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Fleeing from Zaporozhye Ukraine: a Testimony from a Ukrainian family · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schweinfelder Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're very pleased to have Vovovan and Marina Gorbenko for this interview.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Vovovan and Marina are lifetime residents of Zaporozhya, Ukraine.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: They and their children, Andre, 17 and Katya, 15, came to the states after the invasion of Ukraine, arriving here in March of this last year.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Vovovan is an experienced pastor at Christ the Savior Church, where he served as pastor for 14 years.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's also the academic dean of the Zaporosha Bible Seminary for 14 years and a professor of New Testament at the same school for 19 years.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're very thankful for you both answering a few questions for us at Central Schwenkfelder.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've watched what's taken place in Ukraine.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've watched it with horror, and certainly have been praying for not only you, but also for those in Zaporosha and those in Ukraine.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can you help us understand what's taken place in Ukraine?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe first off, you could share with us about your home city of Zaporozh.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Greetings and thank you so much for your interest and for the privilege for us to share about Ukraine and about our family as well.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Zaporuzia is a large city, it's one of the uh industrial centers in Ukraine.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's located in southeast uh of Ukraine, so it's about an hour, maybe two hours drive to Donetsk, maybe an hour drive to Donetsk area.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: And uh it's a city of 700,000 people.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: There are lots and lots of factories uh in the city, and the Dniper River flows right through the middle uh of uh the city.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So when it's just a few hours from Donetsk, that's the area that Russian forces had already taken about 2014, correct?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And there has been small skirmishes in the Donetsk area since 2014 up until this invasion in February of this year.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so uh for us, uh the the war in Ukraine started much earlier than February 24th, uh 2022, uh, because uh that's uh when Russia took over Donetsk and Lugansk and Crimea.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: That was 2014, and at that time we had many, many refugees from these two cities, Lugansk and Donetsk, and Donetsk is a larger city than Zaporozhia, it had the population about close to a million people.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: So in 2014, we had a flow of refugees because we are so close to Donetsk, and we had very many people from Donetsk, and uh some of them stayed in our church, and uh, our church was helping refugees uh that were scattered uh throughout Zaporozhia uh area.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: They were staying in children's camps and kindergartens and just about you know any place they could find temporary uh shelter.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, from this, the many refugees who were coming into Zaporozhia, uh your church did help to look after some then, but I'm sure you were not expecting what took place in February 24th.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: When did you first begin to worry that Russian forces were going to be invading?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh probably from the beginning of the year, maybe in January, when we heard that Russia uh gathered uh a lot of troops uh along the uh Ukrainian border, so it was kind of like bells for us uh just to remind uh to make us alert uh what is what may happen, but we uh we never uh we never believed till the till the last moment that it could happen to Ukraine.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we were afraid that this may happen ever since 2014, but uh it has never been as uh certain as uh like maybe months or two prior to February 24th.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the previous year Russian forces had amassed on the border too, and they had retreated.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So this did it seem like the same pattern to you.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, it was the same, and you know, and that was bad enough because uh for economy suffers if you have somebody's army right by your border.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: Not many people would like to invest in a country that is under uh this danger to be invaded by a huge other country, so the economy was suffering, and then of course the attack came.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where were you when you found out that the Russians had crossed the border?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: For us, it was early morning.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I it was uh uh a regular work day for me and for Marina.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: Marina was getting ready to go to school uh to teach uh in a public school, and I was getting ready to go to the seminary where I worked.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: When I got up, it was around six or uh or so, and I heard this news that the invasion started.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I rushed to the seminary because I knew that uh it's something extraordinary, and uh, of course, I heard on the news that all the gas stations had huge lines, and uh it was uh it was panic in uh in the city.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Could you hear any airplanes going overhead at that point in time?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Not the first day.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: We just uh we just knew that every major city was attacked by rockets.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, like uh we heard that our airport was under attack, and some military bases were under attack, and we heard on the news that uh many more major cities in Ukraine were attacked, but we didn't hear it uh within the first day.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: Then later on, we started to hear it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And how was the mood at the Bible seminary?