Downers Grove Church Helps Move Ukrainians To Safety

DOWNERS GROVE, IL — As Peter Kucher watched the disturbing video coming out of Ukraine last week, he did so with a heavy heart.

Not only was the pastor of Christian Worship Center in Downers Grove watching his home country being invaded by Russian troops, he also did so with the understanding that his sister and her husband were in the center of Kyiv, where much of the bombing was taking place.

On Monday, Kucher received word that her sister and her husband were safe, and were helping other Ukrainian citizens fleeing the devastation. Since then, the church of 200 congregants from 25 different countries has raised $20,000 — all of which will be sent directly to Ukraine to help pay for gas money and other expenses to help people safely leave as the Russian attack continues.

The church plans to wire more money as donations continue to flow in an effort to help any way it can. For Kucher, the fundraising effort is both encouraging and heartbreaking, as he knows that things in his home country will get likely worse before they get better.

Christian Worship Center also holds daily prayer sessions for Ukraine. But Kucher says the small but mighty congregation, only about 10 percent of which comes from Ukraine, wants to help the best it can.

The church is sending 100 percent of the donations to Ukraine and is covering the bank wire transfer fees to ensure that everything that is donated by church members, local residents and community groups makes it to help those in need. The church is also encouraging people to contact their representatives to advocate for the United States to start accepting refugees from Ukraine as millions attempt to flee.

“The need is so overwhelming,” Kucher told Patch on Wednesday. “(The money collected) seems like a lot, but it’s not that much because the need is so overwhelming … it feels good to help, but it’s a drop in the bucket in many ways.”

He added: “We know it helps a lot of people, but there’s so more many to help.”

Kucher says his sister and husband lead a church a Kyiv and managed to escape to the town of Lutsk, where Kucher was born. The couple is now coordinating efforts to help move people out of the war zone by working with pastors in western Ukraine who are coordinating local efforts.

Although Kucher's sister and husband didn’t want to move out of Kyiv and do not want to leave the country as long are there are more people to assist, the effort to help people to safety remains both costly and dangerous.

The couple has started turning local churches into shelters and soup kitchens where people can find safety until they decide where they will go next. Lutsk sits about 40 miles from the Polish border, but passage out of Kyiv has been made difficult as major highways and bridges have either been bombed or occupied by Russian troops.

A trip that once took four hours took Kucher’s sister and husband more than 12 hours because of the round-about way they had to navigate to find safety. Evacuees must go south before they can go west because Russian troops are approaching from the northwest, Kucher said.

Much of the money collected by the Downers Grove church will go for gas to be used by convoys of vehicles that are transporting people to the Polish border. Gas prices are twice what they are in the United States, which makes the need greater to try to assist those in the middle of a horrible situation.

“It’s obviously a huge atrocity,” Kucher told Patch. “It’s an unprovoked attack against Ukraine and, unfortunately, I think things will get much worse before they get better. There will be millions of people fleeing, and a lot of them don’t have the means to flee.”

He added: “We only see a small fraction of what’s actually happening, so it’s bad. It’s worse than we can imagine.”

The church has set up a fundraising page on its website. In time, the congregation hopes to provide a live feed of information and more up-to-date information to give those who donate an idea of how their money is being used.

While many organizations are sending aid to Ukraine, Kucher wants to emphasize that 100 percent of the funds raised by the church are being sent to the country to help the mission of moving people safely out of the war zone.

“We’re just doing our part, and if people want to help, we’ll take it,” Kucher told Patch. “We want to do more.”