‘One of the worst experiences of my life’: Ukrainian missionary comes to Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — “The whole point of our ministry in Ukraine is to influence the future of the country and the only way to do that is with the kids.”

Vitaliy Simolin is a missionary in Ukraine. His ministry primarily works with orphans.

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But several months a year he comes back to the U.S to recruit volunteers and secure funding.

“I actually flew out of Ukraine, out of eve on 20 February,” Vitaliy said.

That’s what he was doing when the Russians invaded.

“Everybody was saying, ‘don’t come back.’ You could do things we can’t. You could be your voice.”

He was planning to stay in the U.S. for a month until things settled. “That lasted three days.”

He rerouted and bought a ticket to Warsaw, and was in Ukraine the next day. His organization started working on helping people when they got a call.

“The cavalry church got connected with them and they had no way of housing them and they had nowhere to put them, so they reached out to us and said ‘hey we have 42 orphans. Can you guys help out?’ And everybody knows our heart. We automatically said ‘of course.’”

Action News Jax brought you stories of a local man helping these kids for weeks in March. Vitaliy is the man who made it happen.

“We settled them and they stayed over three weeks with us. And then they found another place they wanted to go.”

“The orphanage that 42 kids had lived in was in a bombed-out area. I asked, ‘where else could house 42 orphans plus their teachers?’” It turns out after Ukraine took the region back, their home was still standing.

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“They actually went back to the orphanage, because at that point, when Kyiv got freed from the Russians... the threat wasn’t there anymore so they made a choice to go back and actually put the kids back in their environment or they were comfortable.”

As they left, Vitaly made it clear, “we talked to them and said if anything changes you are always welcome to come back. We will be more than glad to host you and help you with whatever you need.”

He says he, and everyone he knows, will continue their mission.

“It’s not just about Ukraine; it’s about the world. We’re fighting against evil, we’re fighting against the freedom that we had has been taken.”

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