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A Spanish Caravan of Strangers Drives Donated Vans to Rescue Ukrainian Refugees

Currents News Staff

Gloria wanted to go to Poland to help Ukrainian refugees escape to Spain to live with host families in different cities in the country. But she needed a van. So she posted an ad on Instagram.

“Out of nowhere, a woman I didn’t know in Valladolid had a van, and I said, ‘well, great.’ I called her and said ‘thank you very much.’ I was a bit uneasy thinking about how a random person was going to let me use her van and put 6000 kilometers on it,” said Gloria. “But she wanted to help and she wasn’t able to go, so she let me use the van.”

She posted another ad on social media to see if others wanted to use their vans to help. In the end, nine more vans signed up. Three from Barcelona, three from Madrid, and three from Asturias.

Through Facebook, she contacted a volunteer in Poland who was able to help her with the logistics of the trip.

“So I was in contact with him and he kept telling me, for example, that we needed people in Barcelona to stay at the border,” Gloria said. “Now that the border is flooded, some should stay and help in Krakow. I kept in contact with all these people and we helped each other.”

Each van would go to the border that needed them most and pick up refugees. On their way back to Spain, they would stop in hotels to sleep and eat – and nobody charged them to pay for anything.

Gloria says this trip left a deep impression on her. She says there was a mix of funny and shocking moments. Like when a Ukrainian girl wouldn’t get out of the car to go to her new home in Spain.

“When we told her that this was her home and that the house was super cool, she suddenly told us that she didn’t want to stay,” Gloria said. “She didn’t want to get out of the car because she had not faced the reality that she had to go to move into another house. The entire trip – the train and car rides – she didn’t seem to be in shock.

“But then all of a sudden, when we got to the house, she didn’t want to stay; she didn’t want to get out of the car. We all got really sad because you realize how difficult it must be for these people to have to leave everything with just the clothes on their backs.”

Gloria and her nine vans were able to bring 65 Ukrainians out of the country to safety, showcasing the beauty of solidarity in action.

Learning the Game of Chess Helps Afghan Children Refugees

Currents News Staff

It’s game time for this special group of students at Stough Elementary in Raleigh, North Carolina. They came to learn the game of chess.

Elshan Moridiabadi is a chess grandmaster – now living in Durham. He introduced the students to kings – queens – bishops – and noble knights.

The students and their families are refugees from their homeland of Afghanistan where chess, some say, was born.

“Both Persia and India claims chess as its own,” said Carol Meyer.

Before long, the students set up their own armies for battle. Meyer, Executive Director of U.S. Chess, says the game itself has been attacked in Afghanistan.

“There was a time back in the early 2000’s when the Taliban government was first installed where chess was actually banned,” Carol said.

With the Taliban back in control, chess may once again become a crime. Principal Chris Cox says here, the game has helped to break down barriers.

“Obviously – in a new place, at a new time – and feeling very foreign to them, this is something that really gives them a little familiarity with something that they love – as simple as the game of chess,” Chris said.

“And again, that’s why we do what we do right? Just to have our kids and see that twinkle in their eyes when they’re learning. And all of these students are still trying to master the English language, so one connection for them with the game of chess has been really, really great.”

In the end, each student took their own new chess set home.

“We see chess as a universal game – and it’s a universal language,” Carol said. “Today these kids were able to move the pieces even though they haven’t yet mastered the language that we were speaking in the room.”

 

How a Ukrainian Teen Refugee Fled To Hungary For School and Safety

Currents News Staff

She’s got a pink backpack, a warm smile and started making new friends. Seventeen- year-old Alla Renska, a Ukrainian, has only been in Budapest, Hungary for a month. In an empty classroom of her new school, Renska says she never thought she’d end up here.

“No…no war. It’s 21st Century. It’s Ukraine. It’s Europe. Why?” asks Alla.

Before the war, she was a normal teenager making goofy videos with her friends, taking selfies. But then she recalled exactly when the war reached where she lived in Kyiv.

“When we heard explosions and our house was shaking,” Alla said.

Her parents made the agonizing decision to send her to stay with friends in Budapest. Alla’s dad took her to the train station on March 4. But in the crush of people also trying to leave, they were separated.

She took pics from the train: a bleak landscape she says matched how she felt. But then, she had an idea. She wrote an email to Korosi Baptist High School, one of the best in Hungary talking about the war and what happened to her.

