He’d been simply and peacefully living his life in the Donbas region of Ukraine. Then Russia’s war machine invaded the wide-open fields neighboring his village in the early days of 2014.
We’re sitting at the end of Dmitro Isaiev’s kitchen table in Arad, Romania, on an early spring afternoon of 2025 when he tells us how the frontlines with Russia fell not three miles from his home back in the Ukraine region of the Donbas.
For nearly eight years from 2014 to 2022 as more than 2 million Ukranians fled the war-torn region, Dmitro lived on the edge of the war with his door wide open to offer shelter to fellow Ukrainian refugees displaced by unprovoked violence.
“One of the elderly women in our church, she’d started to prepare 150 portions of food every day, pelmeni dumplings, for the war refugees in our region. 85 years old. Making 150 servings of dumplings every day.” Dmitro passes down a plate of cookies to us. “That was her heart responding to the grief and loss of the people.”
Just before dawn on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-blown invasion and dozens of missiles struck cities throughout Ukraine, Dmitro himself sought a safe haven.
He found it here in the Christian community of Romania.
“If we as Ukranians fleeing the war had found Romanians closed to us, it would have been an anti-witness of Christ, or really a witness of Antichrist.” Dmitro sets down the pot of coffee in the center of the table in his small home on a quiet Romanian side street.
“The nature of Christ’s people is to be open.” Dmitro speaks quietly, humbly.
While Russia had been building a military presence for full-scale assault on the people of Ukraine, Romanians, including Harvest Church in Arad under the servant leadership of pastor Cristian Barbosu, had been building a compassionate welcome, preparing to be a refuge for fleeing Ukranians.
Sitting next to Dmitro at his table now in Arad are his new friends, Romanian members of Harvest Church, Delia and Nelu Vat, who have opened their lives and home to countless Ukranians since the Russian invasion.
Delia says, reaching for coffee, “Even if you don’t have what you think is enough or have the perfect home to receive people, all you have to do is open your heart.” Dmitro nods.
She continues, “If your heart is open, then you can open your home.” Her eyes find mine, and I’m not sure I’d ever heard it so succinctly: When your heart is open, you’ll open your doors. Whether doors are open or closed is more than the policy of a state—it’s ultimately reflective of the state of people’s hearts.
“Even before the refugees came to us, we started going to the refugees,” Barbosu says, leaning forward, hands animated, pointing to the window. “We were going to three major points right in Ukraine with help and aid and food and supplies.”
The trip from Arad to Ukraine takes over 14 hours, but Barbosu and his congregation at Harvest Church opened their own homes and partnered with various organizations to rent a hotel, where they also brought in dozens of fridges and gas stoves to create a huge kitchen.
They then welcomed Ukranians, offered them a doctor’s weekly services, created care teams to help find employment and secure necessary documents, and offered the warm community of church and the hope of Jesus.
Committed Christians from Harvest Church still, three years into the war, give up their weekends to drive into Ukraine a van and trailer—purchased by Harvest Church specifically to help Ukrainians—packed with donated clothes and food.
Delia’s husband, Nelu, reaches across the table to show me photos of an industrial generator they donated. Nelu and a team of volunteers from the church drove the generator into Ukraine to help a church become also a medical clinic and school.
In Suceava, near Romania’s northeastern border with Ukraine, Harvest Church partnered with Fight for Freedom ministry to refurbish an abandoned building into a care center for at-risk Ukrainian children.
“Russians were stealing the orphans. They stole hundreds of orphans—so we supported Fight for Freedom to move orphaned and at-risk children out of the war zone in Ukraine, into safety in Romania,” says Barbosu.
“We also sent people from our church to serve there, to help care for children at the life center, while we’ve also connected with La Seve, a French Christian association that has come with buses of volunteers from France to help care for these Ukrainian at-risk children who have lost families in the war with Russia.”
Dmitro offers his guests another cup of coffee and speaks softly: “When I came here, I had very bad teeth. A pastor here in Romania paid 3,000 euro for my dental work. It was a little bit uncomfortable for me, to take such huge help, because I understand that the pastor wasn’t at all rich to give such a big investment, but that’s what the Romanian pastor told me: ‘I did it only because of Christ. Because I love Christ, I love you. And you don’t owe me anything.’”
There’s a kind of Christian love that embodies cruciform generosity because the image of God is in all of humanity.
“And let’s be honest,” Dmitro flashes a beautiful smile as he looks toward his Romanian friends, Delia and Nelu, across the table. “Nelu doesn’t maybe need me to help him, but he called me to come work for him because he knew that I didn’t have work and I am trying to support my family. I tried to help Nelu how I was able to help, but I understand that Nelu really offers me work because of his heart and his kindness and because he loves God so much.”
Dmitro is still smiling. Nelu and Delia, moved, humbly try to brush off any praise. Dmitro leans forward: “One of the most important things in life is that no one should play at Christianity. You should actually live Christianity every day. Real Christians have God in their hearts.”
Dmitro’s voice hardly carries down the table, but we are all still, trying not to miss a word from the Ukrainian who has found Christ in the Romanian church: “Nominal Christians? They may go to church, they may even serve in the church. But the main difference between real Christians and nominal Christians is, if someone has issues, struggles, or grief in their life, the real Christian will immediately be ready to act, like immediately, because this is the nature of their new heart. They can’t not act.”
Dmitro looks down the table: “The nominal Christian—they kind of don’t care.”
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