LOVES PARK, Ill. — Olga, a single mother in Ukraine’s Odesa region, faces a daily battle—trying to raise her four young children on her own in a war zone.
 
When her husband walked out on her, Olga was left with nothing. Her children went days without food. Olga became anorexic.

Olga is one of thousands of moms and young war widows in Ukraine facing a day-to-day battle against heartbreak, overwhelming anxiety, and devastating poverty as they struggle to raise their children alone in the shadow of explosions and sirens.
 
More than a million men have been conscripted into the Ukrainian army and sent to the frontlines. Tens of thousands of husbands and fathers have been killed. Others—including those suffering from post-traumatic stress—have abandoned their families altogether.
 
“The biggest fear we have is that we’re going to be forgotten,” said Oleksandra Abramchuk, a young mom from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, who moved to the United States last year to escape the war.
 
She, like many other Ukrainian women, agonized over whether to leave her homeland—a decision she made after becoming pregnant with her first child. According to reports, more than four million women have left Ukraine since the war began. Millions more have stayed, facing enormous challenges on their own.
 
“When the war started, my sister-in-law came to our place with her two kids, ages three and five,” Abramchuk recalled. “I could see how stressful it was for her. Every night, you know there’s probably going to be another missile attack. You wake up to sirens in the middle of the night, grab the kids, and head for the shelter in the freezing cold. You’re constantly sleep deprived.”

Night Terror, Mother’s Courage

Olena, a single mom with four children, has to work night shifts at a farm. One night while she was working, her apartment windows were blown out by a drone attack—glass shattering over her sleeping children, injuring two of them. Olena has no choice but to leave them on their own every night—hoping and praying they will see each other in the morning.
 
Kristi Mock, with U.S.-based mission agency Slavic Gospel Association (SGA, www.sga.org), has spent hours listening to mothers like Olena share their stories—women “full of courage and strength.”
 
They have more in common with moms in the U.S. than American women might think, she says.
 
“A lot of the things that single moms in Ukraine deal with are similar to moms’ struggles in America,” Mock said, “things like loneliness, trying to make ends meet, being both mom and dad at the same time, and the fear of the unknown and what lies ahead.”
 
She added: “They are the bravest women I’ve ever met. They’re often alone, trying to hold on to some sort of normalcy, all while comforting their children in the midst of overwhelming fear.”
 
Mock—a grandmother who lives in Illinois—found common ground with young women at a ministry retreat in Ukraine where they shared their different experiences of heartache and loss.
 
“When I shared about the loss of my grandson, it created an instant bond because grief is the same for all of us, wherever we live,” Mock said. “God puts us in places at the right time where we’re challenged in our faith and can encourage each other.”

Healing Broken Hearts

The deepest need in Ukraine, Abramchuk says, is not just food and shelter—but healing broken hearts. As a volunteer with SGA, she has prayed with and counseled Ukrainian moms on the edge of despair—women like Oksana.
 
Deserted by her alcoholic husband, mother-of-five Oksana knows the heartache of being abandoned. But she is not without friends. The pastor of a local church in Odesa supported by SGA noticed Oksana’s children wandering in the street, looking lost. After being invited to the church’s day center, they’ve become part of the “church family,” and Oksana receives practical help in the form of food packages as well as emotional support.
 
The heart-healing that comes from being embraced by local Christians is something that SGA has seen countless times across Ukraine and the former Soviet Union over decades of partnering with local evangelical churches.
 
“If we don’t protect their hearts, they won’t be able to keep going,” said Abramchuk. “When a mom is reminded that she’s worthy in God’s eyes, that’s what touches her the most and gives her the strength to press on.”

MEDIA: To schedule a video or audio interview with Kristi Mock and Oleksandra Abramchuk, contact: DeWayne Hamby dhamby@inchristcommunications.com, (423) 505-0041 (text or phone)

Founded in 1934, Slavic Gospel Association (SGA, www.sga.org) helps “forgotten” orphans, widows and families in Ukraine, Russia, the former Soviet countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel—caring for their physical needs and sharing the life-transforming Gospel. SGA supports an extensive grassroots network of local evangelical missionary pastors and churches in cities and rural villages across this vast region.

PHOTO CUTLINE: COURAGE OF ‘ABANDONED’ MOMS: Abandoned moms and young war widows in Ukraine face heartache, anxiety, and devastating poverty as they bravely try to hold their families together in the midst of overwhelming grief and loss.