WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — As tensions continue to mount in Eastern Europe, many living in Rhode Island who have family and friends overseas grow anxious as each day passes.
Vira Koldyk’s life is in Warwick with her husband and twin girls, but the rest of her family is back home in Ukraine.
This past weekend was tough for Koldyk as Russian soldiers were closing in on Ukraine’s capital, getting closer and closer to where her family is living.
“Can you imagine yourself living in Rhode Island and everything is fine in R.I., but in every state around you 9/11 or the Boston Marathon Bombing is happening every half an hour or every hour? You are safe, but your heart breaks for people, for your country for your loved ones,” she explained. “This is what I feel.”
Koldyk says that even though she is worried, she is also encouraged because her sister and nieces have started praying, something Koldyk says has been her lifeline through the chaos and distance.
“I cry out to the Lord, I cry out, I beg him and he immediately answers with peace,” she said. “All of a sudden, all of a sudden you feel like it’s gonna be OK. You don’t know exactly how it’s gonna be but you feel like God is saying ‘I got this.'”
For Koldyk, she says sometimes that assurance comes in a visual. She says she is part of a prayer group that prays for many aspects of the war in Ukraine and for her elderly mother living there along with her nephew and brother-in-law fighting there.
One day, two weeks ago, Koldyk says her group prayed specifically for angels to protect Ukraine, its people, its troops by covering it with their wings — then her mom sent her a photo of clouds in the form of angel wings.
“It did not look fake for me it looked very real, I don’t know, but what I know is that I immediately felt that that was the answer to my prayer, to our prayers,” she said about the photo.
Some other answers to their prayers are coming in the form of aid being sent to Ukraine.
