Hastily grabbing their five cats, two suitcases, and Vadym Mushchenko’s favorite bass guitar, Mushchenko and his wife and daughter started a journey that would land them, eight months later, in the middle of Alcona County woods.

The trip from their hometown of Kyiv, through Hungary and Germany and across the ocean to North America — complicated by exhaustion, homesickness, and five cat carriers — taught the family about resilience, said Mushchenko, sitting with his family around a dining table in the home of his host family in rural Harrisville.

Since the start of a Russian invasion of Ukraine ten months ago, millions of Ukrainian residents have left their country, escaping violence and explosions that have destroyed cities and killed civilians.

Dirk VanKoughnett and Katherine Erwin, of Harrisville, wanted to help. They found a program that would allow them to host a Ukrainian family in an apartment over the garage of their home north of Harrisville.

News Photo by Julie Riddle At an Alcona County home last week, Taisha Mushchenko, of Ukraine, looks on as her mother displays a photo of Mushchenko taken at a train stop during her family’s exodus from Kyiv after Russia attacked the city in February. Behind her, in the photo, animal carriers hold the family’s five cats.

Through the Welcome.US program, Mushchenko and his family can stay in the country for two years, learning American customs and improving their English skills while waiting for permission from the federal government to get jobs.

After that, “Life will show,” Mushchenko said, speaking into a translation app on his phone to finish his thought. “The situation at home taught me not to think too far.”

Mushchenko, his wife, Tetiana Sosivra, and their daughter, Taisha Mushchenko, arrived in Alcona County in mid-October after fleeing Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, days after Russian rockets first hit their city in late February.

Midway through their journey away from their war-torn home and into a new land, “we lost our power,” Mushchenko said, his arms flopping to his sides in demonstration as he tried to think of the correct English word.

“Tired,” his daughter supplied.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Tofu the Ukrainian cat enjoys the attention of Vadym Mushchenko, of Ukraine, at the home of a host family in Alcona County.

Sosivra, who understands English best of her family but is not yet comfortable speaking it, helped with translation as her husband spoke to a visiting reporter in inexperienced but determined English.

Their words peppered with rich Ukrainian, the family unfurled the story of the journey out of their homeland, laughing and shaking their heads as they wonderingly described hurdle after hurdle they had faced together.

A tissue box, candle, and cell phone arranged on the table represented Mushchenko’s Kyiv home, his neighbor’s home, and Taisha’s school as Mushchenko illustrated the chaos the day a rocket landed on his neighbor’s house, heavily damaging the school and making one side of Mushchenko’s home unlivable.

Fearing for their lives, the family packed their cats and most essential belongings and headed for the train station.

They waited there, listening to rockets explode nearby, feeling the building shake from their impact.

The ride from Kyiv to the country’s border with Hungary, usually an 8-hour trek, took 20 hours as the train zig-zagged around cities bombed by Russia.

At night, the train traveled without lights, “because Russian,” Mushchenko said.

For three days, the family moved from train station to train station, without a plan or an ending in sight.

“We didn’t know where we’re going, why we’re going, the end of our way,” Mushchenko said.

“Who we are,” his daughter added.

At the train stops, surrounded by people — “very, very sad people,” Mushchenko said — the family relied with gratitude on armies of volunteers providing sandwiches and tea and a place to keep warm.

At each stop, people spread like water, Mushchenko said, dispersing into the city or boarding another train to another place.

“What we do next?” they wondered at each stop, as they sat in the cold with cramped muscles, Mushchenko said. “We don’t know.”

They passed through Budapest (“I don’t understand the city. It’s very tired, very lot of people”) and into Austria, contending with Taisha’s food allergies and the cat carriers.

One suitcase (“on rolls — no, wheels,” he said) carried Mushchenko’s favorite bass guitar.

He had to leave that bag behind because it was too big to carry on the plane they eventually took to Canada.

He really liked that suitcase, he said, wistfully.

Another bag held only cat food.

At one stop, with the help of more volunteers, they found an apartment where they could stay for three days and had the first normal sleep since leaving home — “But our cat, not,” Mushchenko said.

At a center for refugees, they stood in one of many long lines for tickets, people everywhere.

“In such a situation, every man for himself,” Mushchenko said, his translation app helping him find words to describe the family’s aloneness in the middle of a crush of fleeing people. “Not enough moral or any other strength to observe what others are doing.”

In Vienna, a goodfather — godfather, his smiling daughter corrected him — landed them space in a friend’s basement in Germany.

There they stayed for two months, completing mountains of paperwork and, eventually, discovering the program that led them to their host family.

Not everyone would open their home to a “crazy Ukraine family with five cats,” Mushchenko said, flashing VanKoughnett a smile.

Still, the family had to reach Harrisville, and they were still in Germany.

They waited for months for skyrocketed airplane ticket prices to drop. They learned, then, that airlines wouldn’t take all five cats.

Mushchenko and his daughter flew to Canada (“I believe I can fly,” the girl crooned, interrupting the story, to her parents’ laughter). Sosivra stayed behind, trying to find an airline that would carry the cats across the ocean.

“They are family,” Taisha said of the cats who complicated their travels. “We don’t leave family.”

Finally reunited In Montreal, “We make a little, ‘Whew, ” Mushchenko said, wiping his hand across his forehead.

In Canada, the family bought a tumbledown car, fixed it up, and drove the last leg of the trip through New York and Pennsylvania and into Alcona County, “and, tah dah!” Mushchenko said, spreading his arms wide.

When they arrived, Mushchenko and Taisha jumped out to hug VanKoughnett. Tetiana stayed in the passenger seat, stuck under the cats on her lap.

“It was quite the journey,” Mushchenko said, from the comfortable warmth of VanKoughnett’s dining room.

Now, Taisha attends school in Lincoln, her phone’s translation app helping her study and find friends. She takes online music lessons from a Ukrainian teacher, including on the saxophone rescued from the family’s home in Kyiv.

Last week, Taisha participated in a school Chrismtas concert.

“I was amazing last night,” she grinned, breaking into an accented rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Life “all the time have changes,” Mushchenko said — but change keeps the mind healthy, he said, holding one of the family’s five cats that now live with them in Alcona County.

“Maybe not so tragically,” Mushchenko said, “but every family needs to make adventure like us.”

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