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Introducing Yana (an inspiring Tearfund partner in Ukraine)

The inspirational story of one of our Ukraine partners, and how God is using her experiences as a refugee to bring hope.

Written by Tarryn Pegna | 16 Jan 2025

Children gathered around a table use coloured pencils to draw a town together on a large piece of paper.

Children work on an imaginary community in one of the classes at the school our local partner runs with Tearfund support. The work Yana’s organisation is doing is helping restore and rebuild lives in her community in Ukraine. Credit: Tearfund

When the conflict in Eastern Ukraine first broke out back in 2014, Yana* and her family fled to find safety in Poland. It was a really difficult time for them. The language was different, the way of doing things was different, and their children – one of whom was at a crucial stage in their secondary education – had to leave their friends behind, find different schools and adapt to new ways of learning. And it wasn’t home.

Yana, a strong, capable powerhouse of a woman (as you’re about to discover), holds back tears as she recalls this time in her family’s life. But, she says, God has used these hardships to shape her. Out of the pain, loss and trauma of her time as a refugee in a foreign land, Yana’s response is providing comfort and hope for hundreds of people caught up in the midst of war.

The role of the church

For Yana it’s all part of her faith and of how she sees the role of the church. ‘The main thing that the church should be doing is providing for people’s basic needs, for food and shelter,’ she says. ‘If a person doesn't have those things, you can't talk to them because they're distracted by worrying about where their next meal is coming from, or about their safety and security.

‘The church needs to start by thinking about the practical help they can give to people. How they can support them wherever they are. By doing this they also build trust and a relationship, and then churches can start talking about Jesus and the gospel.

‘They also need to accept people wherever and whoever they are. Acceptance is so important to people.’

‘The church needs to start by thinking about the practical help they can give to people. How they can support them wherever they are. By doing this they also build trust and a relationship, and then churches can start talking about Jesus and the gospel. ’
Yana, Tearfund partner in Ukraine

Meeting people’s needs (all of them!)

Yana, her husband and their church are certainly doing all of these things!

Yana’s husband is a pastor and their church is involved in responding to the increasing needs of the community, but it is Yana’s own organisation that Tearfund helps support – an organisation that is reaching people in a myriad of vital practical ways.

What originally was Yana’s successful business of building contractors and supplying building materials, was transformed in 2018 into a nonprofit organisation (NGO) that is building (and rebuilding) people’s lives.

‘I kept hearing from God that he wanted me to serve him,’ says Yana, ‘and so in 2018, we decided to register the organisation as an NGO and all the profits from the business would go into supporting it.

‘Based on our personal experience of what it is like to be a refugee, and being so aware of everything that we needed support with at that time, our longing was to help people facing the same situation.’

The Ukraine conflict context

The needs in Yana’s community are varied. Their city is not many miles from the frontline and there have been times when they struggled to access food and clean water.

‘At the moment the situation has stabilised for us in terms of water and food,’ Yana says. ‘We've got a water supply thanks to Tearfund who provided the first water pump and purification system back in 2022. And we’re also able to buy food now. Before, it was a really big problem because we didn't have either.

‘In surrounding towns though, there are “grey zones” [places between the live conflict and where there is relative peace] where there are still issues getting both food and water.’

‘Based on our personal experience of what it is like to be a refugee, and being so aware of everything that we needed support with at that time, our longing was to help people facing the same situation.’
Yana, Tearfund's local partner in Ukraine

And this is where the work that Yana’s organisation does starts.

Fresh bread, hot meals, homework and games

  • Every day, they bake loaves of bread and deliver them to the surrounding towns and villages where the local councils make sure that it gets to the people who need it most.
  • They’ve also set up two hot meal points for widows, widowers and vulnerable children – one at Yana’s church and the other in a different building in the city. There are between 40 and 50 adults, most of them elderly, and about the same number of children who come twice a week to be fed and eat together. Many of the people who come are from very disadvantaged families, are living with a disability or need some form of social protection.
  • There is also a day centre that runs twice a week alongside the meals. They have four groups of children who come to receive support with their school work and take part in other educational activities and games.

School, business skills and drama therapy

Many schools in the region have been destroyed or closed because of the conflict and a large number of children, like Oleksiy, have been displaced with their families. Yana’s organisation (with support from Tearfund) is helping bridge the gap by providing educational input that is restoring to children the opportunities that the conflict has taken from them, and giving them a place to enjoy some sense of normality, of friendship and of fun.

‘It's not just the school,’ says Yana. ‘There's also a bakery. The children come from 8.00 in the morning until 4.00 in the afternoon. We provide them with meals and they have lessons and different extracurricular activities. There are 55 children enrolled and we also run groups for more than 50 of the parents to come and take part in activities each day.

‘The school provides classes up to primary level, but we run an additional club for teenagers. Right now we’re teaching them about business and how to make a business plan. We hope that with this knowledge they can go on to apply for micro grants to support themselves and their families through their business ideas.’

On top of all this, with the ongoing conflict having left almost everyone with some form of trauma, this year the school has started a new programme to meet some of the psychological needs people are facing in a way that is fun and engaging.

‘We found a specialist in drama therapy,’ Yana tells us, ‘so we’ve started a drama club. Right now, we have a mixed group of 25 adults and children taking part… and a waiting list of about  240 women and 400 children! We're planning to expand this work because it's been so popular.’

