Evacuation

Home. Three cozy letters standing close together, yet what a vast universe of meaning unfolds behind them. An infinite need—home! When we dare imagine ourselves happy, we often picture it happening in the welcoming atmosphere of home. It's impossible to strike home from this equation. In antiquity, the Greeks used the word "oikos" when speaking of family, family property, and of course, the home itself. Everything is interwoven with it. The prodigal son dreamed of breaking free from foreign lands and returning to his father's nest—his wishes came true! Instead of a customary interjection, he joyfully exhaled at the threshold: "Home!" Man's attraction to his native dwelling is easy to explain—it is home! No more desirable protection exists than the walls of home, which is why the English saying has always rung true: "My home is my castle."

But is there anything more terrible than to wake and discover that war has reached for the most sacred thing a person possesses—his life? Home will not save you. How merciless are these currents of paralyzing fear in those first moments of waking. Unimaginable horror and numbness hold the mind back from understanding what's happening. You've been caught off guard. I fear to imagine what helplessness my family would have felt, waking on February 24th in our own home, had we not been preparing these last months for possible disaster...

"Valik," my wife startled, "what is that?"

"Sounds like explosions!"

The alarm rumble became clearer and louder. Distant flashes hurried toward us, bright flares marking themselves in the morning twilight. The monstrous face of war was laying bare before everyone.

I reached for my phone. It wasn't even five o'clock. Lyuba wasn't rushing to wake the children—she didn't want to frighten them. The dog Sheri whimpered anxiously. My fingers quickly dialed Leonid Matseyko's number. Leonid—the first vice-rector of THI and for the last five years had handled all administrative matters.

"It's started!" I said. "We go by plan!"

"It's started!" came the reply.

Sometimes words are enough to describe the situation. Details will become clear later. The main thing is to convey: it's started, we act according to the approved plan. Leonid's responsibility—to reach the people from the administrative department. I began notifying my brothers; one lived nearby, I called my parents.

"It's started!"

The veil of darkness tore, lights came on in houses. Through the sleepy city rushed: "It's started!", and with military precision each person understood the meaning of the tragic events.

"Stas, it's started!" I breathed into my mobile, reaching my younger brother.

Now for Stas too (and he was also the youth pastor of our church) the evacuation plan points he was responsible for came alive. I was confident he would manage the logistics and transport. I heard my wife speaking in a demanding tone to her sister on the phone: "Marina, get out!" Kakhovka was an hour's drive from our city. Marina needed to leave her home and join us to evacuate together—that was our arrangement.

"Hurry, Marina!" Lyuba insisted, worrying about her sister.

I wanted to learn more about what was happening. I found in my contacts the number of one of the pastors from the territory bordering Crimea. Alexander Kobzar—a graduate of our institute. For several years he had been serving in Chaplynka.

"Valentin, I've already evacuated. I got out as I am. With nothing—like a burning coal from the fire. They called me at four in the morning and said: 'You have no more than half an hour, the Russians crossed the border.'"

My call to Kakhovka to classmate Zhenya Bondarenko was also important. Zhenya and I had been friends for a good quarter century. I knew he was always in contact with the military.

"They've entered Chaplynka, Valentin," he confirmed the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a sad voice.

"Hold on, friend!"

I hung up. Outside the window, the dull light of dawn was breaking. In such moments you're afraid to imagine that right now this virgin morning is being torn not by the rays of the rising sun, but by the flashes of explosions. And the calls I'd made, the organization of evacuation gatherings—everything spoke to it: the coming day would be heavy. The children had already woken. Carefully hiding their fear, my son and daughter kept their composure—helping their mother, calling people in between. I embraced my wife warmly.

"Lyubash, prepare breakfast," I remembered the sorrow in my friend's voice from Kakhovka. "I don't know when I'll be able to have breakfast in our house again."

After a while, the cozy kitchen smelled familiar of fried eggs with sausages and coffee. Everything hastily. Quickly. Cooking interspersed with calls to colleagues and gathering remnants of things. No pauses. Organization. Time cannot be tied down. Cannot be slowed. The clock shows 06:30. The family hurried to gather around the table. Today breakfast came early. I noticed on the tablecloth the forks and knives my wife had prepared. Against the background of hurried packing and looming war, everything was so achingly touching to the heart. Savoring this dear comfort, it was important to calmly nourish ourselves with food before the enormous tasks ahead.

