The other day I got a phone call and someone from one of the places that we have helped Ukrainians. Kasia invited me to go to a “thing” on Monday at 5 pm. I did not know what to say since it was when Mike was in Ukraine on his last trip. But the lady seemed so disappointed and she said, “It is important.” I could tell she was stressed with a “we’ll see” answer so I said, “Yes, we’ll come”.

So we did. It was a big program put on by the city of Otwock and they were rewarding people who have been volunteers for Otwock.

We found a parking spot and went to the big room where there were a lot of people just sitting around. We found a place to sit and waited. Neither Mike nor I felt like we deserved any sort of reward as while we have helped Ukrainians, we knew we didn’t really help A LOT - by that I mean, I did not spend days on end at a place helping them like probably a lot of these people.

However, we were called up front to get a certificate and a metal angel - saying thanks for helping Ukrainians.

Both Mike and I felt like were back in high school or college, waiting for an awards ceremony!

While it was nice - I still do not feel the necessity to be awarded a metal angel. I think it means a lot more to the children and young people than to someone like both of us at the ages of 60 and 65. We simply don’t care.

The photos of people with our quilts or the food and other things we’ve provided means everything to us (and the notes from the Ukrainians mean the most!)

We did see Edek there and I took this photo of that group and marked him so you could see. We went up in groups of 10 or so to get our diplomas (certificates) and trophies (angels).

Here is a close up of the words on the bottom of the angel -

It was very sweet to be recognized, for sure. But for us - not necessary. Not at all. We know that the One who matters sees all, all the time.:)

Afterwards there was food out in the lobby, but we left. We actually had a delivery coming in the evening (for the next load for Ukraine, ironically) and I wasn’t exactly sure when it was coming, but as early as 6 pm.

But I suppose it was good to get out and be recognized by the city of Otwock.

We debated what to do with the angel and the certificate. We decided to take it to the church and put it in the office (probably in the desk or wherever we have other thank you notes or such certificates from other groups we’ve done things for).

And now you know. By the way - we’ve gotten more of these kinds of certificates in our years in Poland than we ever got for anything while in the states. I guess we just never did anything nice while in the US. :) (I write tongue in cheek - this is very much a cultural thing here apparently. Our kids have multiples of them for various things from school, choir, karate, etc.) Maybe everywhere they do it nowadays. I don’t remember getting all that many in our days - at least not from school. Maybe we did. I simply don’t remember.

Anyway…

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey and for reading this far!

Have a great day wherever you are reading!

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