FIMA, BELARUSSome blocks away is Fima, a modest and undemanding woman.
She almost never complains, speaks little about her diseases which she has plenty of, I am sure – her legs hurt, blood pressure jumps, not long ago she fell down and hurt her arm and head just inside her traditionally tiny flat. In winter she is afraid to go out and waits for some good soul to bring her food or medicine. And if, as we know, “Hesed” cuts their patronage nurses?
The same situation is further down the street with Yelena –


I even feel how older and weaker this woman has become since 2005 when I saw her for the first time.
And one more, Reiza, Yelena’s neighbor and friend. It’s without exaggeration that money from America returned Reiza to life.
Her only close relative, her brother, died in 2005 and she didn’t want to live either. With the given support she put the monument on his grave, used the help of a psychiatrist and other doctors, though of course, it’s easier to gain a disease than to cure it away.
I remember once when I came to visit her, she was crying of despair: the local authorities ordered her to change the old gas stove threatening to cut off gas supply, and she didn’t have money for such a huge purchase and how she sighed, “There is God somewhere and he comes in time…” Your aid, dear Mitzvah Project supporters, comes in time to save people’s live

Going to visit Rozalia, I am always afraid that I won’t meet her – she spends more time in hospitals than at home; her home is a room in a hostel, kitchen for a dozen other families and a guard at the entrance. Her husband, who was also a disabled, person died last year and again the support from America came in time.
That was the last of my (and yours) recent voyage. I wrote the word “last” and thought to myself, “Hope it won’t be last”… Even being just an intermediary, I feel how important it is to learn “it’s more blessed to give…” I’d love to pass you all, whom neither I, nor my Belarusian friends know, their greatest words of gratitude. You do the right thing – you save somebody’s life.
~Ludmila