The gathering was set for eleven in the morning near the Church of Christ the Savior. Stas, Leonid, and I bore the main responsibility. Later my brother Sasha joined us. Leonid handled institute documentation. It was necessary to destroy student personal files, as we had students not only from Ukraine. This could become a threat to their safety in the countries where they served. We decided to take the graduates' diplomas with us. Delaying departure was dangerous. The enemy was approaching. At eight in the morning came an alarm signal from Kakhovka. My wife's sister was calling.

"Lyuba, I can't do anything," Marina reported sorrowfully. "Heavy equipment is already on the North Crimean Canal's main structure, BTRs and tanks are driving down my street, I see the letters V and Z on them. Lyuba, do you know what these signs mean?"

No one knew then what those signs meant. And no matter how their meaning was later interpreted, they would remain forever in the memory of every Ukrainian as symbols of the horror of Russia's treacherous invasion.

Marina couldn't leave Kakhovka. She decided to stay to support a close friend and her elderly mother. This was an unexpected turn for us. It's hard to imagine the sisters' feelings. War doesn't care about you—it bursts in, recuts your plans. Cuts to the quick. Feels its superiority. All the stronger the challenge for us to act against it: evacuation, plan—into action, immediately!

Hardly had reason escaped the grip of anxious news when a phone call struck us with a new wave of events.

"Valentin," my brother Stas was on the line, not hiding his worry, "the drivers are refusing to take us out of Kherson!"

"What?!"

Before my eyes flashed an important item from the evacuation protocol: the agreement with minibus drivers, their names, phone numbers.

"They're scared for their families. While they're away, anything could happen in the city."

"Stas, let's offer them to take their families with them, let them evacuate together with us!"

"Okay!"

The long minutes of negotiations drag painfully. Suddenly people changed their poles. And it's understandable why. It's one thing to make a commitment in peacetime, another—the reality of war invading the city and threatening every resident. Everyone is frightened. No one knows what to do or what step to take.

We couldn't convince the drivers. I could feel with my skin how the air was tightening around us. It took considerable effort to break through its density. If minor news brings you to a standstill, what can you say about constantly changing events. In such moments it's easy to become vulnerable. To give up. We must act! "Well, we need our own bus for evacuation!" I decided.

The used car market looked lively. By nine in the morning, people were already hurriedly buying "busies," spending their last savings to leave the city. From time to time, distant explosions echoed. However, the car dealer looked calm against all the alarm signals. He seemed unafraid of what was happening around him.

"Whether war starts or not," he said indifferently, offering us coffee, "we need to do business."

His answer surprised us. It was so different from the thousands of civilians who, like us, were hurrying to evacuate.

We spotted a white Mercedes Sprinter minibus. Its cabin held from 15 to 19 seats. That would really help us! No need to wonder why it hadn't been bought yet: the bus stood on flat tires and started only sometimes. We agreed on the price quickly. The problem was registration: neither police nor the organizations dealing with document re-registration remained in the city by that time. The seller gave us the technical passport and a receipt that the bus wasn't stolen but purchased for THI's needs. I never imagined such a thing would be possible. We thanked the Lord!

An hour remained until the scheduled departure time. Despite all efforts, we were falling behind schedule. New circumstances kept arising. After pumping up the minibus tires, we discovered there was no fuel in the tank. The city was beginning to experience shortages of gasoline and diesel, and we still had to fill up the cars for the journey. The confusion that visits a person in such moments can only be felt by those who've found themselves in similar circumstances. But an unexpected solution emerged—and it was a miracle!

My brother Sasha had the idea to call the company where he worked. This organization delivered building materials throughout the region, so it had many trucks. Sasha drove one of these heavy trucks.

"Yes, yes, we're taking women and children out of the city," Sasha affirmed to the trucking company owner, and a second later already joyfully shouted into the phone: "Thank you, may God bless you!"

We got the go-ahead to siphon fuel for the trip from the truck assigned to Sasha. The generosity of the man sent to us from Heaven helped us fill the bus and take an additional 60 liters of diesel. We prayed for him. Danger was approaching, and as the company owner, he needed to do something with his fleet of cars; the enemy could confiscate them entirely.

In the last decade, February had often been mild and warm. On the day of our evacuation, the weather turned out to be wonderful. This affected our packing. My wife didn't even take a scarf. In fact, choosing which things were more necessary proved difficult. Of course, this didn't apply to the "emergency bag"—it contained essentials. But everything else? And how to deal with pets? For many of us, four-legged creatures are family members. So when faced with the dilemma: take things or take a pet, we chose animals.

