Our Story

On February 24, 2022, the war began. I had it in my heart to go to the border with Ukraine to help people fleeing the fighting. As soon as I finished the workday, I picked up my family, and off we went, not knowing what to expect. Thousands of mothers with children fleeing to Romania to save their lives massed at the border. Most of them did not have the slightest idea where they would go or where they would sleep. That evening we brought three mothers with their children to our home. Once they secured housing at their desired destination, more families followed. With a steady demand beyond our capacity, I started calling friends and acquaintances, searching for accommodations. In the following days, centers opened (in hostels or centers of some associations) to provide shelter. We shifted our attention to directing families to where there was capacity and coordinating logistics. Our work was around the clock. Soon we were organizing refugees in tents at the border into groups with shared destinations and directing transportation across Ukraine and beyond. Yet the numbers kept growing, a long line stretching twenty kilometers beyond the border as far as one could see. Crossing the border, it became clear that people waiting with what they had carried in the cold and the falling snow were in a desperate struggle. With the help of friends, we formed teams and began to ferry van loads of food, hot tea, warm clothing, and bedding across the border. After spotting a tent serving warm soup on the Romanian side of the border run by a Jewish humanitarian organization, we arranged to add that to our daily deliveries. With each trip, we discovered more that was needed, from pampers for their children to helping expedite the passage of a pregnant mother in labor thru customs and onto medical facilities in Romania. Each day was a new challenge. Then, I got word there were over sixty thousand internally displaced Ukrainians (IDP) within Chernivtsi, a city of a quarter million people some fifty kilometers up the road from the border. The following day, rounding up a translator, off I went. It was the first time I had been to this beautiful city. Locating city hall, I entered and asked for the location these people. We were ushered in to the mayor's office, who, after a short discussion, thanked us for our efforts and introduced us to his deputy heading up the refugee relief effort, who directed us to five of the largest centers housing refugees. It was there that the inspiration for our mission was born. Sharing the photos from our visit with friends and family, we marshaled their support to provide food, clothing, mattresses, sleeping bags, personal hygiene products, and whatever else might be useful to the Chernivtsi IDP. Yet, it was clear our numbers limited our capacity to help. We needed to expand our reach and solicit support beyond our networks in Suceava and Romania. During this time, I constantly communicated with my family in the USA, three brothers, and my parents, who lived in Phoenix, AZ. Two of my brothers, Valentin and John, felt compelled to join in my work and provide whatever funds they could round up and afford personally. At their church of Elim din Phoenix, they shared my stories and their intentions to join me. Members stepped forward with contributions. John and I agreed that it was time to act on an idea we had been discussing well before the war, creating an NGO to support those in need so that we could enlist people everywhere in that effort. In God's Hand was formed with helping Ukraine's refugees and IDP as its mission. Back in Ukraine, I crossed paths with a local Ukrainian pastor from Velea Cosminlui, just outside Chernivtsi. Igor was his name, and he, too, was helping IDP who came to his village to find accommodations. He led me to the center of Chernivtsi, the regional Council building, where thousands of IDP came to register for help from the Ukrainian government. The support they received was inadequate, lacking essential personal hygiene products, sufficient nutritional needs, and more. Many also lacked access to kitchens to prepare the food provided, living in school gymnasiums, abandoned buildings and other marginally habitable settings. We added this location to the network of IDP centers we already supported and began considering opening a kitchen and serving freshly cooked meals. We reached out to our network again with our plans and our desire to purchase a tent to house our kitchen on the Council grounds. The first vendor we spoke to refused our money and donated the tent. The next day, with plans to transport the tent to Chernivtsi, I volunteered to transport two refugees back to Ukraine. As we headed to the border, they told me they were professional chefs with plans to stay in Chernivtsi for a while. I was in disbelief. Asking if they would consider working in the tent kitchen, they gladly accepted, and within a week, we had the kitchen fully equipped with stoves, a sink, tables, and chairs and began serving the first meals. We fed over 1,000 people on the first day, with steady growth to follow. Over time we observed many mothers with children amongst the IDP. The children, scattered across the city without access to their peers, lacked smiles and were withdrawn. We organized two-day summer camps staffed by young IDPs, and smiles and laughter returned. The children sought their fellow campers out at our tent, and friendships began to blossom. Our journey continued, identifying needs amongst those we served and securing the support to meet them. Challenged to support similar projects with IDP and refugees in Moldova and Odessa, we secured further donations and delivered the necessary aid. Since then, we have expanded to support kitchens in Toretsk, on the front lines, to collectively provide over 4,000 hot meals a week to those displaced and those still living in war's reach. And we also support orphans and continue to organize events and summer camps for the displaced community and their children. Our team comprises individuals from the same community we serve, providing them with a regular source of income and assistance with housing. We procure food and materials locally in Ukraine. We secure much of the non-perishable food as donations from individuals, local institutions, and the warehouses of the many Romanian and International NGOs close to the border. In God's Hand is comprised entirely of volunteers with every dollar donated going directly to the people we serve.