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At first, the Shapovalov family thought they’d be able to avoid the worst of the fighting. Their village, Skelky, along the Dnipro River in Ukraine, was close to a large nuclear power plant. They didn’t think the invading Russian army would dare to shoot anywhere nearby.

But the tanks rolled in. They could hear explosions from the bomb shelter some nights. 

They spent nearly 40 days living under Russian occupation before they were able to escape. 

Now, they’re living in Derby, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, just miles from the Canadian border. They were the first family to arrive at the “House of Mercy,” a former nursing home recently transformed into housing for more than 30 Ukrainian refugees. 

House of Mercy is a project of Agape Ministries, an Albany-based Christian nonprofit led by Scott and Theresa Cianciolo that works with developmentally disabled children and adults. This summer, the organization purchased the 10,000-square-foot shuttered nursing home in Derby from North Country Hospital. 

Many of the Ukrainian families who arrived throughout the month of August have children with disabilities. People with a range of skills — from plumbing to painting to physical therapy — have shown up at the house in recent weeks to volunteer their time, to support arriving families and help convert the building into accessible and comfortable housing. 

In this episode, Sasha, Dmytro, Oleksandra and Yakov Shapovalov describe their journey out of Russian occupation and their transition to life in Vermont. Theresa and Scott Cianciolo walk reporter Ethan Weinstein through the house in Derby, and discuss how a community quickly came together to build a place of refuge. 

Below is a partial transcript, edited for length and clarity.

Riley Robinson: I was wondering if a good place to start would be: Who are the Shapovalovs?

Ethan Weinstein: The Shapovalovs, at least as they are in the United States, are a family of eight. Their oldest son is still in Ukraine.

I met many of them. The kids were running around, the younger kids.  But I spent time with, primarily, Sasha, who's 21 and speaks the best English in the family. And she helped translate for her mother, also named Sasha, but that's a nickname for Oleksandra. Their father, when I first met their father, who is named Dmytro, but he went by Dimo. 

Theresa Cianciolo: This is Dimo, from Ukraine. He was a pediatrician in Ukraine.

Dmytro Shapovalov: Yes, But now I'm a builder. It’s OK. 

Ethan Weinstein: He was laying on his back in a half-finished shower, helping to install a new bathroom. Sasha has already finished college in Ukraine. One of their older sons, Yakov, just celebrated his 18th birthday on Lake Willoughby. 

They also have adopted children from Ukraine with disabilities. So they’re a big family. They’re a family of faith; their Christianity is important to them. They were able to support their neighbors a little bit during Russian occupation. 

Dmytro: What’s been surprising about being in Vermont? 

Sasha Shapovalov: Very welcoming people, very nice people. I didn’t know about the maple syrup and everything. Everybody, every day, keeps telling me about the terrible, horrible winter that is coming, that will be more than half the year. [laughs.] 

Ethan Weinstein: And you’re not looking forward to it? 

Sasha Shapovalov: No, I’m looking forward to snow. Because we don’t have a lot of snow in our region. Just for a short amount of time. 

Ethan Weinstein: They lived in a small village called Skelky. I’m sure I’m butchering the pronunciation, but it's along the Dnipro River in Ukraine, which has become a hub for fighting. 

Sasha Shapovalov: We thought we were pretty safe, because we are not in the big city. We are in the village, near a nuclear station. 

They wouldn’t bomb it, because it's dangerous for them as well. We didn’t expect that they would shoot it. 

Riley Robinson: This is Sasha. 

For a few days, the battle was near, for a few weeks, near our village, and we saw the shells. We heard the bombs exploding when we were in the basement. 

Riley Robinson: The nuclear station that Sasha is talking about is Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power station in Europe. 

Russian forces seized control of the site in March, but the power plant is still very much on the front lines. 

Riley Robinson: And how did the Shapovalov family come to be living in Derby, Vermont? 

Ethan Weinstein: So they spent 40 days in Russian occupation before they eventually made it to Ukrainian controlled territory.

Sasha Shapovalov: It’s hard to live in occupied territory. You don’t have police, army, nobody. 

