Help Iryna and Daughter Bring Hope to Ukraine

PLEASE know this is NOT about politics. It’s about helping, serving, and loving people.

Hello, friends,

My name is Iryna Brooks. My family has been residents of Seymour, TN since 2008. We have been involved in the community helping and serving. My husband, Hunter, is the Food Rescue Coordinator at Second Harvest Food Bank, and I am a middle school teacher at The King’s Academy, a small Christian school.

As many of you know, I am Ukrainian by birth – I lived there till the age of 19 when I immigrated to the US by myself. My entire family is still in Ukraine and, unfortunately, has been living under occupation for the last 11 years.

Since the war started, I have been blessed to be able to go over to Romania and Ukraine multiple times, volunteering at the refugee centers, taking care of refugees, and delivering humanitarian aid to the internally displaced people in several areas of Ukraine. Many of you have heard me share about these trips, and a lot of you have played a huge role in making them a reality through prayer and support.

A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by an organization, the Wings of Hope, that takes teams to Ukraine to volunteer with a church whose ministry is focused on orphans and disabled people. Within a couple of days, several other organizations contacted me. We, as a family, have prayed and believe God is wanting me and my daughter to go over to Ukraine for 6-7 weeks this summer. We will start our volunteering in Western Ukraine, serving orphans and disabled people. Then, we will travel to an area in the northwestern Ukraine and volunteer at the church that focuses on helping internally displaced people. They also try to help young people (mostly teens and young adults) to have as normal life experiences as possible including virtual school. I will be able to help the volunteers at the church navigate education aspect using my experience as a teacher while my daughter will be able to establish friendships and lead volleyball camps. We will also be visiting churches in the area whose focus is on helping orphans. We will be able to establish relationships with several orphanages and connect them with Wings of Hope who in turn will start supporting these orphans. We also will be helping to transport several orphans from near front lines to the security of the Carpathian Mountains. We truly believe that this is where we are supposed to spend our summer.

This is a big trip and a lot of things still need to work out and doors opened. I would covet your support on this mission. How can you help? First and foremost, please pray: pray for doors to open, pray for the love of God to be witnessed by the people of Ukraine who have been going through the unimaginable for the last 3 years, pray for safety (it is a country in the midst of war), pray for finances to become available – this trip is expensive and in the natural, we cannot afford it. However, we serve a God who is a God of the impossible. And please, pray for God to provide all the necessary finances for the tickets, lodging, and food in Ukraine and travel across the country.

Since this horrible war started, my family has lost 9 people. One of them was my dad, and unfortunately, I was denied the opportunity to tell him goodbye or go bury him. This is an opportunity to be able to go share the love of Jesus with my people, people who did not ask for this war but are staying there and fighting. I have talked to hundreds of refugees in the last 3 years, and one thing is evident – these people are hurt, they have lost most of their possessions, lost family members and friends, and lost their way of life. But we have an opportunity to work together and bring a little bit of hope to these precious people.

Thank you for being my village and for your unwavering support. We CANNOT do it without you and your support.

On our past trips, this is what we were involved with: doing laundry, cooking, loading vans with supplies to take to Ukraine, cleaning, playing with kids, building a playground and trampoline, weed-eating, clearing brush, putting a net around a volleyball court, putting bunk beds together, laying mattresses for refugees to sleep on, distributing bags of food in frigid cold in Ukraine, etc. Just trying to give these people some sense of normality. We have the opportunity to help again.