Original Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Jesse Bunch
His words barreling past the far pews of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie, the Rev. Jason Charron delivered a fiery sermon on Thursday condemning Russia for invading Ukraine.
Fervor has now turned into action. This past weekend, Father Charron crossed the Ukrainian border, twice.
The church leader wasn’t picking up weapons, instead escorting orphans — 22 of them — across battlefields and borders to bring them to safety in the Czech Republic.
“It was a surreal experience in one sense in that it was kind of like walking into a ghost town on the Ukrainian side of the border,” Father Charron told the Post-Gazette on a Zoom call Tuesday from the Czech Republic.
“You can believe me when I say that there isn’t a whole lot of traffic going into Ukraine at this time,” he continued.
Father Charron began his journey by flying into Poland with Allen Sherwood, a Pittsburgh businessman. From there, the two men crossed the border into western Ukraine.
Outside of Lviv, they met the van of 22 orphans and their guardian to escort them across the border.
With the orphans in tow, they doubled back to Slovakia and landed in the Czech Republic. They now hope to seek more stable refuge in Lithuania.
Their rescue trip came together from a previous connection. Before the war broke out, Mr. Sherwood had plans to adopt a 9-year-old girl in the group.
“He woke up on Thursday morning, and he realized that he made this promise to a little 9-year-old orphan girl,” Mr. Charron said of Mr. Sherwood. “And as a good man, you realize he has to keep his promise. But he doesn’t know Ukraine. He doesn’t know the language, and he doesn’t know any people there. So he shared his plight with me.”
“We have to do this, these kids are in danger,” Father Charron told Matt Blackburn, a parishioner at Holy Trinity on the day he proclaimed his departure on Thursday morning. By Friday, the priest and Mr. Sherwood were on a plane to Helsinki that connected to Warsaw.
With their passports checked by armed soldiers, Father Charron and Mr. Sherwood walked across the border into Ukraine. Cars were extended for miles, Father Charron said, as fleeing civilians clutched whatever belongings they had.
The men knew they had to bring the girl to safety amid reports of heavy artillery strikes from Russian forces. This week, Russian President Vladmir Putin continued a ground and air invasion that’s claimed over 100 lives and displaced thousands of Ukrainian civilians across the country.
Five orphans had turned into more than 20, but as the father of seven, Father Charron is no stranger to wrangling children.
“I think for the kids, like most people in the thick of trauma, time becomes segmented,” Father Charron said as he described meeting 22 children and their guardians packed into a 16-passenger van near Lviv.
“They were just happy that that part of the trip was done. And they were looking for a bed to sleep in at night and to have a meal. And the thought of of going to freedom was not the first thing.”
“They just wanted to get out of a packed van and to be able to breathe without fear of bombs and missiles,” he added.
The priest’s connection to Ukraine runs deeper than the church. Father Charron’s wife, Halyna, is Ukrainian. Her mother is still in the country under siege.
On Thursday, Father Charron gathered his congregation at Holy Trinity for a prayer vigil. It was the day after Russia launched its invasion, and emotion was high among families, children and clergy gathered in Carnegie.
During the sermon, Father Charron said that Mr. Putin’s “end would not be great,” comparing the Russian leader to failed conquerors of history’s past who set their ambitions too high.
“Anyone who knows Father Jason, he’s a pretty tough guy,” said Mr. Blackburn, who asked Father Charron if he was kidding when he revealed his plan. “He said, ‘Nope, I’m getting on a plane.’”
In the meantime, Mr. Blackburn is offering support from home. A veteran of Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey’s team, the parishioner placed calls in recent days to find which border crossings were staffed by U.S. State Department officials.
“You can only plan so far into this,” Mr. Blackburn said. “If you get these kids to Slovakia, or you get them to Poland, or you get them anywhere outside Ukraine, they’re going to be in better shape than they currently are right now.”
Ultimately, Father Charron and his parishioners wanted to help the orphans seek safety in the Untied States on temporary visas. But between issues of guardianship and documentation, they may have to stay in Lithuania.
“But my goal has been amended, simply,” Father Charron said. “When I saw what they had gone through, I amended that to simply getting them to safety.”
Mr. Blackburn said that Father Charron’s mission was well timed. Had Russian forces taken Kyiv, where the orphans were based, their access to social services would have been lost.
“Because events on the ground are unfolding so rapidly, and with brutal force, that we didn’t know if the children would ever be able to get out of the Kyiv area to meet us at our destination at our meeting point,” Father Charron explained.
One interaction on the journey stayed vividly with Father Charron, who described meeting a 24-year-old mother in Kyiv. Seeing the destruction closing in on the capital city, she had fled the country with her 18-month-old baby to give to her husband working in Poland.
The woman did not stay in Poland.
“She stopped and turned around and walked back into Ukraine,” Father Charron said, holding back tears. “That’s where I met her. She returned back to Ukraine without her husband and baby so she could fight against this unjust aggressor.”
“She didn’t know where she was going to live, she didn’t know where she was going to go, but she knew that she certainly could not leave her country,” he continued.
“I don’t know where she went, but that’s a character sketch of the kind of people Vladimir Putin is gonna have to face.”
First Published March 1, 2022, 5:57pm