Dmytro Shapovalov: Stores are closed. The pharmacies are closed. 

Sasha Shapovalov: Empty, yeah. You can’t go to the bank, because it's empty too. You have cards, but you can’t use them anywhere. 

Oleksandra, with translation from Sasha: We were raising our kids, and wishing the best for our country. We didn’t know that on our streets, the tanks would go, and that we would become refugees. We didn’t plan to move to the U.S.A., with our backpacks, around eight kilograms. We came here and we want to be useful to this country. Nobody knows what will happen to you tomorrow. 

Riley Robinson: Sasha, Oleksandra, Yakov and Dimo, and the rest of their family, are 8 people out of millions who have been displaced from their homes since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. 

Over the past six months of war, more than a third of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes, according to data from the United Nations. The UN estimates that more than 7 million people have been displaced to other areas within Ukraine, and more than 6 million people have become refugees in other European countries. 

About 150,000 Ukrainian refugees have come to the United States. 

Ethan Weinstein: So they didn't try to leave just once. It took a number of attempts for them to finally get to safety. As Sasha told it to me, there would be these instances when — I think she called it a green corridor — they would get the green light to start to make their way out of town. Basically, both sides would say there'd be a momentary ceasefire, in order to allow citizens to head to safety. And they would board school buses with many other people from the area. 

But ultimately, the fate of those school buses was in Russian hands. So just because they'd heard that they'd be allowed to leave, that wasn't necessarily the reality. They mentioned a time when Russian soldiers with, you know, big machine guns, ultimately forced the bus to turn around.

Sasha Shapovalov: And on our third time, we were sitting for seven or eight hours on the front lines.

Riley Robinson: Eventually, they made it out. 

Today, the Shapovalov family is living in Derby, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, just miles from the Canadian border.  

They’re all part of this project, called “House of Mercy,” where they’ve converted  a shuttered nursing home into housing for several families escaping the war. A number of these families have children with disabilities. 

House of Mercy was put together by Theresa and Scott Cianciolo, from Albany. The Cianciolos founded Agape Ministries, a Christian nonprofit, in 2004.

Ethan Weinstein: Theresa wears a lot of hats. Her academic specialty is in working with children with developmental disabilities, and she has spent several years in and out of Ukraine teaching at a number of universities teaching about how to diagnose different disabilities, how to diagnose children with a number of different developmental disabilities, working with the Ministry of Education in Ukraine to teach them about inclusive education. 

And she also is a founder and runs a religious nonprofit with her husband, Scott, called Agape ministries out of the Northeast Kingdom.

Riley Robinson: Scott was a pastor before they moved to Ukraine full time. 

Ethan Weinstein: They seem like the kind of people who really believe in “the more the merrier.” 

They have a big house that used to be a school, and so they have a lot of bedrooms there. They've adopted an older adult with autism. They have their two twin sons who they adopted from Odessa, in Ukraine, who have Down syndrome. 

So Agape Ministries, they've been hosting some summer camps primarily for children with developmental disabilities, as well as some adults. They also ran similar programs in Ukraine working with children with disabilities. 

Riley Robinson: Did the Cianciolos have ties to Ukraine previously? Was there a reason they wanted to go there to adopt? 

Ethan Weinstein: There's a lot of disabled children in Ukraine's orphanages, and I think that that was something that called to Scott and Theresa. That being said, I'm not exactly sure, but when the Cianciolos first adopted their sons from Odessa, in the late aughts, that was the beginning of their longer connection to Ukraine. They felt a special connection to the place.

Theresa: Our heart has always been Ukraine. And we can’t be in Ukraine like we want, but we can bring Ukraine here. 

Ethan Weinstein: In the months and weeks leading up to the invasion, the Cianciolas had increasing pressure from the US government to head back to the US. 

Theresa: And by then the U.S. embassy was screaming at us to get out. Every other day there were these alerts, these horrible, loud alerts at four in the morning, and they said, “If you don’t get out in the next week, we can’t guarantee you a commercial flight.” 

Ethan Weinstein: Ultimately, you know, fearing the war that eventually came, they headed back to Vermont.

