We were on our way to Kyiv. It had been a jolly enough journey so far, as we laughingly challenged EMF's director, my husband Andrew Birch, to use the black plastic gloves that came with the beefburger in the service station café, and then got back into the red minivan to listen to Volodia Kostyshyn interpreting our driver's ( Pastor of Kremenets Baptist Church, Viktor Puhach) quips, in between episodes of Volodia's very own 'History of Ukraine'. Martin and Andrew discussed the structure of a number of Bible books. I fell asleep while they enthused about how Lamentations is so perfectly organised. It was a long journey from Ternopil to Kyiv, but not particularly unusual. A busy road, with all kinds of drivers. Not enough of interest to keep me awake for long, for we had slept too little for days. We had only an hour or so before we were to reach the town of Irpin, just next to Kyiv.

Then we saw a UK-reg. car beside us, in the inside lane (Viktor didn't go in much for inside lanes himself!). Seeing that registration seemed strange, for we had not met a single non-Ukrainian person, much less a vehicle, since we said thanks and good-bye to the kind Polish team who had brought us over the border from Ukraine. The folk we had met in Ukraine until then remarked on how brave we were, saying that noone was daring to enter the country; they asked us if we had not felt scared about our trip. We answered that if they could live there all the time and trust in the Lord, then we might perhaps learn to be there for eight days and trust the Lord. But, back to the car ... this must be a fellow country-person, we assumed, going boldly into a country at war to seek adventure. Not so, apparently. 'They are taking that car to the front .... probably to transport weapons or to be used as an ambulance', Volodia informed us. It was a sudden reminder (we had had a few of these already) that we were not in a 'normal' country.

That was the first rude awakening on this journey, for very soon after that Volodia pointed to a large logistics depot, its metal frontage twisted (see picture towards the end of the article), its structure unrecognizable. This was a route that the Russians had shelled and fired on for days at the beginning of the war. As we travelled onwards, we caught sight of home after (usually very humble) home, roofless or wall-less or simply battered to bits.

We were indeed in an area that had suffered greatly, and, in spite of much clearing-up and rebuilding, the marks of last year's suffering remain. It was here that our friend Viktor turned left, in Kalynivka, near the town of Makariv; he took us up some very minor roads, but the main highway we had turned off ran parallel to the final lane we reached, and that main road was still visible, the traffic audible. A lad in his late teens was standing beside an open gate next to a very simple dwelling, and Volodia explained that this boy and his family would tell us a story that we would find more than interesting.

As I watched our video footage of the three people (Iliya, the boy, his sister Masha, and his mum Olena) who invited us to sit in one of the very few rooms in their home, I found it even more moving than I did at the time. 'Were they sure they wanted to talk about something that was obviously traumatic?' we inquired. Olena thought for a few seconds, but then replied: 'Yes. The world needs to know'. She began her account, but, interrupted by a phone call, allowed Iliya to continue.

Iliya, we discovered, was a footballer. He'd won medals, and they hung on the green-painted wall behind the computer with its cross-themed screensaver and flashing keyboard. The family (father Misha and sister Anya were missing that afternoon) sat in a little semi-circle, with Volodia amongst them as interpreter. As we let them tell their story, it was hard not to feel that we were listening to a report that should really be passed on to a war crimes investigator. But their account is only one of many that could be told by thousands across Ukraine. And even by many of their immediate neighbours.

The story began, as you would imagine, on 24th February 2022. The family were woken by explosions, and were frightened, but never imagined that any fighting would get close to their village, so far away from strategic points or military installations. Mum Olena went off to her work , situated in premises in Kyiv that supplied heating to the lofty blocks of flats in the capital.

The rest of the family did not see her again for nearly two months.

Olena was obliged to stay at her post night and day, sleeping when she could at work, for her co-workers could not get in to relieve her; the mayor told them they were key workers, and pleaded with them to stay. (She came back into the conversation at this point, and went to fetch a small package wrapped in a cloth, opening it up to reveal an award for heroic service from the mayor of Kyiv).

Back at home, the children (all in their late teens or very early twenties) were terrified, listening to constant and ever-closer shelling and gun-fire, waking up to witness fighter jets in battle mode above them, and helicopters close to the roofs of the houses in their little street. Olena rang the children every day, and between phrase and phrase heard the thunderous 'Buh-Boom, Buh-Boom'. She prayed. She could do no more for her children, or for her husband, who was very ill and lying in the bed next to the computer, in the corner of the small room. Iliya stayed with his father when they should have sought refuge. Misha, his dad, who has since recovered and is back to work, was just not able to walk to safety anywhere. Asked how she felt when this was happening (Martin asked this question. I admit I was too scared to do so), Masha's eyes became teary. 'We were frightened to death'. The Russians were very close by now. The noise was deafening. At some stage (I am not sure if before the family fled, or later)a bullet came through the window, passed through the door of the fridge, and went right through to the back (See cover photo) The family is still using this old fridge as a cupboard. The hole made in the net curtain on the bullet's dreadful journey remains there in ragged evidence, and the other holes we saw also testified that this story is all-too terribly true.

'There are other believers in the street', Masha, a student in Kyiv, explained. 'We met together, worshipped God, prayed and sang. That drowned out the noise outside, and the noise inside our heads ... God was calming all our fears'.

The electric supply went completely on 3rd/4th March, and although the family had some water and food, they and other neighbours packed up during the night of the 8th March when they saw that other cars were moving out of the area, on the highway. At noon on 9th March they took a minibus and 2 cars, with the neighbours, their neighbours' children and some belongings, and set out westwards along the highway (it had been too dangerous to dream of doing so before this, but the Russians had granted a few hours of safe passage). This was no easy exit, though. Battle was going on near the road, and the depot we had seen in ruins had been shelled just before they travelled past it. The smoke was so dense they could barely see where they were going. They passed burnt-out cars and shelled-out homes,(and could only tremble as they imagined what may have occurred to the occupants), and eventually reached the first Ukrainian military checkpoint. They felt safe at last.

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They got out of their home not a day too soon, explained mum Olena. The following morning, she had heard, Russian troops had gone 'around the houses looking for young ladies'. She shuddered a little. The family found out later about a family that was shot and killed just a few kilometres away, and about the thirty men in a neighbouring village who were rounded up and shot.

Over the following days the family became even-more-separated. Dad Misha was so poorly that relatives took him in, in Uzhohorod, a town near the Hungarian border. The three siblings stopped over in another western town, but had nowhere to stay for a longer period of time. That was when their pastor found refuge for them in Pastor Viktor's church in Kremenets.

The church was already full to the brim. The small kitchen in the building (like others we saw) was manufacturing pan after pan of soup. But Viktor told our new friends to come, and they went. Iliya was converted there, was baptised, and became a member of the church. Masha fell in love there. Both young people obviously feel that they owe the church and its volunteers an immense debt. Eventually their father moved there too, bringing other refugees with him, until the family was reunited in the family home, and Olena could leave her post in Kyiv. The students in the family went back to in-person studies at university in Kyiv. But the home in Kalynivka needs so much doing to it, though it was not plundered by Russian troops, unlike many houses in the area. The cottage next door that had belonged to their grandmother is now no more. But at least the local council has promised to help them rebuild.

The family know that the Kremenets church was able to help them and so many others thanks to support from EMF funds, and they wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you. And thank you again. To us and all donors. ' We know you did it because you are children of the same God', said Olena. 'You know, we would do the same for you'. We didn't doubt that they would.

We couldn't spend long looking at the missile cases found in the garden. We were due to meet another pastor at the bridge in Irpin. But that encounter will be reported on in another story. Another tragic, yet hope-filled story.

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