INDIANAPOLIS — They may not be able to point out Ukraine on a world map, but children in the after-school program at Lynhurst Baptist Church know something very bad is going on there.
"They’ve been there for a really long time and now Russia wants them back for nothing,” said Chandler Johnson, who told us he’s almost nine years old. “Some kids are dying from bombs and they’re not even expecting it.”
Chandler is one of several kids in the after-school program who are making cards to send to the Ukrainian people, millions of whom are now refugees because of the war there.
Chandler said he hopes everyone who has had to leave their home in Ukraine will see his card. He has a message for them.
“They don’t deserve war,” Chandler said.
“I think seeing a lot of images on television of kids their age is really resonating with what’s happening,” Pastor Ben Wakefield said.
Images for which their teachers don’t have any good explanations. Images of war, of Ukrainian children fleeing their homes, some of them scared and crying, not to mention stories about children in Ukraine who have been killed.
“It’s really unfair,” said Bentlee Schaeffer, 9, about what’s happening in Ukraine.
“These kids are running for their lives and they’re leaving everything behind. They have nothing. We have stuff. We have things that we can give them,” said Renee Dixon, who runs the before- and after-school programs and a preschool at the church
Dixon has started a toy and blanket collection to send to Ukraine, along with the cards the kids have made.
Students are also making coasters to sell so they can send money, too.
“We want them to know they are not alone,” said Dixon of the Ukrainian people.
She also wants her students to know they can make a difference for kids they don’t even know, kids they probably will never meet.
“I let them now all the time, 'Your voice is loud, you can help,'” said Dixon, who added she’s also trying to help her students understand why the war is happening.
Dixon uses the analogy of a bully on the playground.
“They ask, ‘Well, who’s stopping the bully? Is there a principal to stop the bully?” she said.
It's an answer, Dixon said, she doesn’t have.
“I can’t say, 'Everything is going to be all right, the kids over there, that they’re OK,' because they’re not,” Dixon said, shaking her head.
It is a reality young Chandler seems to have grasped, while also understanding it shouldn’t be that way for the people of Ukraine.
“They didn’t do anything wrong,” Chandler said.
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