CHERNIVTSI, Ukraine — A pastor from Spring of Life (SOL) Church in Orangevale is in Chernivtsi, Ukraine visiting family members and helping refugees that have fled from the violence in Eastern Ukraine.
"There's a lot of refugees from the east side of the country, so you can basically see cars with different license plates from different regions of Ukraine," said Benjamin Krechunyak, one of the pastors at SOL Church. "There are some problems: a lot of traffic, a lot of cars, not enough fuel."
Krechunyak says he hasn't heard any bombs explode or gunfire erupt in the area, but says sirens and alarms go off so often that people are starting to ignore them. He worries that Western Ukraine might be affected by the war in the coming weeks, turning those false alarms into a grim reality.
"They got used to it... They stop going to the shelter, and this is what scares me because, if the real bomb will fly to the city, it's gonna hurt a lot of people," Krechunyak said.
Krechunyak is a Citrus Heights resident but was born and raised in Chernivtsi. He made the decision to fly to Ukraine to not just visit family and help refugees, but to be close to his mother who was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer. Krechunyak says hospitals in Ukraine are at capacity with injured soldiers which makes it hard to find medical care.
"I'm not sure if I can even move her to a different country," he said. "That's what I'm trying to figure out if, for example, Romania or Poland will take her and give her some treatments."
On top of taking care of family, Krechunyak has been hard at work volunteering at a coordinating center that helps refugees escape from cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv and find shelter and food. He's also offering spiritual support to refugees through prayer.
"When you see all the destruction, you realize it's gonna take years, years and years to rebuild, and I'm not saying about the people who we lost — that's a completely different story," Krechunyak said.
Krechunyak says he plans to stay in Ukraine until the end of March.
"Ukrainian people are pretty strong and they will win this war," he said.
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