OVERLAND PARK, Ks — An Overland Park couple has been serving overseas as Ukrainian refugees cross the border to Romania.
Lisa and Matt Heath, along with other volunteers at United Aid Foundation, are providing food, toiletries and personal hygiene products to families that are in need.
“What I’ll remember, and what changed me, is just the hurt in their eyes — the anguish,” Lisa Heath said. “They came in in their winter clothes and their suitcase, that’s all they had."
Lisa spent nearly a week in Botosani, Romania, welcoming refugees to freedom. She says the biggest way people in the U.S. can help right now is by donating money.
“They have no one but the people who are helping them outside of their country. And if I can help with that, I certainly would like to be,” Lisa Heath said.
As a doctor in the U.S., she offered medical services to those injured on their journey. She remembers an elder lady who suffered from pressure sores on her foot.
“That was probably one of my saddest moments," Lisa Heath said. "She had walked three days in these archaic orthopedic shoes to walk across that border and had rubbed this sore."
Her motivation to help overseas was a personal one as well. Lisa and her husband hosted a Ukrainian exchange student for five years in their home.
“We kept in touch with his mom who sends us daily updates,” she said. “KC is his second home.”
As Lisa returned home to Kansas City this week, she passed the baton to her husband Matt. Their flights overlapped in Amsterdam for 30 minutes where they hugged and Matt was debriefed.
"It was the best 30 minutes that was spent with my wife in a long, long time,” Matt Heath said.
While a war overseas may keep the two physically apart, their mission to help others has brought their hearts closer than ever before.
“We need to take care of one another, and this was a small way of taking care of people that are very similar to us with very similar dreams and aspirations,” Matt Heath said.