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And how was the mood at the school?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Marina, where you were going to teach?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was uncertain and uh uncertain for us, and uh our director of school called uh every teacher and said uh that probably for us it would be better to stay at home, and we should call all children in our classes just to uh to tell them stay at home and be in contact uh till the uh till the situations uh will uh became more clear.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So since 24th of February, uh there is uh there were no classes at school.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh our uh school continued, uh they uh they decided to prolong the school vacation on at that moment for two weeks, and later uh children came back to school, but uh they study online and still they study online.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it uh in it depends on how is uh the air rates in the city.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: If it's air rates, the um uh school classes are postponed.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Were the air rates sirens going off frequently, Marina?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, sometimes it depends on not each and not every day, but uh uh especially at night, it was terri uh terrible.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh especially then we we never heard Saichi now alive, it was unexpected, and uh we never uh heard that before, and it it was it was carried for everybody's we didn't even know that we have those sirens before, you know.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: We we were born in that city and we didn't know they existed, but apparently they did.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I guess uh this is the time where you'd make your way to a shelter.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh that's uh that was the sign uh and the last signal for everyone to get down to bomb shelter or to a basement or a cellar, like Marina School had a shelter, so people who who uh live in apartments, they would they would just have to run to a shelter.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: What's happened in Zaporosia since the Russian invasion?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh since that we would have occasional rocket uh attacks, and then uh air raids uh would be almost every day.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Almost every day.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And uh yeah, so every time a rocket is launched, you never know where it will land.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh it's a life under the stress that there is war.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, of course, we started to have these lines to gas stations, and and those who would be able to buy more gas would be limited, uh, how much they can actually uh buy.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: And people were buying everything they could in supermarkets, and of course, for a number of days the shelves were completely empty, especially like milk and uh bread and everything that would go bad.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the basic, yeah, the bath and the food, uh basic food we use every day.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: Train stations and bus stations, they would be filled, and it would it was like a cow, yeah, and it still is.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as of today, when we're having this discussion on May the 16th, Russian troops have not entered into the city of Zaporosha, but there have been a lot of uh refugees that have come from Mariupol and other places in the east through Zaporosia.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is right now the main city in the southeast of Ukraine receiving refugees.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the one of the major cities, along with Dnipro and uh Odessa, Kharkov, that's the south and uh southeast of Ukraine where we get we get uh uh refugees from other uh places that have been occupied.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Corfu hours started on February 24th, uh and no no single light bulb is uh uh permitted uh to to to to work uh you know during uh during night hours because uh the air raids and it's a uh the city uh is an easy target for those airplanes.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: It must be extremely difficult having lived in Zaporosia all one's life, to then think about leaving the city and then ultimately leaving the country.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share with us how you came to this decision?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was a difficult decision.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: After we saw the students uh leaving the seminary and making sure that they would get home to their parents, um, then the seminary was closed.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it is not destroyed now, uh, it does work as a hub for people to stay maybe during the day or one one night and then leave because Zaporozhia is not a safe city uh now and people do not uh stay there for a long time.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: We had to spend several nights in our cellar in our basement.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: We live in a private home in the southern part of the city at the edge of the city.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh it was February, it was still cold, so I would take down carpets uh to the basement and uh we would uh dress as uh you know with uh our winter clothing and would just spend whole nights in uh in the basement.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh every every time I would go out and bring some water and uh you know some food, our kids would uh would get nervous and say, you know, Papa, come back just because of fear that you know there are the sirens are going, and we would hear methodic explosions right outside of the city.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Church services would be canceled because some of these curfew hours would start at Friday night and be there till Monday morning.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: And uh yeah, after several days like this, and and looking at what's going on in my family with Marina's condition and my kids' condition, I just had to make this difficult decision to leave.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we could leave only during daytime.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: We could leave the city because there were uh there were military personnel outside the city, and during curfew hours we would not be allowed to uh leave.