What can happen when a stranger offers hope

Anna is a single mother who was living in Kharkiv with her 8-year-old daughter when the war broke out.

On the 24th of February at 4:45am we heard weird sounds that reminded me of an explosion. I came up to the window and saw pillars of fire and smoke. There was a smell of burning which I will never forget. This picture is still in front of my eyes. I woke my daughter up with the words ‘Baby, get up we are being bombed’. Thus, our life was divided between “before” and “after”. I grabbed my child and a bag with the documents and we ran. We hid in the basement of a neighbor's house for 10 days. But when Russian artillery started to shell civilian objects and houses intentionally, we could not stay there and ran to the railway station to evacuate.

 We didn’t know where we were going, we just fled anywhere. While on the train, I found some contact in the Lviv region. A stranger woman met us and hosted us in her house. We are so grateful for that. We lived there for 8 months until we met the team from WelcomeNST. 

 ***Since Anna wrote this story, she was matched with an NST in Utah and has recently arrived to her new home.