Dr. Jonathan Asunción and his wife, Lisa, share a laugh in their office on May 24 about the trip they were soon going to take to Poland to help Ukranian people in need of dental work. Photo By Lancaster Online

Dr. Jonathan Asunción and his wife, Lisa, knew it was too dangerous to travel to war-torn Ukraine to help its beleaguered people. So, the Lancaster County, Pa., couple made the trip to a neighboring Polish village last week where they met displaced refugees whose country was invaded by Russian military in February.

“We wanted to do what we could to help Ukrainians who had crossed into Poland,” Jonathan Asunción said a few says after returning from a seven-day trip to Medyka.

The couple left for the southeastern Polish village that borders Ukraine on May 25. Once there, they offered dental services and distributed hygiene supplies and monetary donations to Ukrainian refugees.

Before they left for Medyka, people who learned of their plans began giving them monetary donations.

“Without soliciting it, we were able to raise $2,500, even from people we didn’t even know,” Asunción said.

Asunción, an 18-year veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves Dental Corps who operates Asunción Dental in Mount Joy Borough, said donations came from one of his clients at the dental practice, the Mount Joy Lions Club, one of the club’s members and from another local dentist whose relatives are from Poland and Ukraine.

Asunción said he and his wife saw women and children whose husbands and fathers had stayed behind in Ukraine to fight the war, something they had only heard of through the news.

He said he also witnessed a level of resiliency in some refugees and how determined they were to adapt to the difficulties and challenges resulting from the war that is approaching its fifth month.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Asunción said. “In fact, it was very difficult to get these people to accept a monetary donation. Here was a stranger, a Filipino who couldn’t speak their language, offering to help and trying to give them money, so a lot of them were a little suspicious.”

With the help of a translator, the Asuncións were able to donate $500 for groceries to the nuns at the convent of Our Lady of Mercy in Czestochowa, who were caring for 23 children, some of them Ukrainians whose parents had been killed. A $1,000 donation was given to the refugee centers in the Polish cities of Krakow and Przemysl.

“We then dropped off our goods at a grassroots type of initiative not associated with any major organization and were able to buy and distribute baby formula and diapers to refugees as well,” Asunción said.

On their last day in Medyka, the Asuncións learned about a group of children being held in a school with no food. The children had been sent to Poland but were returning to their parents in Ukraine.

“It was an eerie sight. There were 45 kids sitting quietly in a gymnasium, hungry and with no food. We came back two hours later with hundreds of dollars’ worth of drinks and food for all of them. It was a weird feeling … we have kids too,” Asunción said.

The Asuncións said they met people from around the world who, like them, felt compelled to travel to Poland to help Ukrainians. The couple said they hope to return to Poland, and maybe Ukraine, during a more peaceful time.

“Ukrainians are going to need help for a long time, so we are thinking of going back next year and use the contacts we made during this trip to be even more effective,” Asunción said.

He said they met Russians living in Ukraine who fled to Poland.

“They are displaced in Poland,” he said of the Russian people they met. “There is no absolute truth of who is bad and who is good because this war is affecting everybody.”

Dr. Asunción said people shouldn’t take anything for granted.

“We should care for others and not be indifferent to what is going on in other places,” he said. “We are a blessed country, but we should never judge other countries and think that, as people, we are better than them.”