Riley Robinson: So, backtracking a bit, how did these two families, Scott and Theresa Cianciolo, and the Shapovalovs, all know each other? 

Ethan Weinstein: So the Shapovalovs first found out about the Cianciolos through Facebook, actually. They saw an, I don't know if it was an advertisement or a notification, about a summer camp that the Cianciolos were running for orphans and disabled children. And so the kids headed many hours by train to go help out. And that was the beginning of what’s become a cross-continental friendship. 

Riley Robinson: So after Russia invaded, the Cianciolos quickly sprang into action, they wanted to do something. But they had  to change plans along the way, to keep up with shifting U.S. policy. 

Sasha Shapovalov: Ms. Theresa was waiting for us, she was calling everybody. She was calling every airline. 

Riley Robinson: They originally planned to enter the United States through Mexico. They had the tickets booked and everything. 

Ethan Weinstein: In April, it all fell apart. The Biden administration announced Uniting for Ukraine, which is how tens of thousands more Ukrainian refugees have been able to come to the US. But as part of that program, the administration said, we are going to stop accepting people from Mexico.

Sasha Shapovalov: It wasn’t so scary. But it was hard. 

Theresa Cianciolo: It was heartbreaking. We were all crying. 

Sasha Shapovalov: We took our backpacks and we left all our stuff we didn’t need in the hotel.  We had just carry on bags, so metal things, nail clippers, we left there. We booked a hotel for two days, and after that we didn’t have anywhere to stay, no plans. 

Dmytro Shapovalov: What made it difficult was our children. Our children, they need to rest. They need food. 

Sasha Shapovalov: They need beds, they need toys. 

Dmytro Shapovalov: The youngest were scared. They were missing their toys and their beds. So for me and my wife, it was not a big problem. But we were worrying about our children. 

Riley Robinson: As they were waiting to get all the paperwork finalized, they were all acutely aware of a looming deadline. 

Theresa: There was so much pressure on them to get out, because Yakov was turning 18. And we knew the reality of turning 18.

Ethan Weinstein: Yeah. So If Yakov had been 18 When the war started, he ultimately would have had to stay in the country. All men of military age are not allowed to leave the country right now. The Shapovalovs made clear to me that doesn't necessarily mean that they're fighting, but it does mean they can't leave.

Riley Robinson: And that’s why Yakov’s older brother is still in Ukraine. 

Riley Robinson: The Shapovalovs applied through the Unite for Ukraine program, and recently made it to Vermont.

Riley Robinson: So tell me more about this building, this former nursing home where you met with both these families. 

Ethan Weinstein: The former Derby Green nursing home was owned by North Country Hospital in Derby. It was a 23 bed facility. It's sort of two properties stitched together. There's an old farmhouse in the front that was added to in the 1980s and even after that, so it stretches back toward Lake Willoughby. 

Riley Robinson: Theresa said they expected more than 30 people to arrive throughout the month of August. 

Ethan Weinstein: A lot of these children have really serious medical needs. Theresa was telling me about a boy with Rett syndrome, which is a neurological condition. Basically, the Cianciolos are outfitting each family's room to the needs of their children. They're trying to make every room wheelchair accessible and creating bathrooms that allow for folks with limited mobility. 

Already, they're starting to make friends with people at Mass General or Boston Children's who can provide the sort of specialized care that hospitals in the Northeast Kingdom might not be able to offer. 

Riley Robinson: The Shapovalovs were the first to arrive. And they’ve thrown themselves into this project, to help renovate the house, and help with paperwork to get other Ukrainian families to Vermont. 

When Scott and Theresa bought the property, it didn’t have any showers. That’s why Dimo had his hands full with bathroom renovations when Ethan got there. 

But also, a whole bunch of people from the surrounding area have stepped up to support this project. 

Ethan Weinstein: Donations seemed to be coming from everywhere. There's electricians working after hours, or, you know, tradespeople coming on rainy days to put in a few hours. And so it's just a sort of mish mishmash of different folks helping out in little ways  and big ways.

Riley Robinson: Scott calls them “Red Sea” moments.

