Global humanity in an inhumane world:
The war in Ukraine, which began with an invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to last three or four days at most, has now dragged on for more than a month. This is due in large part to the resilience and indefatigability of the Ukrainian people, whose spirits have stayed the course as truly as any weapon or armament. The war’s surprising longevity can also be attributed to the relative incompetence of the Russian army, bogged down as much by mud as they are by poor morale. Regardless of the source, however, the fact remains that this war, older now than some of the babies caught in its crossfire, has decimated Ukrainian cities, spurred more than four million Ukrainian women and children to seek refuge in other countries and, as the international community learned the day of this writing (April 5), has devolved into the inconceivable—what many world leaders are
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fellowship!
calling a genocide in the suburbs of Kyiv. The situation in Ukraine evolves rapidly and looks increasingly to be, at least for the near future, unceasing. That is to say, the interview conducted for this story took place on March 8, merely a week after Putin’s initial invasion. An innumerable number of things have changed since then; yet still more have remained depressingly the same. War is still hell. People are still in need of aid, food, of water and, above all, peace. And CBF and its Global Missions field personnel are still rising to meet these needs as best they can. Dianne and Shane McNary, the subjects of the March 8 interview, are one such example. Called to Slovakia, one of the nations that
Left: Pastor Marek (center) confers with a Ukrainian Roma pastor and church members about responding to needs of Internally Displaced People in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. Right: Eddie Aldape (right) visiting with Slovak and Ukrainian pastors to discuss how to better coordinate aid.
borders Ukraine, this wife-and-husband duo have dedicated their lives to helping people who are without a home, displaced by war and strife. For most of their career, they have centered their efforts on the Roma people. Now, their focus has broadened to all the Ukrainians who now face a nomadic existence. “We work primarily with Roma, but not exclusively,” Dianne said. “We are going to be working in whatever role it is, with whatever group of people.” This work, thus far, has taken a twopronged approach, thanks to the binational predicament in which Dianne and Shane find themselves. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February, Dianne, who usually lives with Shane in Slovakia, was actually
