An American businessman from Pittsburgh and his Ukrainian parish priest accomplished the heroic feat of rescuing the child he intended to adopt and 21 other orphans along with a busload of refugees.
EWTN News Nightly featured the remarkable story of the priest, Fr. Jason Charron, and his parishioner, Allen Sherwood, who braved flying to Ukraine from Pennsylvania at the start of the Russian invasion to rescue the endangered orphans.
"It wasn't easy coming in. It wasn't easy coming out...everyone is leaving, no one is going to Ukraine...We have to figure out how to go down to Ukraine," Charron recounted.
Charron is the pastor of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church. As an Eastern Catholic Church, Charron is married to Halyna, who he met in Lviv. They have seven children with aged two to 21.
According to reports, the little girl visited Sherwood and his wife, Anita, last year--months before the invasion through the aid of Charron. The Sherwoods were looking for a child to adopt and Charron connected them with an orphanage in Ukraine. The orphanage brought the couple a beautiful little girl last Christmas for a home visit.
The couple and the rest of the parish immediately fell in love with the little girl during her visit. As such, Sherwood promised the little girl before she left that if she was ever in danger, he would rescue her. So he did.
Charron told the Ukrainian Catholic University that Sherwood "flew into action" as soon as the Russian tanks started to cross the border of Ukraine. Sherwood has never been to Ukraine nor is he able to speak Ukrainian. But he disregarded these along with the terms the orphanage director in Kyiv gave them that they must rescue all the children if they want to rescue the little girl.
Charron and Sherwood managed to arrive in Poland before taking a taxi to Ukraine's Lviv where they are met by four staff members and 22 orphans in a 15-person van. The van traveled 343 miles from Kyiv to get there, yet the children were happy.
"It was a lesson for me that, no matter what you go through, there is always a choice of whether to be despondent or joyful," Charron recalled.
The parish priest and his parishioner were able to acquire a tour bus good for 55 persons. The bus would help them cross the border safely from the cold and keep them comfortable from standing in line for days at the border. They then filled the bus with other refugees after the children and staff got in.
However, the children forgot to bring their passports when they left Kyiv in the rush of escaping. Thus, making it impossible to bring them to the United States for the time being. From Lviv, Charron and Sherwood then decided to journey to Lithuania-475 miles away-just to keep the children safe and to complete the fulfillment of Sherwood's promise.
"Our main objective was just to save all those kids," Charron said.
Lithuania announced at the beginning of this month that they are ready to accept refugees into their territory. The Lithuanian government also revealed that Ukrainian refugees can start work immediately in the country.
Thus, in a week's time, the Lithuanian Migration Department revealed that 3,235 Ukrainian refugees have already registered in their country. This prompted the government to open three more registration centers for those coming in. The Migration Department announced last week that their available accommodation is declining with 14,000 Ukrainian refugees already in their territory.
UNICEF revealed that 1.5 million children have already fled Ukraine as of March 15 because of the war. A number that reflects half of the total Ukrainian refugees reported by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.