So my wife and I couldn't take our family album. For us it was a relic. On each of its pages were glued photographs, starting from our wedding day. But the album with the blue cover had to be left at home, as did favorite books and clothes that I wore to church on Sundays. But we took the dog and the cat.

Like many people, we couldn't imagine what difficulties lay ahead. And not even during the move, but already in the place, in western Ukraine, where it would be hard to find housing, and especially with landlords who wouldn't be against pets.

Our car's trunk wasn't very spacious, so we were limited in the amount of things. By the example of my travel bag, you can easily see that it wasn't much: one or two shirts, something sporty, two pairs of jeans, a jacket, a sweater, socks, underwear, a computer and documents. But I didn't manage to pack properly—I was buying the evacuation bus at that moment; Lyuba packed the bag.

I walked through the house. I shut off the gas and water valves. I looked in every room, checked that the windows were closed, that electrical appliances were turned off. My gaze caught dark tick marks on the kitchen doorframe. This touched my heart. In a second, pictures of the past flashed. Year after year, my daughter and son pressed against the doorpost, and I marked with a pencil a new memorable notch. I touched my palm to these familiar marks and prayed. I entrusted our home and our family's future to God's hands. Usually I prayed like this when I left on a business trip. Now we were all forced to leave the house, which was unusual for my family. We preferred a settled life. But a distant journey awaited us, and only the Creator knew what it would be.

Our "Ford" sagged under the weight of the luggage we took. Behind me sat my son and daughter, and also Yaroslav, the future groom. For my children, the suddenness of the Russian invasion was a blow to their personal plans, very important ones. Both my son and daughter were engaged. And here was the hurried evacuation, war breathing down our necks. My son couldn't convince his fiancée's parents to let her come with us. His sister was luckier—we took her fiancé with us. The ride would be cramped. Between them, the dog Sheri—a mix of Pekingese and Bichon—kept darting back and forth, and on the knees sat a carrier with a cat.

We pulled up with our brothers and our wives to our parents' house—to say goodbye. I got out of the car. This yard remembered several such farewells. When my two brothers and sister left the country, each time all our families would gather. We have seven children at mom and dad's. All grown up long ago. And here was a forced parting. If before, the farewell of children wasn't darkened by the anxiety of war, now the goodbye was accompanied by the sound of explosions. It's hard to imagine how heavy this was. Mother wept quietly. We exchanged a few words with father. He was ill: cancer, constant insomnia. For long months I'd offered him to come with us.

"Take the students, son," he always said in response. "I'm staying with the church, someone has to serve here, especially for those who haven't yet found faith in the Lord."

We prayed. When I sat in the car, the sounds of explosions intensified. I broke out in a cold sweat. Sheri rushed about the cabin. Even in peacetime, she didn't like New Year's fireworks and the pop of firecrackers; she hid and squealed. Now the dog heard, as we all did, something terrifying.

Over the gathering place at the Church of Christ the Savior hung an anxious expectation, multiplied by the sorrow that arises when you stare into the future and don't know what it will be. After all, it's one thing to model a future crisis, imagine possible circumstances, try on the most reasonable reaction to yourself, and then go enjoy the fruits of peaceful life. And quite another when you're immersed in the calamity that has arisen.

On people's faces was written what they were thinking. It was heavy to watch all this. We all faced evacuation. Each person had to invest in its quality, pace, and effectiveness. That's why we worked month after month beforehand, training the team. Now we had to travel in a large organized group to western Ukraine. This is impossible without a high level of trust in each other. And misfortune didn't spare those unprepared for it. But it also united people. I observed the responsiveness with which people rushed to help each other.

I remember a woman in an expensive arctic fox coat. She was so upset by what was happening that she couldn't control herself. Her husband was a sailor and had gone to sea at that moment. She remained at home alone with her elderly mother. Hearing the sounds of the approaching front, the woman put her mother in the car and was about to drive away, but discovered the tank was empty. She managed to get a five-liter canister of gasoline somewhere, but in her agitation she panicked, not knowing how to fuel the car. I helped her, and she drove away.

