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The goodwill that Hosting Ukrainian Families had been spreading throughout 2022 was amplified throughout the holiday season and has continued into the new year.
Three Ukrainian families – the Odemchuks, Strezhyborodas and Tysiachnas – sought refuge in the Lexington community after their home country was attacked by Russia.
In a recent letter composed by the three families, they wrote, “On February 24, 2022, a war broke out in our country. Thousands of people have lost their homes. They had nowhere to go. Most nations have opened their hearts to us including the United States. Here, millions of people extended their help to us – they gave us food, warm clothes, and a roof over a head. We felt it was like home and we felt at home.”
However, the war and their home country are never far from their thoughts.
Svitlana and Mykolaiv Tysiachna, the parents of the third family to arrive in Lexington, are even dealing with “what might have been” after they received news from their hometown, Brovary, a suburb outside of Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv. On Wednesday, Jan. 18, a helicopter carrying Ukrainian senior law enforcement crashed into a kindergarten building. The couple recognized the building as the very same school they once took their youngest son.
At a Hosting Ukrainian Families Zoom meeting on Jan. 19, Victor Sokolyuk – HUF’s documentation wiz - recounted a text message from Svitlana Tysiachna expressing gratitude for Hosting Ukrainian Families as it’s very likely her son would have been inside of that kindergarten building if HUF hadn’t brought them to America one month prior to the incident.
“[She said], if it hadn’t been for [Hosting Ukrainian Families] she would be burying her children with other people,” Sokolyuk said.
The Tysiachnas’ primary sponsor, Philip Clayton, had a similar conversation with Svitlana on Jan. 18.
“We did everything we could to calm her down and assure her that all these people in Lexington will be there for her,” said Clayton. “I invited her and her family anytime they want to come out to our farmhouse on House Mountain, sit on the porch and look down the Shenandoah Valley, and enjoy the peace and tranquility,” he said. “We can’t tell them how good this is for the soul.”
In an interview, interpreted by Kristina Lozinskaya – a Ukrainian native and recent graduate of Washington and Lee - Svitlana Tysiachna remembered first communicating with Clayton through a Ukrainian website, “Shelter4UA,” which connects Ukrainian citizens to people willing to host refugees in their community for the duration of the war in Ukraine.
Tysiachna had reached out to about 20 prospective hosts and among five of those who responded, Clayton stood out the most. Tysiachna noted that what made Clayton different from the others was that he was very responsive and immediately started making arrangements for the family’s journey to the United States.
‘No One Knew What Would Happen Next’
For the third Ukrainian family that now calls Lexington home since the war started, the Tysiachnas, their journey was fraught with danger from the very beginning.
“It would be an understatement to describe it as hell on earth,” Svitlana Tysiachna said in last month’s interview.
At 5 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2022, the Tysiachnas awoke to a loud, nearby explosion. With the crash of a second explosion, their hearts sunk with the realization that the war had officially begun.
For a moment, the couple was paralyzed by shock, Mykolaiv Tysiachna said. Before too long, Svitlana’s motherly instinct sprang into action, and she began gathering important belongings they would need while on the road.
In a letter composed by Svitlana before her arrival to Lexington, she said, “At that moment, the ground fell from under my feet. I looked at my children who were sleeping in their beds and did not know how to explain to them that we need to leave our apartment, our city, and save our lives. I was able to gather my strength and after 30 minutes, we were with our things on the street. We took the most important things [and] documents and got into the car.”
Mykolaiv had raced to a nearby gas station to fuel their vehicle before setting out on their long journey. Later, the couple said they felt lucky they had gone to the gas station when they had, because as time passed, gas stations became parking lots with lines stretching for miles.
Only 20 minutes after leaving their apartment, Svitlana and Mykolaiv were receiving pictures and videos from neighbors of fire and chaos surrounding their home. As they traveled, everyone in the car was silent.
