“All this work is coordinated by the Diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr, led by Salesian Bishop Vitalii Kryvytskyi. He asked us for concrete help and in fact, all the trucks arrive fully loaded,” adds Fr Andrej Politch, a Salesian from the Krakow Province, active in Ukraine. He then illustrates some logistics-related details to Michal Krol and Fr Roman Sikon, of the Salesian communication team giving testimony to the tragedy of war: “At the base of the truck, we put the boxes with food, as they are the heaviest and would otherwise crush those underneath. These boxes occupy more or less 60% of the load; on top, instead, go the boxes with lighter materials, such as sheets, sleeping bags, medicines.”

The message of gratitude to the Salesians comes from many voices. Even from Tatiana, a young Ukrainian refugee who has been hosted by the Salesians in Krakow for three weeks now. “First of all, I want to thank you on behalf of all the Ukrainians you are warmly welcoming here,” she said during a testimony in a church packed with faithful. “It’s thanks to you that we can survive this war here.”

The young woman also remembers the terrible moments of her escape from home, when she did not know what to take with her and what to leave behind, and in the end, she had to leave without any heavy clothes to help her cope with the cold. Today, she adds, “we are praying continuously for the war to end, and I ask all of you to do the same.”

Andre and Roma, aged 14 and 15, are also being hosted by the Polish Salesians today. Before, they were passing acquaintances in Ukraine, but their escaping to Poland made them almost brothers: they embarked on a nearly 20-hour journey, 17 people crammed into a car approved for 7 people, but when they arrived at the border, they learned that the men could not leave the country. “So they got another car to go back and another family joined us, with my mother driving,” Andre recalls.

Now the two boys are together all the time and go to the "St. John Bosco" oratory in Warsaw, where they meet other young refugees like themselves and share concerns, games, and dreams. "We didn't know the Salesians before, but my mother saw a Ukrainian flag on the door and thought it was an information point. When we got home, she told us that she had found a wonderful place that was a big family,” Roma testified to Alberto López, of "Misiones Salesianas."

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