A Latter-day Saint family in Utah was recently featured in a People Magazine article for taking in a family of Ukrainian refugees.
After escaping war-torn Ukraine, Yurii and Albina Kalmazan and their daughters traveled thousands of miles, stopping in eight countries in nine days, before arriving in Utah where they were welcomed into the home of Reece and Michelle DeMille in Cedar Hills.
Reece DeMille serves as a stake president in the area for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“If it was not for the people who have showed us so much kindness, we would be stuck in the sadness of what’s happening in Ukraine,” Yurii Kalmazan told People Magazine through an interpreter. “They’ve helped us continue to live.”
The article tells how the Kalmazan family left everything behind in Ukraine and how the DeMilles and many others have helped them start over in Utah.
“Love is the greatest language of all. I knew if God wanted them to be in our house, it would work out,” Michelle DeMille told People. “We cooked together, we ate together. Now they are our family.”
Read the entire article at People.com.
On July 4, the United Nations reported that at least 12 million people have fled their homes since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with millions now scattered across Europe, according to BBC.com.
Utah will welcome as many as 300 Ukrainian refugees in this fiscal year, according to KSL.com and Axios.com.
The Kalmazan family was interviewed by a local Utah television station last April.