In her letter, Svitlana wrote, “Our hands were shaking; we couldn’t even talk to each other. I think we were in shock then. Driving through the city at dusk, we saw a lot of people. One ran to the grocery store, another withdrew money from an ATM, and yet another left the city just like us. There were long lines. There was panic. No one knew what would happen next.”
Moving out of the city and toward Mykolaiv’s parents’ house, the Tysiachnas ran into two major traffic jams. A route that would have normally taken an hour and a half was now taking 12 hours.
“While we were stuck in a traffic jam, fighter jets and helicopters flew over us, sirens sounded, tanks drove past us, and there was even nowhere to hide,” Svitlana Tysiachna wrote. “Finally, we approached to the exit from Kyiv and explosions began here. As it turned out, we were passing near the city of Gostomel, where active hostilities had just begun. Bombs simply began to be dropped on the city from the sky.”
As the day turned into night, the Tysiachnas’ journey didn’t get any easier. The couple and their three children were without food or water and their car was slowly running out of fuel. With many miles between the family and the nearest gas station, traffic again was impeded by a guardrail blocking the road. As fighter jets and helicopters tore through the night sky, Svitlana understood that the only way to beat this traffic and carry on towards safety would be to disassemble the guardrail.
“We looked into the sky and did not understand whose aircraft it was. It seemed to us that a bomb was about to be dropped on us,” Svitlana remembered in her letter. “… In order to leave, we needed to disassemble the guardrail. I looked at the frightened eyes of my children and understood that I needed to somehow get out of this difficult situation.”
Rallying a team of fellow drivers, Tysiachna was able to disassemble the guardrail within the hour. Afterwards, she began to direct the flow of traffic, untangling the cluster of cars.
Tysiachna can’t remember where her strength came from in that moment. She later told The News-Gazette, “[I] was almost numb, but [I] knew my kids were in the car, so [I] knew we needed to get out. [I] also realized there were so many people in traffic that if a bomb were to drop, that would have been a tremendous amount of lives lost.”
The next day, Tysiachna read that very bridge had been destroyed by explosions five hours after they had moved through traffic.
“If we had lingered and stayed on the highway, we would have met with Russian soldiers who were shooting cars with civilians on the same road where we were,” she wrote in her letter.
Exhausted from fear and hours of traveling, the family made it to Mykolaiv’s family’s house not too far from the border with Poland.
It was becoming evident that the war was not going to subside and that conditions in Ukraine would only worsen. The couple decided to keep traveling toward safety in Poland. It took the family two days to get through passport control at the Polish border. To keep the children occupied and their minds away from the war, the Tysiachnas played in nearby woods despite the freezing temperatures.
At last, the family made it across the border and onto Polish land where they remained for approximately eight months.
“For about a month [after arriving to Poland], we were in a deep depression, we did not understand what to do next, it seemed that life had stopped,” Svitlana wrote in her letter. “Two weeks later, the first gray hair appeared on my hair, these are all the consequences of stress. The children began to feel a sense of aggression, they asked to go home and were constantly crying. It was very difficult to explain to them why we couldn’t go home.”
Eventually, the three children understood they would not be returning to Brovary, Tysiachna told the Gazette.
On Nov. 15, a Russian missile landed in Poland, killing two civilians, read various news headlines that day. It was at this moment the Tysiachnas realized that their safe haven in Poland was no longer safe.
Leaving behind grandparents, parents, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and friends, the Tysiachna family left for the United States.
Celebrating Christmas In Rockbridge To prepare for their arrival on Dec. 6, Philip Clayton organized the House Mountain Circle for Ukrainians.
Through the group’s Go-FundMe page and plentiful donations, Clayton was able to secure a home on Main Street, a car, and other necessities to help the Tysiachnas acclimate to their new lives. Eventually integrating with Jerry Nay’s and Alexandra Brown’s group, Hosting Ukrainian Families, Clayton welcomed the Tysiachnas with profuse support of the community.
“Everything is great. The people are welcoming and helpful, especially because everyone is helping in mass. It seems like everybody is helping [us] adapt,” Svitlana told The News- Gazette.
