For many years The Ark in Kyiv, Ukraine has provided a healthy, happy and safe environment for some of Ukraine’s most at-risk children.

But the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed all that.

After spending 10 days in a Kyiv bomb shelter (in March 2022), 17 children and a few caregivers from The Ark evacuated, under shelling, to a facility in Germany. They will not be permitted to return to Kyiv until The Ark’s property is equipped with its own bomb shelter.

The Ark in Kyiv is a family-style home caring for children without parental care. Their goal is to help children reunite with their biological family or regain a family through domestic foster care or adoption when reunification is not possible. AFFEO has been honored to partner with them.

Given the trauma that the children are still working through from their experience during the early days of the war, Germany is not home but it is providing invaluable safety and protection. With the support of an AFFEO donor, the children were gifted new laptops to allow them to continue remote counseling sessions with psychologists in Ukraine. Several children are finally beginning to talk about their time in the bomb shelter—some of the first critical steps to a path to healing from trauma.

Recently AFFEO‘s Executive Director and her family visited The Ark‘s facility in Germany to support the caregivers by cooking, cleaning, and entertaining the children. Because many Ukrainian caregivers had to stay behind and care for their own families, the few Ukrainian caregivers that evacuated with the children had not had a break in nearly two years. This was a welcome relief for them!

While there is a moratorium on international adoptions until the war is over, domestic adoption and foster care placements continue, as well as family reunification efforts. The Ark has been able to reunite two children with their biological mothers and one child was adopted by a Ukrainian family. Another Ukrainian family is finalizing the adoption of their young daughter from The Ark.

Please keep the children and caregivers in your prayers for:

• Strength, joy, and perseverance as they all long to be back in their country and culture, attending school in their language

• The Lord’s nearness and peace amidst so much uncertainty

• Protection for their friends and family in Ukraine

• Families for the children that remain in need of a safe and loving foster or adoptive family

• Speedy completion of renovations and a bomb shelter in the Kyiv facility

Thank you for your timely investment of prayer into the lives of these and so many other young, vulnerable children around the globe. You are making a difference for them!