They were surrounded by a revolution in December
2004, and a Ukrainian lady in Kyiv was asking Dr. Roksolana Tymiak-Lonchyna, "Does anyone know about us?"
"Yes, the whole world is watching! "Roksolana and her husband Dr. Vassyl Lonchyna were in Ukraine to monitor
the re-vote up close and personal. In November, the national election had been so fraudulent that the Ukrainian people finally had
enough after centuries of tyranny and corruption. They peacefully took to the streets, and the Orange Revolution was underway.
As official election observers from Chicago, the dentist and her heart-surgeon husband
were on their way to Donetsk, the heartland of political fraud in Ukraine. They do not have fighters' hands; they
have healers' hands. Their protection - bullet proof vests given them by friends before they left the States,
and a command of Ukrainian in an area where Russian is heavily favored.
Not only is
their story well told by Roksolana, her book Conscience Calls is filled with her colorful photographs
of the Orange Revolution. Anxiety ran high and after the vote they were trying take a plane out of Donetsk to Kyiv and their flight home. They were repeatedly refused tickets and not allowed to
board; they were alone, protected only by their bullet proof vests. This book should be in local
libraries and on coffee tables everywhere. Our children and grandchildren need to know that freedom is not free.
David Cottrell
I
am asking you to leave this time and place for two minutes and fifty seconds of YouTube documentary. After that please return
to ukraine orphans dot net knowing that
the situation Roksolana was in was real. Her book is real, she is real, her mission to feed the orphans is real.