Everyone was busy: repacking things, loading them compactly, someone was receiving arriving people, roll call was being taken. It was important to keep a list of people in mind to distribute seats in transport and also to inform Ivano-Frankivsk, where they were holding a reservation for us. Some of the team had already left the city in their own cars independently. Long before the evacuation, we at THI had managed to pay employees their salaries in advance. Understanding that our organization's salaries were small, it was agreed that in case of relocation, we would provide additional money to employees if necessary. On the day of departure, only one family asked for money.

The greatest difficulty was caused by people who emotionally broke down hearing the sounds of explosions on the city's outskirts. Despite the preparation, they couldn't find the strength to overcome the numbness that had fallen upon them, didn't dare leave their homes and come from one end of the city to the other to evacuate with everyone. We called them constantly, chose our words, convinced them. Of course, our developed plan included separate points for those who decided to stay. So people knew what they needed to buy, how to behave, what to do. But responsibility for each team member troubled my heart—we did everything we could! As time would later show, the people we evacuated with us remembered with gratitude that it was precisely our persistence that pushed them to shake off their fear and dare. "You saved us!" they said later. But at that moment, every minute of delay affected our departure; we were falling behind schedule.

Stress levels were off the charts. Not everyone could handle the situation. So, on our list was one family—a husband and pregnant wife. They came with a small bag and a backpack. They sat in the bus. When we drove three or four blocks, they suddenly asked to get out.

"Forgive us, we're not ready to leave," the couple said. "We're not ready for evacuation, it's hard for us, please forgive us!"

You can't imagine how hard it is to leave people in an unsafe place. Later I learned that the Israeli embassy did rescue them, as the husband was Jewish. The family moved to Israel and a child was born there successfully. But there were also many cases where parting with people meant saying goodbye forever.

Part of the cars from our evacuation team left earlier. We left the Church of Christ the Savior at one in the afternoon. In our column were 2 minibuses and 4 cars. According to the map, we had to cover about 1000 kilometers. There were about 40 of us: THI employees with families and students.

There was almost no fear, there was anger and a desire to resist aggression. Everything glimpsed seemed to fall heavily somewhere deep inside us and seemed hopeless to ever surface. But then every time memory turned to the day we left the city, detailed pictures of the evacuation would immediately arise in my mind. The sky tore from explosions. War washed residents from the city in a swift stream, which was clearly noticeable from street bustle—it bore no resemblance to peaceful everyday life. Cars rushed, caught in a furious whirlwind. There was incredible noise: car horns, people shouting. On the outskirts, this maelstrom was sucked into a slow funnel. Vehicles leaving the city moved in two lanes, and in places three.

Suburban landscapes said farewell to us. The weather was warm, weakly trying to warm hearts frozen by cold—the cold of anticipating war. But war reminded us of itself. Two helicopters kept swooping across the sky. It was impossible to tell if they were enemy "birds" or not. Logic was simple here: if they're not bombing—they're ours. The same feelings arose with armored personnel carriers on the road. Iron "horses" without identifying marks. You're puzzled: Russian or Ukrainian equipment. You evaluate by the same logic: if they're not shooting—it's the AFU. And what else should we, civilians, expect from machines created for battle and defeating targets—protection, not attack.

Ahead, smoke billowed... The airport?!

The sight of the burning Chernobayivka airport was a blow below the belt. How could this be?! For many years these "air gates" of Kherson meant much to me personally. I planned my schedule of international business trips so I'd always leave and return through Chernobayivka. And now the airport was destroyed by Russian missiles. Inky soot in the middle of the steppe. Along with the plumes of smoke rising into the sky, that very hope for "it will be like before" evaporated. Sad reality—the familiar had changed for a long time, if not forever.

It seemed panic drove people so much that no one paid attention to the group of soldiers hitchhiking on the road. Spotting our "Mercedes" from afar, the soldiers waved their hands. After already encountering armored vehicles and helicopters on the way, you're not very responsive to the shouts of soldiers in full gear.

Stas was driving the bus. Something about their actions seemed strange to him. He pulled toward the shoulder. Carefully cracked the window. Soldiers with AFU chevrons were running toward him. About ten to fifteen people.

"Uncles, help us!"

This phrase struck us, the "uncles," down. Before us stood a group of conscripts. Just boys. And for months afterward it remained a mystery to us what these guys were doing near Chernobayivka without commanders. Probably they hadn't deserted. Contract soldiers don't participate in combat operations.

"We were ordered to relocate to the Nikolayev area."

