A Palmetto-based Christian ministry has taken responsibility for the care of 94 Ukrainian refugee children who fled to Romania to escape the Russian invasion. Dr. Marvin E. Lane, the 69-year-old founder of Generation Hope International, said the arrival of so many children, ranging in age from six months to 17, accompanied by six adult women, was an overwhelming responsibility.
For more than 25 years, Generation Hope has been caring for orphaned and abandoned children at the Village of Hope, in Oradea, Romania, and has also been feeding hundreds of children in Haiti.
At the time of the Russian invasion, Village of Hope was caring for 28 children, primarily from Romania. When asked if the Village of Hope could take refugee children from Ukraine, he could not refuse, even if it pushed housing capacity. The first group of 20 Ukrainian children were traveling in three vans. But when they ran out of gas, the children had to walk three days to reach the Romanian border, and wait another 24 hours there in the snow to cross out of Ukraine, Lane said. “The only clothing they had was what they were wearing and what they could carry,” he said.
Once they were cleared to enter Romania, Village of Hope vans delivered them, after a four-hour drive, to hot meals, warm beds and doctor exams. The Village of Hope buildings are bulging with the arrival of so many children, the staff had to buy more beds, dinnerware and more, and to begin thinking about how they would present their school lessons.
Donations can be made to Generation Hope International Ukrainian refugees through the Skyway Community Chapel website at https://www.skywaycc.org/ or at PayPal.
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