Ukrainian Refugee Assistance in Milan

Our church, Chiesa Riformata Filadelfia in Milan, Italy is raising funds to help brothers and sisters in Christ from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Kharkiv, Ukraine (https://presbyteriankharkiv.wixsite.com/epckh) who are fleeing west for safety. As many of you have seen on TV, the city of Kharkiv has suffered from heavy bombing and is now occupied by the Russians. As of today, 14 members of this church (adults and children) have left Ukraine and sought refuge in neighboring countries. However, refugee camps are beyond full and there aren't enough basic services available. These saints would like to relocate and find housing near our church so that they can worship with us and also so they can get some help navigating life in Italy. They don't speak Italian and so they will need significant help settling in.

 

As you can imagine, they have been through a lot of physical and emotional trauma. We aim to help them by providing some of their basic needs. They need housing, household items, clothing, toiletries, diapers, groceries, etc. They've left their homes with little to nothing. Most only left with a few changes of clothes. Your donation will provide these brothers and sisters with some of these basic comforts that we all take for granted. Whatever you donate will be distributed by the council of Chiesa Riformata Filadelfia to these families. Below are some pictures of some of these brothers and sisters and pictures they took of their neighborhood as they were leaving. One member of the group, a father of three named Vova, has written his account of what they experienced which you can read below.

 "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me." - Matthew 25:35

Vova's story:

 

"On Monday, February 21, the situation became agonizing. Everyone around was talking about war, which we didn't want to believe. On Monday, Putin recognized the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and received permission to send Russian troops to our country.

 

In the church we discussed our plans in the event of an invasion, namely what we should do with the congregation. We made the decision to evacuate to Western Ukraine to continue living and following Christ.

 

On Tuesday evening I packed, prepared the car, our documents, and participated in the meeting of the church on the evacuation procedure. My wife collected supplies and medicine in case of an emergency.

 

On Wednesday the pastor and I visited church members, We discussed the future of our country and we all went to sleep with troubling thoughts. Who would have thought that we would wake up the next day, 02.24.2022 at 5 am due to bombing?

 

My wife ran to the room to retrieve the children and grandmother, but I grabbed the blankets and headed for the corridor. Everything was shaking - the windows, the whole building, the children were crying, we were all afraid. We couldn't believe the war had begun.

 

After the bombing stopped, we collected other things. The elevator was no longer working, so I had to bring all the bags by myself from the 11th floor and load them into the car. My wife dressed the children. Grandma refused to come with us, even though we tried to persuade her.

 

One kilometer from our house there was a military unit, and we saw it burn from the window of our apartment. After an hour and a half of preparations, we got into the car, me, my wife Dasha, Artyom 5 years, Misha 3 years and Nina 1 year, went to the previously planned collection point on the Kyiv highway to travel with a column of church cars, along the way we picked up 4 other people. There were 9 people, 5 adults and 4 children, in our little five-seater car. On the way, we went through huge traffic jams at gas stations and grocery stores, no one believed there was going to be a full-scale war. Massive traffic jams we have never seen before. After 3 hours we reached the collection point, where we reorganized the passengers in our cars.

 

Our journey lasted 64 hours with stops. My brother Vasya, the head of the column, drove non-stop for 35 hours. After driving 13 hours we were only 1/3 of the way to our destination. Thank God for the sister church of Kropyvnytskyi (300 km from Kharkiv) was waiting for us. This church once fled the Donbas in 2014 and settled in Kropyvnytskyi. They made beds and hot meals for us. How happy we were with such a warm welcome, then I realized that to learn to accept refugees, you yourself have to live a refugee experience. God was very good to us. On the way, our cars broke down, but the next day we managed to fix them. The pastor helped us.

 

After 13 hours of travel, by the grace of God, we traveled 700 km and reached Ivano-Frankivsk. It was Saturday evening. In Ukraine, a curfew has already been introduced from 10 pm to 7 am, at that time it was forbidden to be on the street. Along the way we had to deal with a fuel crisis, endless traffic jams, car breakdowns, children and adults vomiting several times. It was a very difficult and stressful journey. I had to queue at petrol stations which didn't sell more than 20 liters of petrol. It was almost impossible to find petrol. We couldn’t get to Lviv but decided to go to Ivano-Frankivsk instead. The Reformed Church accepted us for one night. We spent the night right there and on Sunday we were there for a service where God fed our tormented souls.