While the boy reported to the unit where they needed to arrive, I studied the guys. In each soldier I saw my son Kirill. They were almost the same age; he was a university student. My father's heart was moved at the sight of these guys. Why were these boys hitchhiking here, on the shoulder, abandoned by their command? Yesterday's schoolboys. And yet some of them dreamed of continuing work as a programmer after the army. Someone had the makings of a lawyer. Someone after service intended to return and help his father with the farm. I assume some of them might have wanted to tie their lives to the army, but combat operations aren't the best way to start learning the military profession. How not to feel disgust at the war started by the neighbor in such moments! It was it that invaded, disturbing the peaceful course of life. How hard it all is: to see boyish eyes in which you read fear, and to hear their bewildered "uncles, help us!"

"Come on, guys, in the bus!" Stas commanded.

It's hard to watch what's happening and realize that your country is being increasingly pierced by the poisonous metastases of war. What a vile feeling of helplessness—helplessness to help the Fatherland in its hour of need. But understanding that right now we're evacuating an organized group of civilians subdued this false condemnation. There was no time to realize the fateful nature of our important mission. We wanted to reach a safe place as soon as possible. All that was needed was to press the gas. That's what thousands and thousands of drivers leaving Kherson did.

The entire drive to Nikolayev took us several hours, though the trip usually took half that time. The crowded highway didn't allow us to drive fast. Besides, accidents occurred along the way. We had to wait. Go around. The soldiers rode obediently the whole way, standing in our "Mercedes." Already near the bypass road at Nikolayev, someone wanted to feed them, buy food. The conscripts refused. Bound by their officer's order, they hurried to their unit.

Armored personnel carriers, a helicopter, the destroyed airport, conscripts—each military sign along the way frightened us, but inside a force was discovered that could overcome the confusion of the first hours of evacuation. Somewhere deep down, hope pulsed that all this tragedy unfolding in our land would soon recede. We would return home. Everything would be as before...

The clock showed well past noon. Hunger was making itself felt. After all, breakfast came early today, a cup of coffee at the car market didn't count, we wanted to eat. Falling behind schedule pushed us to hurry. I understand that right now, somewhere far away, an Englishman, having had breakfast, was going to work. In another part of the hemisphere, an American was stirring in bed, greeting the early morning, while we, Ukrainians, were rushing, staring at the Kherson steppe as if into an expected future. Ahead loomed only the unknown. Catching sight for orientation of a lone group of bare trees without leaves, a road sign or rural houses ahead, we stretched toward them, swallowing tears, measuring out kilometers of salvation.

Phone calls made us shake off pensiveness. We called each other between cars. I was also called by partners and friends. Everyone was interested in the events. Some asked me to comment on the war. Some calls were fateful. One phone conversation with my old friend Taras Dyatlik, as it turned out later, became important for THI's work during the war.

As soon as the calls died down, anxiety crept into my thoughts. It became incredibly hard from what was happening. I noticed my wife quietly shedding tears. We wanted some background. Something that could distract us. We couldn't listen to the radio. I scrolled through the playlist. I came across a composition by Cory Asbury called "Egypt"—about the Egyptian exodus of God's people. The youth of our church loved this song, sang it in Ukrainian. On that first day of evacuation, as we later learned, the song "Egypt" was playing in many of our migrants' cars.

The Psalm brought comfort. We played the track over and over. Listening intently many times to how Yahweh took His people by the hand and led them to the promised land, I suddenly saw that the Bible was full of events in which we Ukrainians found ourselves. An strange and indescribable feeling of kinship arose with those whom God helped in a foreign land. I remembered Ruth, Esther, Daniel and his friends. Suddenly I thought that Jesus' parents were also forced to leave Judea when there was danger to the family. Then I remembered a long-ago visit to a Catholic university in Ohio. It was at Xavier University in Cincinnati. There I saw an icon depicting the holy family. It was striking that Joseph, Mary, and the Infant were clothed in the clothes of modern refugees. At that time, a migration crisis had erupted in the world due to the war in Syria, and the artist had reproduced the Gospel account of the flight to Egypt, unmistakably indicating that the Lord experienced Himself what it means to be a refugee...

Right at the wheel of the car, I was pierced: but the Lord Jesus then, in Bethlehem, became a resettler, a refugee, like each of us now! Reading the Bible since childhood, I had never felt such emotions. I was overwhelmed by the discovery. I felt it with my very skin: Christ—a resettler! I—a resettler! We—resettlers!