Theresa Cianciolo: We had one local doctor, like when they first came, he was like, Well, let me come over. And so he came over, and had dinner with us. He's like, ‘I'm gonna sponsor your big family. I’m gonna sponsor your family of five.’ And he gave us enough money, showed enough money, to sponsor the family of five. He's like whatever you guys need, I'm gonna help you with that. 

Everyone has volunteered their time. Even the guy who mows the lawn called us today and said, Listen, somebody, gave an anonymous donation to finish mowing your lawn for the rest of the year. 

Riley Robinson: As for the Shapovalovs, Dimo hopes to keep practicing medicine. There’s some complicating factors in transferring his credentials to the United States. 

Theresa, who is also an advanced medic, said she’s planning to connect Dima with the local ambulance service. 

Sasha wants to become a translator. She’s been helping others in the House navigate all the different paperwork. 

So they’re all adjusting. Their family recently celebrated Yakov’s 18th birthday. 

Theresa Cianciolo: One of the first presents we gave him was a fishing license. I think the second day he was here we bought him a fishing license online.

Ethan Weinstein: On his birthday, they went out to Lake Willoughby. 

Theresa Cianciolo: We went fishing twice, we had huge parties. We had a great time.

Yakov Shapovalov: I caught a big trout. 

Riley Robinson: So that was a couple weeks ago. Now that its September, and several more people have moved into the house, I called Theresa, to see how things are going. 

She said they’ve now welcomed 37 people from Ukraine, and they’re hoping to find space for more. 

Theresa Cianciolo: We're not done. We're using both properties, our Albany home and this home. But, right now it's 37. We're anticipating 10 or 12 more. 

Riley Robinson: Wow, in September? 

Theresa Cianciolo: We're praying about it, figuring it out. There’s another site that we're considering, not here in the Northeast Kingdom, but that a church is willing to — towards the Barre area — that's considering housing three or four families with special needs. So we're also looking at that. The need is great. The need is phenomenal.

Riley Robinson: One of the first things was connecting families and kids with medical care. Some children have needed to spend time in the hospital immediately after arriving in the United States.

They’ve had physical therapists, occupational therapists and nurses come out to the house. 

Right now they have certified teachers coming into the house to help teach English, and they’re also working with special ed consultants. Some of the kids will be starting in the local public schools, some will start the school year online, and some are planning to apply to Websterville Christian Academy, an independent school in Barre. 

As far as the house itself, construction is now finished. 

Theresa Cianciolo: We've put in eight showers. We put in a whole new fire, smoke, alarm, sprinkler system. It's brand new, all the electrical. I want to tell you, all these people volunteered. 

We had a plumber here for two weeks who actually like lived here and put in eight showers free. Our electrician took a week off of work just to run all the smoke fire and all the new resets that we needed. We got so many volunteers. The whole house has been painted. Top to bottom. 

It’s been amazing to watch the community. People we didn't know just showed up and said, hey, we'd like to spend the day painting or helping you do things. We had local contractors here day and night.

We had 15 to 20 volunteers here every day for a month, coming in and out and helping get the property ready. It was an amazing collaborative effort. Amazing.

Riley Robinson: Talking to Theresa, asking about the past few weeks, one word kept coming up: Profound. 

Theresa Cianciolo: People are just showing up, saying hey, bringing flowers. A woman came in who said, “I don’t have much, but I want to give you some flowers.” She had some flowers from her garden, an older woman. She came in with a cane and she just had this little offering of a vase of flowers. She said, “I can’t offer anything but I wanted to welcome you.” 

It’s been amazing to watch people just come in say hello and say welcome to our community. It's been profound. Almost every single one in the building, somebody in the community has picked them up and taken them to Walmart and spent a couple hundred dollars to get them some clothes. You know, they come with a backpack and all their homes are in Russian occupation. And people are just showing up and saying, you know, “Let me let me take them to Walmart and give them a couple hundred dollars worth of clothes.”

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Riley Robinson is a general assignment and multimedia reporter, covering stories across the state in writing, photos and video. She is a graduate of Northeastern University's School of Journalism and first joined the Digger newsroom as a Dow Jones News Fund intern.

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