With the family arriving just in time for the holidays, they were introduced to the seasonal -and year-around - wonders of Lexington and Rockbridge County by Clayton and his wife, Ava. The family marveled at all the Christmas lights downtown. They enjoyed Mexican cuisine for the first time at Don Tequila, and after spending the whole day on Clayton’s House Mountain farm, the Tysiachnas enjoyed a sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains. “It was really great. It was very soulful company,” Svitlana said.
The Tysiachnas celebrated Christmas with the Odemchuks and Strezhyborodas, along with the Hosting Ukrainian Families community.
To help deliver the holiday spirit, Patrick Rhamey formed a temporary HUF committee to collect Christmas decorations and presents for the children.
“[I formed a temporary committee] with the goal of helping out with decorations and making sure they had some, helping them get set up, as well as getting gifts for the kids,” Rhamey told The News-Gazette.
Hosting Ukrainian Families and other community members donated everything from Christmas trees and ornaments to wreaths and stockings, Rhamey said. The biggest initiative of the committee was coordinating gifts for eight children between the three families.
“We solicited wish lists from each of the kids to find out what they wanted for Christmas. Between us and the community, not just the people who have been involved with HUF, we put up the Christmas wish lists and had people sign up for things. All of those gifts, I think about three per kid, [were] donated,” Rhamey commented. On Dec. 10, HUF visited the families’ houses to deliver presents and decorate.
Since the holidays, the Tysiachnas have begun to settle into a routine in Lexington. The three children began school with the start of the new semester and Mykolaiv has found work, despite challenges of the language barrier. While none of them are forgetting the horrors of war they’ve witnessed, they’re finding themselves becoming distracted, Svitlana said.
The Tysiachnas have also enjoyed acquainting themselves with the Odemchuks and Strezhyborodas. The children are relatively close in age and are able to support each other as friends in school.
“It’s comforting for [me] as a mother to see the kids being friends with each other, because it helps with their adaptation to the area,” Syitlana said.
The families live on neighboring streets and like to frequent the playground as a group, she said with a smile.
In a letter to the Hosting Ukrainian Families community, the three families wrote, “Your help is precious. We are grateful to you for giving our people the opportunity to smile and feel safe again. Everyone here has treated us so kindly. During the first few weeks, tears of joy welled up in our eyes, everything was so soulful, so sincere.”
Community Dinner In Works
Moving forward into the new year, the Hosting Ukrainian Families team is optimistic.
“We are doing extremely well, and we have exceeded all of our goals to date,” HUF leader Jerry Nay told The News-Gazette.
At their Jan. 19 Zoom meeting, the group reported that the adult members of the Odemchuks and Strezhyborodas have stable jobs and will be on track for self-sufficiency within the coming months.
HUF member Matt Fogo said, “I think it’s incredible for families that come from a war-torn country to get up to speed within just a few months. That’s pretty impactful, but that’s a testament to this entire team.”
The Hosting Ukrainian Families team is composed of 15 different committees with over 50 volunteers.
“Many of these people have put in hours and hours of very loving and caring work to help the Ukrainians,” Nay commented. “Aside from committee members, [we] have gotten tremendous support from community members of the Rockbridge area.”
Although HUF has received generous support, there is a perpetual need for financial and in-kind donations. The organization will begin a major fundraising campaign that will include a large community dinner event to introduce the Ukrainians to the broader Rockbridge community. These efforts will begin soon with a tentative dinner event date on April 15.
Hosting Ukrainian Families has also started weekly office hours from 2 to 6 p.m. in the top floor of the Grace Episcopal perish house at 121 W. Washington St., Lexington. During off-hours, community members can still reach the organization by phone at (540) 463-4981, ext. 2107, or email at hostingukrainianfamilies@ gmail.com.
Nay also encourages those with continuing interest in supporting HUF to visit the website at hostingukrainiafamilies. org.
