remain displaced as of 2014, according to reports from the United Nations. As the current invasion continues, it’s not clear how many more Ukrainians will be displaced and evacuated. Oregonians with Slavic roots are finding ways to channel local and public support into aid that can be distributed to those still living in Ukraine. One of the most prominent ways is through fundraising, usually spearheaded by churches and humanitarian aid groups. One of these churches is Living Word Adventist, a Russianspeaking Slavic church in Oregon City. Living Word’s pastor, Alex Paraschuk, and most of the church’s members have relatives living in Russia or Eastern Europe. When the invasion started, Paraschuk says, the church was in shock. “We just called our friends and relatives at the churches there wanting to know what was going on,” Paraschuk says. Food insecurity and damage to water, gas and electricity infrastructure continue to worsen for refugees. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 5.7 million people received emergency food assistance since February. Living Word has raised more than $20,000 from members of the church and community members in Oregon since the invasion started. Paraschuk and Living Word’s administration correspond with church leaders currently living in Ukraine’s southwest region to use those raised funds to buy fuel, potatoes, eggs, bread and medical supplies. Paraschuk says that church groups in Odesa have also used Living Word’s donations to offer refugees a shower and access to electricity as they evacuate westward. According to Paraschuk, the Ukrainian churches that Living Word has been corresponding with send small teams of volunteers to eastern Ukraine to evacuate families from their homes in Russian-occupied territory. Many of the pastors whom Paraschuk corresponds with have already evacuated westward to outposts in Odesa and Mykolaiv, but their congregations stay behind for fear of being shelled in transit. According to findings made by the UN’s Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, more than 12,000,000 people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes in Ukraine, and about 6.3 million have left the country altogether. Almost 3.5 million refugees have crossed the Western border to Poland, with the rest of the diaspora largely funneling into neighboring Romania, Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia. Paraschuk described a recent mission Living Word helped fund: a pastor from Mykolaiv organized an evacuation plan where four volunteers from his church drove a minivan to Russian-occupied territory in Berdyansk and Melitopol to evacuate small groups of eight to 10 refugees at a time. The volunteers drove two to three
times a week to occupied territory, filled the van up with as many people as possible and drove west towards Odesa, Dnipro, even as far as the Polish and Romanian borders. Many who are able are choosing to flee their homes and travel west by car or truck, but the journey comes with risk. Russia’s occupation of eastern Ukraine makes traveling by road through militarized countryside extremely dangerous for civilians. Ukrainian refugees told CNN wartime correspondents in May 2022 that convoys of refugees fleeing Eastern Ukraine are forced to navigate roadblocks and avoid Russian shelling and gunfire, all while rationing food and medical supplies over the span of several days. The funds raised by Living Word also go towards paying for gas for these evacuation trips as well as funding church-based refugee camps in Odesa and Dnipro. Paraschuk says that refugees, many of whom have gone without their personal belongings or showers for weeks, can stay at the camps and use the resources accumulated there as they make their way westward.
The Entire Pie Chart
Vlad Bilan is a third-year student at the University of Oregon and of Ukrainian descent. He was born in Dnipro, Ukraine, and lived there for two and a half years before his family moved to the U.S. Although he was born in Ukraine, Bilan says he’s “99.9% Americanized.” Both of Bilan’s parents are in ministry. His dad was a pastor for 17 years but recently became a chaplain. His mom just dropped her chaplaincy to take up pastoring in the Gresham area outside of Portland. Most of the people who made up her congregation were Slavic: Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovian. Bilan says he’s grateful to have grown up in this community and that it helped him and his sister maintain their knowledge of their own culture and language. Bilan has an uncle in Portland, his grandma lives in an apartment on his parent’s property, and much of his mother’s family lives in North Carolina. Some of his family lives in or near recently Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine: Dnipro, Kyiv and Yevpatoriya, Crimea. “Thankfully, everything is going okay with them,” Bilan says. “Recently, they’ve been spending a lot of time in the basements of their homes to stay safe.” As of the publication of this story, Bilan says he hasn’t heard any new updates on their situations. Bilan says his great grandmother has been stubborn, unwilling to leave her house in Kyiv. “She was like, ‘This is my house,’” Bilan says. “‘Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.’” When the conflict started in February 2022, Bilan says, his family experienced a dramatic upheaval of lifestyle. Bilan’s aunts
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Ukraine
On the positive side of things and something I’m honored to be a part of is my family is trying to do a lot of different fundraising programs or outreach programs.” Bilan and his family are trying to raise money to bring a group of 20 to 30 students who were displaced from Ukraine to Oregon to finish their education. “I’ve been super thankful to at least be able to help there,” Bilan says. “It eases that sense of like helplessness when you see the news or you read an article and you’re like ‘what can I do?’” SUMMER 2022 | ETHOS | 23
