Natalia Novozenko passed away on May 24th.
She was Anatoliy’s mother. She was over 90 years old. And before she died, she got to come home.
That matters more than I can say.
For Ukrainians, the war didn’t begin in February 2022. It began in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. By the time the full invasion came — when Russian forces pushed through their village — Natalia was already elderly, already fragile. She was injured in that first push.
She wasn’t healthy enough to flee. So she didn’t.
And Anatoliy didn’t leave her.
The two of them stayed behind while their community scattered. He didn’t take her to a shelter. Instead, he built one — rigging tarps over short poles to keep the elements out. When winter came and that wasn’t enough, he retrofitted a toolshed on their property and moved them both inside.
They slept a foot or two apart for four years.
He nursed her back from her injuries — the same way she once nursed him as an infant. Neither of them left.
When Hope and Horizons built their home, Anatoliy told me that one of the things he was most grateful for was that his mother was healthy enough to move in. To see it. To feel the warmth of a real kitchen, a real bed, real walls that held against the cold.
To know that there are people in the world — strangers who had never met her — who cared enough to make sure she had a place to rest.
Most of all, he was grateful she got to see that God saw her. That He cared enough to provide a home for her before the end.
The joy in that house — Anatoliy, his mother, his kids, his grandkids all together — was contagious. It is one of the moments from Ukraine I carry with me most.
Scripture calls us to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
We threw a party when we handed over those keys. We celebrated loudly and with full hearts.
And today, I grieve. Natalia is gone.
But I am also grateful — deeply grateful — that she didn’t leave this world without knowing she was seen, she was cared for, and that God made sure she had a home to rest in before she went Home.
Thank you for supporting the families in Ukraine, El Salvador, and Guatemala. What you’ve given — your prayers, your generosity, your partnership — reaches places and people you’ll never fully see this side of eternity.
But it reaches them.
One family. One home. One life at a time.
Josh Hackworth
Director, Hope and Horizons Foundation