Women’s groups, physiotherapy and landmine education

  • As well as all of this, Yana’s organisation runs two community support groups for women of different ages, where they can meet and talk and find a sense of support and community.
  • There’s also a physiotherapy room providing rehabilitation for injured men returning from the front. Free or low-cost sessions are available to anyone else who needs physiotherapy too.
  • Recently, the organisation won a small grant and purchased several 3D printers. They've used these to print models of landmines so that people can learn about what they look like and how to avoid them. These landmine models have been supplied to other areas in Ukraine and now around 1,000 people each month are receiving this potentially lifesaving training. The United Nations Development Programme reports that Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world, with up to 23 per cent of the land at risk of contamination by landmines.
  • There’s also a team of people who visit and provide social support to 76 elderly people who have no relatives or family nearby.
  • And, for people who have been displaced by the conflict, often arriving in the city with little or nothing to support themselves, each month the organisation provides them with necessities such as hygiene products, food and clothing.

All of this is a huge amount of work making a significant difference to so many people in her community.

But this is not all Yana is doing…

An audience watches a young woman perform on stage in front of a brightly-decorated set as part of a Christmas drama.

The drama therapy group that Yana’s organisation runs put on a Christmas production that went on tour to four cities in Ukraine. It was a hope-filled story enjoyed by more than 2,300 people! Credit: Tearfund

More about Yana, adoption and hearing God

Yana’s church specialises in supporting adoptive families and their team runs retreats for women and young people throughout Ukraine. And there’s a very personal set of circumstances behind this.

In 2012, Yana and her husband adopted four children.

They already had two biological children but, during her quiet times, Yana says, God kept leading her to verses about caring for widows and orphans. ‘It wasn't like a revelation,’ says Yana, ‘it was very gentle. Little by little. So, I started reading about the biblical approach to adoption and caring for orphans. And I started asking: God are you trying to tell me something? Is there an action that I need to take?

‘I spoke with my husband and my children and we started to pray together as a family, asking God to reveal what he was trying to do.

‘Then, my husband said, “Let's do it like this: let's pray that if this adoption is definitely something from God, then let the children knock on our door themselves and we’ll just adopt however many children come.”'

Not long after that, Yana and her husband had a visit from social workers from a different city. A family with 15 children who Yana and her husband had helped in the past, had moved to that city and mentioned them to social services.

And now, knocking on their door, were four children Yana’s family was being asked to take in.

Yana recalls, ‘They told us: the father is going to jail and the mother has been killed, so the siblings are going to be separated and distributed to different orphanages throughout the country. Would you like to adopt this family?

‘The children had been through horrendous trauma. They had witnessed extremely violent abuse and alcoholism and been exposed to content that was completely damaging and inappropriate. They had been living in terrible conditions in a hut – not even a real house. The children had been subjected to this kind of life from a very early age.’

It was a deeply faith-filled and extremely challenging undertaking.

‘My husband said, “Let's do it like this: let's pray that if this adoption is definitely something from God, then let the children knock on our door themselves and we’ll just adopt however many children come.”’
Yana, Tearfund's local partner in Ukraine

Yana says, ‘Understandably, the four children were so traumatised by everything they had been through, that it was difficult to parent them.’

Yana and her husband felt at a loss. A period of depression followed for the couple as they struggled to cope in this new version of their family.

‘We simply didn't know what to do,’ Yana says.

After about a year and a half of daily struggle, Yana and her husband decided to enrol in a two-year university degree in child psychology, specialising in childhood trauma. Slowly, things began to change as they learnt more about what the children were going through and how to deal with it. The couple, along with the three eldest of the four children, also joined a therapy program for adoptive families.

Eventually, Yana and her husband went on to qualify as trainers in the programme.

‘After about ten years of 24/7 practice in how to live as adoptive parents, we finally started to feel like we were getting somewhere. But it took ten years, no less,’ says Yana.

Now the four children are doing really well. Two are at university studying for therapeutic professions that will help other people once they are qualified, one has started a small business, and the youngest is still in school.

And, just recently, a seventh child has joined the family. Yana and her husband are in the process of adopting a ten-year-old girl who came to them after she was abandoned by her mother. She arrived with no documents and unable to speak because of her deep trauma, but in Yana’s home, she has found a safe place where she will have the opportunity to grow and thrive.

An update on Oleksiy

And of course it’s not only the children who are in her home that are benefitting from Yana’s heart to serve God.

Previously, we shared Oleksiy’s very moving story with you.

Yana’s organisation is the Tearfund partner that provided a place of hope for him, his father and sister after their devastating experiences as a result of the conflict.

Oleksiy has now moved on to secondary school, having completed his primary level education through the organisation. But he, his sister and his father still take part in the drama therapy group that the school runs.

Because of the conflict, Oleksiy’s secondary school learning is all done online. With his dad out a lot of the time looking for work, Yana says the drama club is a great way to make sure Oleksiy doesn’t end up stuck only within four walls, in front of a screen. It’s also an opportunity for him to stay supported by and involved in the church community and continue to feel ‘part of the family’.

Tearfund works with many partners like Yana around the world. Individuals and organisations that provide comfort, hope, safety and practical support for people fleeing conflict and disaster. You can make a difference too by giving and praying.

If you’d like to give, please do so here.

*Names have been changed for protection.

Pray for Ukraine

    • Pray for the peace negotiations and deal-making that is widely expected to take place with the new US administration. Ask for God to bring peace to Ukraine and for an end to the destruction and loss.
    • The front line is very close to where Yana’s organisation is based. They ask for prayer that if they are forced to leave because of the conflict, that God will open the doors and show them where to set up their work.
    • Pray for the post-traumatic stress disorder rehabilitation centre that Yana wants to open. There is a great and pressing need for this kind of input. Pray for them to find the right specialists and resources to be able to do this.
    • Pray for their church as so many different people from varied walks of life are coming into the church. Yana asks for prayer for them to know how to be good shepherds, to have a unified church family, and to have wisdom about how to serve people who may not have anything in common with themselves.

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Written by  Tarryn Pegna

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