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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The war in Ukraine was just a few months old when I first met Zori Opanasevych in April 2022.
I connected with the mother of three young children at a prayer service at New Chance Christian Church — a Pentecostal congregation that conducts Sunday worship in Russian with English translation.
I still remember Opanasevych resting her chin in clasped hands as she begged God to intervene.
In the heart-wrenching stories of ordinary families caught in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Alaska resident told me she saw herself. In the children’s frightened faces, the Ukrainian-born Christian couldn’t help but envision her own kids.
“That could have been me there right now in Ukraine,” she said. “​​I could be using my body to shield my children from bombs right now.”
Instead, Opanasevych — whose family moved to the United States when she was 7 — put her life on hold to organize a faith-based relief program for Ukrainian refugees.
Related: In Alaska, a Russian-speaking church becomes a hub for helping Ukrainians
At first she thought the effort might last a few months. But more than three years later, she’s still at it — serving as executive director of the United Relief Program, a nonprofit arm of the New Chance church that helped more than 1,300 people fleeing the war resettle in Alaska.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The attack forced almost 10 million to leave their homes, including 5.6 million displaced abroad, according to the United Nations.
In the early days, Opanasevych and other volunteers worked 18 to 20 hours a day to help refugees travel to the U.S. and buy pots and pans and mattresses “and all the necessities” to establish new lives.
“It was just a miracle, just seeing God’s goodness make a beautiful restoration out of the ashes of the war,” she recalled.
But now, as the war drags on, refugees’ temporary protected status faces uncertainty. Their humanitarian parole, as it’s called, is in limbo as President Donald Trump ends legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. The families with whom Opanasevych has become so close could be forced to leave — and some already have.
In light of Trump’s recent visit to an Anchorage-area military base to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, I decided to catch up with Opanasevych, 34, whose children are now 13, 10 and almost 9.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 