Tim Bailey and his father Doug Bailey are pictured in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series exploring Webster City and Webster City Rotary’s connection to Ukraine. As you will read, the writer, Doug Bailey, is working from an intensely personal perspective.

The Romanian Border Guard waved us through. Following David McGuire’s van in the lead, we crossed over the Ukraine border.

Shiney new razor wire greeted us. This had a more serious feel.

The Ukrainian border guards were all in military camo and armed. There seemed to be an even split between male and female — all business, regardless. They brought both of our vehicles into a brightly-lighted, covered area. David got out, again with the chocolate-filled pastries. Tim and I stayed in Scooby Doo with the paperwork describing our load and our passports at the ready.

We could see that the guards took the pastries from David, putting them under a counter without any change in their composure, no grin, no acknowledgement. Video cameras covered the area from every angle. They took David’s paperwork and motioned him back to his van. He hollered at us that they would be coming for our paperwork soon: “Give ’em the pastries.”

David has now made this border crossing hundreds of times over the two-plus years. He had given us several pointers. Key of which was that after being cleared at the first checkpoint, the guard would give you two receipts that would need to be presented at a second checkpoint before you could exit the crossing area.

“Don’t lose them,” he warned. “You have to have them to get out.”

Our Roma buddy, Cristi, told us that the last time he made the trip David had misplaced the receipts in the two-minute drive to the exit check point and it was a very big problem.

The guard came over and took our paperwork and passports. He looked us over with a flashlight shining into our faces and comparing us to the pictures in our passports. Pretty much just like in the movies. Tim handed him a couple of plastic-wrapped pastries. He tucked them in his coat, turned and walked away and then we waited.

After 15 or 20 minutes a couple guards came out and had David open the door to the trailer, just a crack and shined a flashlight in for a moment and closed it up. They walked around to the back of our van and Tim started to get out and one of the guards turned and shook his head no.

Tim got back in. They just shined flashlights in the back window and that was it.

They went back inside with David. In another 15 or 20 minutes David came walking out of the guard building with another guard who brought our paperwork over to Tim’s window and pointed to the exit check point. David flashed us a big smile and got in his van.

I was holding on to the two receipts. We followed David to the exit check point. David stopped at the checkpoint and then pulled ahead and stopped out on the street to wait for us. We drove up to the checkpoint, handed over the receipts and we were out.

I had written down that we arrived at the Romanian side of the border at 7:15 p.m. It was 9:02 p.m. as we exited the second Ukrainian checkpoint. No wonder there were miles of trucks backed up waiting to get in.

The GPS showed 34 minutes to the church in Chernivtsi, which was our destination. The steady drizzle we had been driving in for the last few hours had not let up; at least it had not turned back into snow. The countryside was black. The darkness as we entered the city changed little. We were in a country that was at war; it was a blackout.

I had not thought about that.

We got to the church without issue at 9:36 p.m. We were warmly greeted in the parking lot, and ushered inside out of the weather.

David McGuire did indeed have friends everywhere.

The Basilica Elim Christian Center has been under construction for more than 20 years. Right before the Russian invasion, the Bible college wing had just enrolled its first class. The students had all been sent home.

We would be sleeping in one of the dorm rooms that was now used for volunteer teams. Many of the rooms were now occupied by approximately 50 refugees from all over the areas of fighting. They were all family units or portions of families.

We put our things in our assigned dorm room and then went to the college dining and kitchen area for a late night meal that had been prepared for us. David asked me to give the blessing for the meal.

I was asked to pray quite often in our interactions with volunteers, missionaries, ministers and refugees. Tim had explained to me that since I was usually the oldest person in whatever the setting was, it was an honor — recognizing the elder.

Sergai, the minister in charge of refugee services at the church, explained to us that he would give Tim and I a tour of the facility in the morning after we unloaded the food and clothes. He introduced us to a couple young men in their late 20s who were drivers that would deliver food bundles out to the towns and villages that are up to 10 kilometers from the front lines. They told us that depending on where they were, they would only have about 3 minutes to unload the food packages before a Russian observation drone would spot them, or a Russian sympathizer would call in their location and then mortar or artillery rounds would be falling on that site.

On that note we went to bed.

