Family in process of adopting Ukrainian child now in limbo among war

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- Jennifer and Mathew Ruff, an Ellicott couple, started the adoption process in February 2021 with the organization, Host Orphans World Wide, which matches Ukrainian orphans to American families.

That's how 16-year-old Sasha, an orphan from Eastern Ukraine came into their lives. He stayed with the couple for ten weeks this past summer and another four weeks this winter.

But when Jennifer and Mathew went to Ukraine on February 4th of this year, under a level four travel advisory, they never thought the tensions overseas would escalate to war.

“He is not our son on legal paperwork but he is our son in every other sense in all of the important ways," Ruff said. "And to feel like you have no access to your child, no way to rescue them, no way to encourage them, or make them feel safe… it is not something I ever imagined I would have to go through."

They were forced to leave the country and Sasha behind on February 12th.

Now they wait for direction on how to proceed with the adoption from the Ukrainian Government.

“He is still in his orphanage in Ukraine which is difficult to us," Ruff said. "Our preference would be to evacuate him to a different country but his location is not a safe place right now. It would be riskier to move the orphans right now.”

They're hearing from Sasha from time to time, though contact is limited to text letting them know he's alive.

“We haven’t slept in over two weeks. Every time we hear a text come in we think it’s Sasha and then we are frantically checking our phones," she said. "Then we are awake and have the news on again and we’re seeing if anything happened in the 45 minutes we slept.”

The Ruffs hope the U.S. Government can intervene and offer an emergency visa for Sasha, but at this point with the madness in Ukraine, they aren't sure when that could be.