On the third day of the bombing, Ruslana remembered waking up at 6 am, very early. The bombing began in all earnest, so Ruslana and her dad ran to the basement and spent the entire day there. It was a very dangerous day. Sometimes Ruslana could discern the noise of a bomb being dropped, and they waited for the impact. Would it be their house this time? Would they ever climb out of their cellar alive and well?
In the basement, conditions deteriorated. It was extremely hot, humid, and dark; across the city there was no electricity, water, or internet. Cell phone services were not working anymore. They couldn’t read any news, call any friends, or find out what was going on in the outside world. They were sitting in darkness literally and figuratively. At one point, the occupiers agreed to a cease fire for several hours so that people who wanted to evacuate could leave the city. The notice of the cease fire came at 6:00 a.m. The evacuation was planned for 10:00 a.m. This was the day that Ruslana and her dad decided to leave Pervomaisk. They packed up some of their documents and some clothes, just what they could carry, grabbed their laptop, and, with their neighbors, evacuated the city by car.
All during this week of bombardment, Ruslana had not known where Anton was or if he was even still alive. They had no way of staying in touch, as neither internet nor cell phones were working. One thing Ruslana had heard was that one bomb had landed on the rehabilitation center, but no news about Anton’s whereabouts were available. She was emotionally torn up.
A huge convoy of people left the city that day, Ruslana and her dad among them. The evacuees met at the city center. There was only one road cleared to drive out of Pervomaisk; all other roads were blocked or bombed out. Ruslana did not want to leave the city without finding out about Anton. Was he alive, or dead, or injured? But her dad would not let her stay and insisted that she had to leave with him – right then, right now.
Ruslana’s dad actually took the lead and drove his car out of town first, followed by everyone who would and could leave Pervomaisk that day. The tragic irony of this day was that even though many people brought suitcases with them to the city center to be part of the evacuation transport, there was no room in the few cars to fit their belongings. It was simply more important to take people out than personal belongings. People had expected buses to be ready for the evacuation, provided by either the Ukrainian government or the occupying forces. But there were no buses. People simply had to ask those with cars if they had room for them, and the belongings had to be left behind. The people were leaving their lives behind. And time was ticking – the cease fire would soon end and the bombing would resume.
Anton did finally manage a call to Ruslana during the evacuation – he was alive, and uninjured. Just hearing his voice calmed Ruslana down in the panicked atmosphere of the moment. But they could not get to him and he could not get to them. He was going to stay behind and help with the evacuation of more people from Pervomaisk and the surrounding cities. Ruslana said a supernatural calm overcame her, and she realized that even though her life was falling apart literally all around her, with God she was safe and secure.
Once the convoy got under way, the road conditions were terrible and it was dangerous to drive on the bombed-out streets. Their flight from the city was miraculous, Ruslana said, because they experienced no air raids or attacks on their way to the first city of refuge. Many people expressed astonishment and wonder that the convoy had arrived safely. Being protected and reaching safety unharmed was a true miracle.
The evacuees kept traveling onward, not really knowing where they were going. No one knew where they would spend the night, where the next meal would come from. One Christian family found out that there was a refugee camp in the city Sumy and told Ruslana and her dad about it. Father and daughter traveled there together, reached the camp, and lived there for the next two to three weeks. This was the initial evacuation phase.
Everyone was still expecting that after several weeks, a return home would be possible. But there would be no return; that became clear very soon, said Ruslana. Incidentally, after she and her dad left their home and their basement shelter, a bomb did hit their yard, and the basement was greatly damaged. Ruslana sees God’s complete protection over her life and is grateful her dad was also safe and had evacuated with her.
After she left Pervomaisk, and after living temporarily at the camp in Sumy, Ruslana moved to and lived in a refugee center in Poltava, where she spent her most horrible birthday ever, she said. By now it was August 2014. In the meantime, her mom had arrived in a village near Kyiv. There, inquiring at the city hall about help for refugees, her mom was told that there was a house available from the mayor, which she could manage and occupy with her family. This became the family’s new residence, and Ruslana and her dad soon joined her mom there.
Then one day Anton called her and told her he was near Pervomaisk in a town called Severodonetsk. He wanted Ruslana to come to him so they could get married while still on the run as refugees. Anton was helping Elisey Pronin with evacuating more and more people out of Pervomaisk and the surrounding cities. Ruslana’s parents were initially not in agreement about these wedding plans. They advised Anton and Ruslana to wait till the war was over. So Ruslana had to keep any further plans a secret from her parents. Including her sister in a ‘wedding conspiracy’, she bought train tickets to join Anton in Severodonetsk.
But in the end, Ruslana did tell her mom that she was leaving to get married. Her mom resigned herself to the fact of young love and only stipulated that Ruslana must come back to the Kyiv region where the family was now living. Ruslana arrived on Sunday and lived with family friends in Severodonetsk. On Monday, she and Anton met with Elisey and talked about the wedding and decided that it could take place on Friday. Since no wedding clothes could be found in this area so close to the war zone, Ruslana and Anton decided to buy matching T-shirts and jeans as their wedding attire. A ladies group from the Baptist church in Pervomaisk, which had regrouped in Severodonetsk, prepared the details of the wedding event, decorated simply, and baked and cooked for the celebration. And then on Friday, September 12, 2014, they had the wedding – and Ruslana became Anton’s wife. Ruslana’s parents could not come to the wedding, but they have embraced Anton as their son-in-law.
Shortly after the wedding, Anton received an invitation to take some Ukrainian children from the war zone to the United States of America. Anton received his visa and was able to take the group of children to the US in the spring of 2015. Ruslana, in the meantime, was trying to recover from the trauma she had experienced. They lived in Chernivtsi at this time, where Ruslana knew no one. It was a very dark time for her; she became depressed, felt physically exhausted from the ordeal of the previous months, and missed Anton terribly. Anton, meanwhile, attended church in the US and met a nice family, with whom he became good friends. When Anton came back to Ukraine, he stayed in touch with this family and their relationship deepened. Ministry in Ukraine continued during the spring and summer of 2015.
The US church also took a great interest in supporting Anton in his ministry in Ukraine. Anton did not know where to live, where to work, what to do. His calling was to minister to people. But going home to Pervomaisk was not an option; the city was occupied, the church had been burned down. Anton stayed in close contact with Elisey Pronin. Elisey had already decided by this time to move his family to L’viv and to work at the seminary, UBTS. The Pronin had spent some time in the US recuperating from the war trauma they had experienced and moved to L’viv in the summer of 2015. Then Elisey invited Anton to join him in L’viv, do ministry together, and plant a new church. Ruslana and Anton decided to pray about this opportunity. They agreed that God’s plan for them was to move to L’viv and join Elisey in his ministry. They moved to L’viv in the fall of 2015. Anton was able to share this ministry opportunity with the US church and with his American friends. The church decided to support Ruslana and Anton financially and also in prayer.