Photo provided to the Times Observer Warren’s second family of Ukrainian refugees in a photo taken at church on Christmas Eve. Andrii and Khrystyna, right and center, with their son, Mark, and Khrystyna’s mother, Lyuba.

A county connection made on the other side of the world was the impetus for a series of events that brought a second Ukrainian family to Warren County as refugees.

Andrii and Khrystyna, their two-year-old son Mark arrived in Warren in early November. Her mother, Lyuba, followed several weeks ago.

And it started with a connection with a nurse from Warren County who was working in Ukraine with the relief agency Samaritan’s Purse.

Andrii said that when war broke out, he sent his Khrystyna and Mark to Spain to live with family while he stayed in Ukraine to help.

He volunteered for four months with Samaritan’s Purse efforts in Kyiv and then with Doctors Without Borders.

At the same time, Jonie Smitley, who serves as an international relief nurse with Samaritan’s Purse and was Warren County’s COVID-19 infectious disease nurse during the peaks of the pandemic, was serving in Ukraine.

“Her driver in Ukraine was Andrii,” Tom Pierotti, the family’s sponsor, explained. She “said she knew a family that wants to come. We said sure, let’s start there.”

The decision to come here in the first place, though, is one most of us can’t fathom.

Volunteering in the country – and having friends in the Ukrainian Army – brought Andrii into close contact with the war.

He said there is not much he can share in front of his wife and child.

“Many, many, lots of stories to tell,” he said. “These are very scary things, violence.”

There’s torture – reports of fingers being cut off by members of the Russian military, using a drill on someone’s head.

“Not every person can endure it,” he said. “How cynical and cruel should one be?”

He added that one can “never understand” war “until (you) see it or experience it.”

There was a language barrier to overcome in talking with them but their reason for leaving the country and coming to the United States couldn’t have been clearer – Khrystyna pointed at their son and said “Mark.”

“In principle, we never planned to leave,” Andrii said, but “left everything. (But) for Mark we wouldn’t have come here.”

He explained that many Ukrainian children are experiencing psychological problems from explosions, sirens and time spent in old basements. He said their house was 500 meters from a train station and associated strategic plant.

That brought a rocket strike to 500 meters from their front door.

The process of coming to America as a refugee doesn’t happen overnight, though.

There’s a wealth of information for the family and Pierotti to file with the federal government. Pierotti said that one wrong letter in an email address held up the process for weeks.

But once everything was settled, they flew from Madrid to New York City and then from NYC to Buffalo, arriving in Warren about 3 a.m. on Nov. 6.

Then, once they were here, there were challenges in getting them signed up for all the benefits that refugees are eligible for.

“This whole experience for me has been the most stressful of any period of time that I’ve had in my life,” Pierotti said. “On the other hand, it’s also been the most rewarding. The joys of it far overcome the difficulties and the difficulties have been almost entirely bureaucratic.”

What the future holds for this family isn’t clear.

Andrii said they like it here but want to return home, though he acknowledged that it’s not known when the war will end.

In the short term, Pierotti said Andrii will be taking an expedited CDL course in Philadelphia over the next few weeks, so chosen because he will be able to take the course from instructors that speak Ukrainian.

“The people here are very nice,” Andrii said, and “help us in everything.”

He specifically identified Pierotti, Smitley, Elsa Redding, Don and Kate Reed and David and Andrea Genung.

“(We’re) grateful to Tom and all the people that help us,” he said.

“I’ve thought about the story of Jesus in Egypt a lot as a refugee. I’m sure Andrii’s primary motivation is the safety of Mark,” Pierotti added. “I’m honored to be a part of it.”