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Mooresville residents hold candlelight vigil for Ukraine

A small group gathered in Mooresville, holding Ukrainian flags and praying for that country's citizens.

MOORESVILLE, Ind. — Ukrainians forced to leave their homes, those who have lost their lives and those still defending their country were on the minds of Hoosiers in Mooresville Thursday night.

“Everybody deserves to raise their family and feel that they can be comfortable in their homes and not be in fear,” said Mooresville mother Michelle Wicks.  

That’s all Wicks wants for her 3-year-old twins - little boys too young to understand what’s happening right now in Ukraine or how children there, just last week, were running around and playing, like Wicks' children were doing Thursday night in downtown Mooresville.

“I can’t imagine having to go through that and having to separate families and wonder if tomorrow your home is going to be there, or your town or your country,” said Wicks of the war in Ukraine. 

That’s why she brought her little boys to a candlelight vigil for Ukraine in Mooresville, where a small group gathered, held Ukrainian flags, and prayed. 

“Each night I tuck my kids into bed, I think of these mothers that are holed up in the shelters, in the basements of hospitals or in subways,” said Jessica Newsman-Hoyt, who organized the vigil. 

RELATED: 10 ways you can help the people of Ukraine right now

Newman-Hoyt wore a t-shirt quoting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

“It says, ‘If we are silent today, we will be gone tomorrow,’” she said, quoting the embattled Ukrainian president. 

The people who gathered for the vigil said they can’t be silent about the images they’re seeing from a country torn apart by war. 

“Women and children being shot at as they’re trying to flee, is heartbreaking,” said Mooresville resident Brian Culp. 

“The teachers that are continuing to teach in the bomb shelters, the Russian soldier that the Ukrainians let call home, the humanity, of all of it,” said Glenda Survance, choking up. 

Survance is a pastor with Mooresville’s First Christian Church. She hopes what’s happening in Ukraine is a wake-up call to the world. 

“We need to figure out how to live together or we’re going to kill one another,” she said. 

Right now, the United States and other NATO countries are using sanctions as a way to punish Putin and cripple Russia’s economy, but some worry if Putin were to take control of Ukraine, he wouldn’t stop there. 

“From everything we’ve seen, probably on to the next country,” said Culp. 

That’s why even though the group who gathered in downtown Mooresville was small, their prayers were big, asking that somehow the war in Ukraine would end.    

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