battle with porn etc, but what about the victims of porn/sex addiction - the women who feel their only way to survive is to participate in the sex/porn trade?!  

Wouldn't real victory in this battle go beyond just us men keeping our noses and our acts clean - and extend to helping the women caught up in what we were caught up in?! Help the women enslaved in this to find freedom too?! (King and Country did a great film about this, sex trafficking - 'Priceless').

Wouldn't that be the heroic thing to do, the Christlike thing to do? Wouldn't that be real redemption for all concerned, not just the men escaping the net?!

That would really be plundering hell and populating heaven!

Well, in a moment of weakness myself earlier this year, I met a Ukrainian woman on a video chat site on a website I shouldn't have been on, this is before I got stuck into the daily prayer gatherings, and was very much stuck in my loneliness. I could see the pain and distress in her eyes of not wanting to be there, yet having no choice as it was the only way to pay her rent and feed her kids, her husband having disappeared to fight the war and the rest of her family having abandoned her long ago too, and she'd fled, pregnant with her 2nd child, to Bulgaria, along with many others. It's typical of many of these sites that the women are the 'merchandise' and the men are exploited for money. It's a brutal part of the world Ukraine. And she's from the part where the bombs/shells are falling daily, the Russian speaking east. I'm glad to say there was enough of Christ in me even in a moment of succumbing to loneliness and temptation to feel concern rather than lust in that moment, and any desire to gratify/comfort myself evaporated out of concern for someone obviously not happy to be in this situation. She later told me she'd prayed to God to change her situation so she didn't have to do this just to feed/house her family and be able to eat herself. I was the answer to her prayer. I wept when I heard that - it broke me that God had used me to answer a desperate mother's prayer, when I was hell bent on sinning, and yet redeemed enough for Christ's compassion in me to override my sinful selfish desires.  

So having reached out to her in concern, she responded in a way that risked this dodgy 'livelihood', and a friendship began that assuaged my loneliness and I helped practically, from a distance, paying her rent for I think 2 months myself, as best as I could so that she didn't have to be on that site, which is what she had prayed for, while hoping to engage organisations that could help, as it was beyond my meagre means to do this long term. Think of Liam Neeson in 'Taken' but not quite as dramatic, but the same idea - rescuing someone from something noone would want their daughter/mother/sister to be in. And she could have been my daughter, I have a daughter, and a father's heart - and this is what kicked in - my fatherly instincts. And I'm a father deprived of a family, and this filled that gap, caring for this refugee family.  

I learned from a website with regular emails about forming and succeeding in relationships, that a man's greatest need in a relationship isn't sex or comfort, it's to be a hero to his wife, his family, to be their provider/protector, their shield against the world enabling the mother to be the mother and within the security provided by the man to provide nurture for both the children, and her husband. This is real manhood. I'm sure many men here would agree there's nothing more fulfilling in life than being just that to one's family - being the hero - and I guess women value nothing more highly than that in a man that he provides that security that enables her to make the house a home and provide the nurture that's in their nature to provide to their families. Well I certainly found if fulfilling to do that for this family - the mum's name is Natalia, she's only 28 - and she thanked me for enabling her to be a mother to her children again, to have time to take them to the park, let them play outdoors whereas before she'd had to spend long hours on her phone, watching men doing.... your guess is as good as mine. She did have to alert her 'employers' (some outfit of perverts based in the Netherlands) on one occasion as she witnessed a child being abused... terrible stuff, but this is what goes on in that territory way off the reservation where 'out there be dragons'... well, the demonic and the realm of darkness.

My hope and prayer is that, like me, there will be those here that are happy to not just be set free from porn, which is the tip of a pretty evil foul iceberg of the sex trade/trafficking etc, but to want to do something about that iceberg, and help the women affected - and find the fulfilment in being the heros they were born and programmed and destined to be as men, and Christian men, saved themselves by that ultimate man, Jesus the saviour who laid his life down to rescue us. (I do know a charity here in Derby that works with street women and the like, prostitutes basically.)  

One generous friend of mine helped out for one month, but could go no further. I approached an organisation, Flame International, I'd been training with in the hope of going to Ukraine, mostly ex army officers/chaplains who take trauma counselling and the gospel into post conflict zones, and I'd hoped to to on one of their trips to the Ukraine this summer, but my health let me down, I never finished the course and missed out on the trip, maybe I'll make it in the future. Having failed selection for the Royal Marines as a younger man, yet being from a military family, this felt like my chance to finally 'serve' in some meaningful capacity... and yet God brought 'the Ukraine' to me, via the internet... God works in mysterious ways hey... 

(Flame couldn't help, they're a charity without the capacity to go outside of their remit, which is what their supporters are supporting...)