Max and his family are beginning a new life in America, and Thrive Center is one step in their journey.

On February 24th, Max and his wife woke up abruptly. There were loud bangs, and the building they lived in was shaking at its foundation. The city was reverberating with explosions. In the distance, they could see smoke and flames rising along the edges of the eastern skyline. For many Ukrainians, the rumors of war had been on the horizon for a long time. Still, no one believed that the day would happen, but staring out the window, the horror of war began to come into focus. Kharkiv, a cultural hub of art and industry and home to the sprawling Freedom Square, was under attack.

Grabbing what few belongings they could fit into their car, they scooped up their 2 small children, still sleeping in bed, and drove to the nearest gas station, only to find that nearly every family in the city of 1.5 million people was doing the same thing. After waiting over 2 hours, they filled up and began their journey west. They planned to leave the country and move toward Finland, where they had a close relative. However, short distances do not equal quick travel in times of war. They spent days navigating toward the nearest border. On the long drive west, they reflected on the many things they left behind. Max owned a barber shop (which they wondered if it was still standing), and they were an integral part of a church congregation that they wondered if they’d ever see again. Thankfully their young children slept through many parts of the trip; still too young to understand the seriousness of the situation, and that was a blessing to parents doing their best to hide their own fear.

The eeriest part of their journey, Max says, was the night they finally got out past the traffic, taking back roads through the countryside; where they would typically have seen the lights from the nearby cities, there was only deep darkness due to power outages. On this same night, driving fast, Max suddenly came upon a military tank with no reflectors parked in the middle of the road. With no time to stop, he swerved and missed it by inches, avoiding a severe accident. “There were so many things to be thankful for,” he says while thinking about those first few days.

“I don’t know much English,” Max says, “doing his best to choose the words from the ones he knows carefully, “but I think the word is ‘lucky.’ Even from the first day of the war, I knew that there was somewhere else that we could go, but for many people in my city, I know that they had nowhere else to go.” 

When they finally crossed the border, Max and his family, like many others in the early days, chose to travel to Mexico, where they could cross the border with humanitarian parole status. (In the months after, President Biden would announce the U for U program, allowing a person from the United States to sponsor a Ukrainian family member and grant them two years of humanitarian parole via air travel.) Crossing the Tijuana border, they headed north to Spokane to meet Max’s family, including his parents, who had moved to the US several years before. That’s how he and his family heard about Thrive Center. After spending a few months living with a family member, Thrive Center was the perfect place for Max and his family to have a room, independence, and some time to plan their next move. 

“The thing that I want people to understand about Ukrainian people is that we do not like to be helped. We are hard workers who want to work. It is good that we get so much help and support, but I can’t do that forever.”

This desire for independence is why Max and his family moved out after two months of staying at Thrive Center; they felt like others needed it more. After finding an apartment with the help of a relative (another thing that he reflects on as ‘lucky’), Max and his wife are looking toward an American future. When I ask him if he will ever return to Ukraine if the war stops, he says, “no, we are here forever; this is our home now. Even if the fighting stops, it will never be safe. There will be bombs and weapons left over that people will be finding for years. That is not a safe place for a family.”

Max is now eagerly awaiting his work authorization to cut hair legally in Spokane and work toward his own shop like he once had in Kharkiv. His wife and son attend English classes and are connecting with people eager to help. 

“One thing that has surprised me is how many people from the United States who have helped us. As soon as we got to the border from Ukraine, there were people telling us what to do and where to go. When we go to Mexico, Americans were telling us what to do and then coming to Spokane - again - people who helped us. It has been difficult, but we have had a lot of help.”

When I asked him if he had one thing to say about Thrive Center, he said, “It is a good place, good people who care - I don’t know the word - maybe the word is ‘sacrifice’? The people there gave a lot to make a place for us.