During breakfast, the giving of the chocolate filled pastries to the border guards came up in conversation. David said he had been offering treats to the border guards ever since he started making these runs.

“It may not seem like a big deal to us,” he offered, “but these people work very long hours, often in miserable weather and with border crossers who are not in very good moods; the giving of these pastries are a simple act of kindness. I don’t expect special treatment; that is not the purpose.”

After breakfast we pulled the vehicles up to what would be the entrance to the sanctuary. The rain had passed, and it was a nice bright day. The sanctuary was still being worked on at the start of the war. Construction work on the sanctuary was halted, and it now served as a warehouse.

This particular load of food had been provided by an American organization, Bread of Life Charity, that has a location in northern Romania. David had been introduced to the American principal of the organization at a soccer game in Sighisoara last summer and had been working with them ever since.

The church had plenty of help to unload the boxes of food and the trailer load of clothing. Sergai showed Tim and I how the warehouse was organized and where the bulk packaging was broken down into individual bags for individuals and families. He explained that there are more than 100,000 refugees in and around Chernivtsi. Every week they serve 300 to 400 refugees from the area with the help of some of the refugees who are staying at the church. Also, every week they are delivering van loads of food out to the towns and villages, near, far and out to the front. They use churches as distribution points, even if the church has been destroyed.

They provide food to anyone who shows up, including Ukrainian Defense Forces if they are in the area.

“Church member or not, Christian or not, we will do this for as long as we can,” Sergai volunteered.

Sergai took us to the refugee’s pharmacy that was staffed by husband and wife pharmacists from near Kherson, Denis and Dasha. They lived with his parents until the house was too damaged to live in. They heard about the church and came there to live and volunteer in the pharmacy. The Red Cross had his parents’ house repaired and then the roof and windows were shelled again.

His father has fixed the house up as best he can and will not leave. He is going to protect his home from the “Russians and any other criminals.” Denis said that his dad raised a few goats, pigs, two cows and some chickens. Russian soldiers had taken them all over the course of time.

Dasha was quiet during the conversation with her husband, although both spoke English. I asked Denis where their drugs and supplies came from.

“All donated,” he said. “We are always short, but as contributions come in, I can buy just about everything locally.”

We left mid-morning to start our way back. David was going on to speak at a conference on wartime trauma at a city further in-country, so Cristi was riding home with us.

We said our goodbyes and headed for the border, to start our 12-hour trip back to Sighisoara.

We stopped at a little shop just outside the border check point for coffee. We got out in the parking lot and Scooby smelled hot. Sure enough, steam was coming out of two places on the engine when Tim opened the hood. He called David, who was on the road headed in the opposite direction, but he would call Sergai for help.

We were standing around drinking our coffee when a white Mercedes van flew in beside Scooby; moments later one of the drivers we had met the night before pulled up. The guy from the van, after looking over the situation, went into the lumber yard across the parking lot and came back with zip ties, wire and a stop leak-looking kind of product. Always a big believer in zip ties, I picked one up and gave him a thumbs up. He gave me a smile and shook his head in agreement.

After wiring, zip tying and smearing stop leak, our new-found friend who exuded the confidence of being able to fix anything with nearly nothing explained in Ukrainian and Romanian that we needed to go to his shop to finish. We followed him for a couple miles to a large barn.

I know a thing or two about messy garages, but when he opened the big sliding door, I was taken back. We followed him in and he walked directly to a tub and dumped it out on the dirt floor. He sorted for a moment and pulled out a tube still wrapped in plastic and brought it out to the van and held it up to a part on the engine that looked very similar and was leaking. He took it out of the bag and gave it to his son who had showed up. His son took it over to a large tree stump bench with electric outlets. Under his father’s direction the son used a grinder and metal cutter to fashion the part to fit.

The father put the part on and slammed the hood. I offered him some cash, and he backed away shaking his head no.

We went through the border checkpoint without issue.

We got home late. As we reached the top of Tim’s driveway he looked at me and said, “Hey, we made it, Dad.”

Yes we did.

The Webster City Rotary Club is still raising funds to help provide food for Ukrainian refugees living in Sighisoara, Romania and Ukraine. Contributions can be made out to Webster City Rotary Club and sent to: Webster City Rotary Club

P.O. Box 265, Webster City, IA 50595