The knock came with little warning.

A woman.
Four children.
Nowhere left to go.
 
A man evacuating families from eastern Ukraine had rescued them from a dangerous area and was desperately searching for somewhere safe. He called Father’s House and asked a simple question:

“Can you take them?”

They said yes.

At the time, Father’s House in Kyiv was not built for displaced families fleeing war.

But perhaps, in another way, it always had been.

I first walked the grounds of Father’s House in 2017 alongside my daughter Carissa during a 26-day journey through Europe documenting ministries serving vulnerable children.
 
Back then, Father’s House was already known throughout Ukraine as a place of healing for children rescued from unimaginable trauma.

Founded in 1996 by Roman Korniko, a Ukrainian medical doctor whose life was profoundly interrupted by God’s calling, Father’s House became a refuge for children living on the streets, abandoned in orphanages, or removed from violently abusive homes.

Some of the stories I heard there have never left me.

Children hiding in basements during brutal Ukrainian winters, surviving like shadows to avoid detection.
Children beaten and exploited inside the very homes that should have protected them.
Children who arrived carrying trauma far too heavy for their small shoulders.

Father’s House existed to help restore them.

Not simply through shelter, but through counseling, medical care, education, and the love of carefully chosen foster families who lived onsite with their own children. The goal was never institutionalization. The dream was healing, restoration, and eventually family.

As I photographed children laughing in the courtyards and listened to stories of lives being rebuilt, hope seemed to echo through every hallway.
 

But then… war came.

And everything changed.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Father’s House was suddenly thrown into survival mode.

Families evacuated.
Children relocated.
Operations disrupted.
Government pressures and investigations created uncertainty about the future of their long-standing orphan care ministry.

For the first time in decades, the leaders of Father’s House faced a painful question:

“What now?”

Ivanka has lived through both eras of Father’s House.

She first joined the ministry in 2013, stepped away for a season to raise children of her own, returned during COVID when much of the work moved online, and came back fully in 2023 as Ukraine struggled to rebuild under the weight of war.

She remembers the uncertainty.

“For about a year,” she told me, “we didn’t know what we would do next.”

The ministry began small.
Art classes for local children.
Simple support for struggling families.

And then came the woman with four children.

That moment changed everything.

More calls followed.
More displaced families.
More mothers fleeing violence.
More children carrying trauma, fear, and instability.

At first, Father’s House simply gave them a place to stay.

But soon they realized these families needed far more than shelter.

They needed restoration.

And from that realization, a new ministry was born:
Restored Life.

Today, Father’s House has become something remarkably different than it was when I first visited nearly a decade ago.

And yet somehow… it is also exactly the same.

The faces have changed.
The wounds are different.
But the heartbeat remains.

Families now arrive carrying the scars of war instead of orphanage life.
Mothers come escaping abusive husbands instead of street violence.
Children arrive burdened with fear, trauma, disrupted education, and grief.

And Father’s House meets them with the same response it always has:

Love first.

“Before you help a family,” Ivanka told me quietly, “you must love them.”

Because many of the families who arrive here are difficult.
Broken patterns.
Deep emotional wounds.
Survival instincts shaped by years of pain.

“But if you don’t love them first,” she said, “you cannot help them.”

So the ministry wraps itself around every part of a family’s life:

• spiritual care
• counseling
• therapy
• education
• medical treatment
• mentoring
• practical life support

Children attend the ministry’s restored school program where they receive not only academics, but emotional rehabilitation.

Parents receive counseling and guidance.

Some families encounter faith for the very first time.

Ivanka told me about a young man who arrived convinced there was no God.

For two hours he argued with her about science, life, and faith.

Then she asked him one question:

“What do you dream about?”

He broke down crying.

Years of abuse and trauma had convinced him that dreaming itself was dangerous. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped believing life could ever become good again.

But something shifted in that moment.

Eventually, the young man stood in a church service, took a microphone, and publicly declared:

“God is here. I am talking with Him today.”

Today he is working.
Planning for the future.
Living without the panic attacks that once controlled his life.

Not because someone won an argument.

Because someone loved him first.

As Ivanka spoke, one statement stayed with me long after the interview ended.

“The war,” she said, “has forced children to grow up too fast.”

She told me about an 11-year-old boy whose father described him as his “partner in life.”

Her heart broke hearing those words.

“A child should not be a partner for a parent,” she said softly.
“A child should be protected.”

That may be the heart of Father’s House today.

In a nation where war continues reshaping childhood itself, they are fighting to give children something back that conflict tries to steal:

Safety.
Hope.
Childhood.
Family.
The ability to dream again.

The mission of Father’s House has changed dramatically since I first walked these grounds with Carissa in 2017.
 
But the calling never did.

For nearly thirty years now, through changing governments, broken systems, orphan crises, evacuations, and war…

Father’s House has continued opening its doors to wounded people and saying the same simple words:

“You can come in.”

About Father’s House — Kyiv, Ukraine
Father’s House is a Christian ministry in Kyiv that has been serving vulnerable children and families since the 1990s. Founded by Roman Korniyko, the ministry began as a refuge for children rescued from the streets and abusive environments, providing rehabilitation, counseling, and a path into loving families.

Today, under the leadership of the next generation, Father’s House continues its mission through programs like Restored Life, serving families displaced and devastated by the war in Ukraine. By offering a holistic approach, spiritual, emotional, and physical care, they walk alongside families as they heal, rebuild, and move toward independent life.

At its core, Father’s House exists to live out a simple calling: to love God and love people, restoring lives one family at a time.

To learn more about Father’s House and their work, visit: http://www.o-dim.com/en/

About Capturing Grace
Discover the story behind Capturing Grace and how my daughter Christina’s life continues to inspire this work at capturinggrace.org/about-us.