 

The church was very kind to us and offered their help. After the service, we moved to an apartment where we were allowed to live for free while the owners were abroad. During all this time, we received the sad news that the bombing in Kharkiv had not stopped. Places dear to us were destroyed. A missile hit our house and started a fire. The street where we lived was bombed, the park where our children played was destroyed. In the center of the city where our church was located, the square on which our city council was located was hit by an air attack. Another missile landed near our parents' house.

 

The residential areas of Kharkiv, where relatives and loved ones lived, were subject to bombing and massive destruction. The further we were from home, the more news we received of the destruction of our dear city. When we left the house, we hoped to return, but the more time passed, the more this thought seemed impossible.

 

In the apartment, we were finally able to wash and sleep, but the anxiety did not leave us. It was quiet in Ivano-Frankivsk, occasionally aerial sirens were activated. There was a curfew in the city and the shelves of the shops were half empty. Patrols roamed the city and half the shops were closed. Our country is at war! After we realized that even in western Ukraine it was not safe and in the light of recent events, it was clear that Russia was not going to stop. Perhaps there would be more Russian troops coming, which would mean the war would spread to western Ukraine, and maybe we would not be able to cross the border.

 

We decided to leave Ukraine via Hungary. When we arrived in Hungary, we couldn't even imagine the difficulties we would face. We arrived at the border at 4 pm and expected to be able to cross it quickly just as our friends told us who had crossed the border a couple of days earlier. At the border, I lost a wheel and had to put a spare one on. They kept us there until 2 am, took our documents, and forced us to apply for temporary protection status. We waited until 9 pm at the border. At the immigration center we entered a small room, they did a PCR test, and it was necessary to draw up documents which took all night and into the morning. I can't convey what an unpleasant and inhuman atmosphere it was. The children were very tired, hysterical, and crying. They fell asleep on uncomfortable chairs. After receiving the documents, we decided to leave immediately. Driving through the night was very difficult.

 

In Budapest, we were welcomed by a family of missionaries Dennis and Louise, who gave us the opportunity to sleep, wash, fed us, and showed us hospitality Dennis paid for my car wash, wheel repair, and freeways, and even gave us sandwiches. At their home, we met some missionaries who asked us to record our prayers for Ukraine on a dictaphone, and then they filmed them. While we were in Budapest, we learned that our sisters who are in Poland were forced to look for accommodation on their own, as their hotel stay was about to end, it turned out that it is very difficult to find accommodation in Warsaw and we realized we had nowhere to go. We started actively looking for housing. I wrote to various activists to find out all the options. My wife Dasha saw that our sister Alena Fedchishina offered to help with accommodation in Italy and wrote to her! It was a joy when she told us that she found us apartments and that they are waiting for us there, and not only for us but also for sisters with children and grandmothers who were looking for a home themselves. Living with relatives at this moment is a real gift! Upon hearing this news we traveled to Italy, but along the way, we realized that they could not host us in apartments without documenting us, the procedure for which is not clear.

 

But Alena immediately found a place where we would be welcomed, the hostess of the Brescia hotel welcomed us warmly - upon our arrival they turned on the heating in the room, made sandwiches, and prepared a bed for sleeping and towels - after 11 hours on the road, a broken wheel, confusing things on the highway, checking documents with the Slovenian police. We were finally able to rest - we were overwhelmed with joy. After two nights in a room, we had to move to the place they found us until we could rent apartments in Milan and live there permanently. And here we are again in the car, a family without home, church, work, family, city, and countryside. In a place unknown to us, a culture foreign to us, not knowing the language. But thank God that good people exist and accept us.

 

We look forward to meeting them and the Church of Milan, which prays for us and helps us to settle in a new place. We need your prayers, we need basic necessities, we need help with paperwork, language learning, work, and assimilation. It is bitter to realize that the enemy has taken and destroyed what is so dear to us. Now we are refugees and immigrants. But God has not abandoned us and He will not leave us either. Today I learned that new cities have already been bombed and the war has spread to most of Ukraine. The decision to leave was the right one. Thank God for his love and care."