October 2024
Sacramento Ukrainian Family
~ by Renée
Recently, a friend with a house for rent received an inquiry from two Ukrainian couples who had just fled the war in their country. Having newly arrived in the U.S., they were looking for housing in the Sacramento area. When they did find an apartment that fit their multi-family needs, we offered to help them furnish it.
We were fortunate to know a Ukrainian man in our area, and when we reached out to him, he graciously agreed to act as translator in a conference call to discuss their needs. In short, they had found an unfurnished two-bedroom apartment and were sleeping on air mattresses.
Tish and I met in town the next day at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and bought two full dressers and a nightstand. Next, we found some kitchen stuff and a lamp at Goodwill. That night, we told multiple friends about the Ukrainian families and soon located a futon with frame and mattress recently marked for give away. Someone else offered all the excess kitchen stuff they had been accumulating in their house over the years. I had an extra box spring and frame in storage from my folks’ house.
It went on like that over the next two days. By the time of our scheduled delivery, we had a truck, a driver, and a fully-packed trailer with furniture, lamps, bedding, everything needed to stock kitchen cabinets. An enthusiastic crew of five friends served as delivery people—including our Ukrainian translator who wanted to be part of it all.
I think it’s interesting to see how eagerly all the players in this story jumped at the opportunity to participate.Everyone who translated, donated goods, or packed and unpacked furniture felt good doing it.
Spending a little time and energy doing something for someone other than our ourselves can be a welcome relief from self-consumption!
After all the goods were brought into the couples’ new apartment, we gathered around the kitchen table, sitting on the chairs we had just carried in, and one of the young Ukrainian women served us bowls of delicious, home-made borscht! The simplicity of eating food together felt warm and sweet. When I later hugged these women goodbye, I felt a gush of well-wishing for them all, perhaps amplified by the knowledge of the horror that they had so recently managed to escape.
Driving away with the gladness of knowing we had helped to ease another’s burden, we had a rich discussion about how the unique circumstances had allowed us to feel our shared humanity and lend a hand to people we had never met and knew almost nothing about. As said in the song our friend Dillon wrote, “It Shouldn’t Take a Hurricane.” Listen to Dillons song here.
Near the Border: Helping Ukrainian Families in Romania
~ by Erin
Hiking Romania’s gorgeous Via Transilvanica trail through the countryside to Suceava, four of us wandered with nothing more demanding than putting one foot in front of the other. On bumpy dirt roads we passed horses and carts loaded with goods, then larger gasoline-powered transports as we neared the city.
Upon arrival in Suceava, we would shift gears and change our focus.
Our service work began at an orphanage that had been transported—with all the 35 kids and the staff—from Odessa, Ukraine when the war began. After an orientation meeting with the Fight For Freedom director, we played in the yard with the young children, most of whom had some degree of developmental disability or emotional difficulty. The kids reached out for our touch and our attention, sometimes comforted, sometimes frustrated, clearly in so much need of more caring and loving kindness than the spread-thin female staff (called “the mothers”) could reliably deliver.
One day one of “the mothers” (in her mid-fifties like myself) and I played basketball with the children, passing the ball, dribbling, and shooting alongside the kids. Seeing the staff relaxing a bit, having more fun, and including them in the game, I imagined the kids got a taste of teamwork they’d never had before.
Justin asked multiple questions about my prior experience with children and questioned my confidence and certainty about what was best for these kids. It was an eye opener to wonder, for example, What if my perspectives were appropriate in some context, but did not fit here?
Over the next period of time, we wondered about and discussed the potential benefits and downsides of our interactions the kids as well as the staff. While the kids may be lifted by our attention and affection, might they ultimately be even more disappointed by its loss? Might not the staff, whose load was temporarily lessened why our support, feel all the more weight when faced with disappointed children upon our departure? Could we actually “make a difference” in the span of two weeks? Could we even, at least, “do no harm”?
I had lots of opinions about how to interact with these kids, many with unique disabilities. For example, I wondered if maybe our gestures might be the only time in their life that a particular child would receive a certain kind of respect.
Along with donations of art supplies and a lot of diapers to the orphanage, we met with ten Ukrainian families whom we were able to deliver needed items to. Parts of our days were spent accumulating and organizing large stores of flour, sugar, eggs, cooking oil, potatoes, and specific items the families requested, ranging from .07 pencil lead for school to type 2 Diabetes medication.
We all got to enjoy the look of surprise and pleasure on the faces of the people who received something from us that they had asked for, or something that was unexpected.
A small boy and girl in one large family burst into laughter when we pulled out toys and art supplies for them.
These smiles and laughter got into my heart a little more than they might have otherwise, because of the work we’ve done together to slow down and learn to sometimes place “process” over “product.” That is a treasure.