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and while there were no air raids uh during the day, we had to make a decision are we staying or are we leaving within this short time?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: And we we made this decision to leave, and and uh we had a uh smaller car, Kia.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I packed it with water and uh with just about every blanket we had in the house because it was still cold.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh beginning of March and the end of February, it's still cold in Ukraine, and uh a bag of clothing, and that was it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and the only thing I actually uh uh thought was important was my family and the documents, and uh we were hoping that we will not get stuck uh someplace between the cities, especially during curfew hours.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: How long of a drive is it from Zaporosia to what was the Romanian border?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was uh about 20-hour drive.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: We decided uh that we will drive even at night, uh, even though it was uh I I it wasn't uh it wasn't quite safe because when a vehicle is going at night and it's difficult to to see whether it's a military vehicle or civilian vehicle, just about every citizen in Ukraine is faced with this question am I am I staying in the city where I'm at uh or am I leaving?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: And uh it's a difficult decision to make because everyone has connections to elderly parents or elderly relatives and and so on.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: So some people decided to leave, and some people decided to stay, and this is like internal internal struggle for everyone in Ukraine because I I heard uh that when the war happened in Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and uh some people uh who left, uh they say that everyone who left regretted that they left, and everyone who stayed regretted that they stayed.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the condition of a lot of Ukrainians, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: Two-thirds of our church had to leave, and it's uh for every family it's a very difficult decision.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Marina and I we didn't have elderly parents in Zaporozhia and didn't have other relatives.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: And uh Marina's mother passed away in the beginning of January.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but there are many families that couldn't leave because they were not sure whether it's safe to stay and consider their home as a fortress or to live and not knowing where to go.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Every second child in Ukraine has been displaced already, and that's the statistic I have from about a month ago, and it could be more than this.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: Not every man can leave the the country because everyone who is uh 18 years till 60 years old, like every male citizen cannot just leave uh the the country.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh there is a list of uh exceptions and uh like people who have more than three kids or special need kids or medical uh exemptions like I had from my childhood years in connection with my uh scaliosis.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: But there are a lot of divided families where a lot of families would decide that uh a wife and kids would go to a safer place, maybe in Romania or Moldova or Poland, for a few months, as we hope it would be just a few few months and then come back.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: How are they serving people?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: But some families are staying and they're helping others and uh and they're they're uh our uh graduates from the seminary and some of our church uh people and they're distributing uh help.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: And with in the city of Zaporozhia, uh it's a huge hub, and uh people are staying for maybe a night, uh maybe during the day.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh nobody wants to stay for an extended period of time, but uh some Christians are helping with that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And some who have stayed are taking bread, medical supplies to the front lines, helping, cooking.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um hearing stories of uh 500 meals per day in some churches, peeling potatoes, looking after children.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's quite an effort that's going on.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and especially churches in the western part of Ukraine, because all of a sudden, some of those village churches with 20 people, now they're like 200 people, and uh uh and people are staying and yeah, on mattresses in uh Sunday school.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Could you suggest for our congregation a few ways to pray for Ukraine or to pray for you and your family?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: I would ask you to pray for Ukraine and for churches in Ukraine and for for us.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: We used to have a small group in our home on Tuesday nights, and now when we met on Zoom, our small group was scattered all over.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: Some people were in central Ukraine, western Ukraine, Germany, Netherlands, Poland.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure that there are many, many churches like that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of scattered Ukrainians, and I pray that Ukrainians will not feel as refugees for the rest of their lives, and they would uh, especially Christians, would still fulfill their mission, fulfill their mission in being in Christ mission as Christians.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I believe that God can do great things even out of bad things, and uh, and I don't know how he will use this war in Ukraine, but I know that he can do it, and he can use and bring good consequences for the kingdom and for his church.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I pray that uh scattered church and scattered Ukrainians would see who they are in this large biblical drama and continue to be whom they are called to be in Jesus Christ.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: On behalf of the church, I want to thank you for being willing to answer some of these questions after such a harrowing last uh several months, and our prayers and best wishes are with you as you sort through these things and get reestablished.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: May God's blessing be with you all.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.