“I really want to go to school and continue studying,” she wrote. “I kindly ask you to help me.”

Help they did.

The school converted these old containers into dorms  where Alla now lives and studies. Her days are spent in classes and at night. She chats with a few other Ukrainian girls just like her who also fled now living there too, even though she does still miss her family.

“It’s unfair,” she says. “It’s so unfair that I should be here and my parents there.”

The U.N. says more than four million refugees have fled Ukraine since the start of the war more than a month ago.

 

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy Accuses Russia of War Crimes During Address to United Nations

Currents News Staff

A sobering and graphic account of alleged atrocities at the hands of Russian soldiers.

“They killed entire families, adults and children and they tried to burn the bodies,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy demanded accountability telling world leaders that Russia’s actions are no different than a terror group.

“The most terrible war crimes of all times we see since the end of World War II,” he said.

One big distinction he says is that Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

“Where is the security the security council is supposed to guarantee?” Zelenskyy asked.

His address comes just one day after visiting mass graves in Bucha, Ukraine. The scene was a massacre exposed for the world to see. A growing number of leaders, including President Biden, want Russian president Vladimir Putin on trial for war crimes.

“It’s a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to write to commit atrocities,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

NATO is now gathering evidence to prove it, according to the alliance’s U.S. ambassador. Yet the Kremlin is doubling down, calling the massacre, “fake.”

 

Yankees Fans Struck By Lightning While Leaving Spring Training Game

Currents News Staff

It’s not too often people get hit by lighting and live to talk about it. Ashley Moberg and her dad were on their way back to Chicago and shared what they could remember.

“We are big Yankees fans and had never seen spring training,” Ashley said, “so when we heard that the baseball strike had ended we jumped on getting some tickets and I’ve never been to Disney either, so we went to Disney for the first time as well.”

But they ran from a thunderstorm at Steinbrenner field in Tampa on Saturday. The dream trip then became a nightmare when they found themselves under a tree unable to locate their car.

“And there was a bright flash and the loud boom that I heard,” Ashley added. “The next thing I knew I was flying out of my shoes and my ears were ringing and my dad hit his head on the ground and then I hit the ground. I thought my dad was dead for about ten seconds there while I was lying on the pavement trying to figure out whether I had died.”

Her father hit the ground, breaking his cheekbone and the necklace Ashley was wearing: burned through her neck.

“For everyone who is asking,” Ashley said,  “yes, we got super powers and no we are not allowed to talk about them.”

Catholic News Headlines for Tuesday, 4/5/22

The president of Ukraine is making an impassioned plea to the United Nations in the wake of gruesome attacks by Russia in the war-torn country.

Teens forced to leave Ukraine are welcomed with open arms by a school in Hungary.

Why the CDC is about to undergo a sweeping review and possible changes.

How chess is helping Afghan refugee children adapt to life here in the U.S.

CDC Under The Microscope: Agency Will Undergo Sweeping Review

 Currents News Staff

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is used to scrutinizing science. But now, the agency itself is under the microscope. Its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky says the Department of Health will conduct a sweeping review starting next Monday.

In a memo to staff, Walensky says it’s to improve how the agency communicates with the public and consider a restructuring. That news comes the same day as a bipartisan deal Senator Mitt Romney helped negotiate for his chamber.

It’s for $10 billion dollars of COVID relief money. The measure would fund therapeutics like oral antiviral pills and it would support vaccines, testing and research. What it would not do is send money directly to the CDC. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he wants to vote on the measure this week.

“On COVID, very briefly, over the last few days my Democratic colleagues and I continue talks with Senator Romney and Republicans, working all hours of the night and into the weekend,” said Sen. Schumer.

The White House says it would like more money in the plan.

“While we’re very encouraged by the progress,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “we’re going to need more because our objective here is going to make sure we can have funding for antivirals, the vaccines needed for, for people for many months to come.”

Honoring Parish Hero and Future Baseball Hall of Famer Gil Hodges During Memorial Mass in Brooklyn

Currents News Staff

Marking 50 years since the passing of a parish hero: Our Lady Help of Christians in Midwood, Brooklyn held a Memorial Mass for Gil Hodges who is set to become a baseball Hall of Hamer.

The Brooklyn legend was a parishioner at the church and often said a “Hail Mary” before big-league games.

While he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in July, his parish also dedicated their statue of St. Joseph in his honor.