LEXINGTON, S.C. — A lot of emotion is being felt in the Petrenko house after this Lexington family has been reunited with their Ukrainian grandparents.
"I was wailing. I was wearing this flag and there were a lot of people coming by," daughter Natalia Petrenko said. "As soon as I saw them safe and sound, I was just, I lost it."
This Ukrainian family brought a sense of peace and home to their relatives this past weekend when they picked them up at the airport after an emotional trip from Ukraine to Charlotte to Lexington.
Refugees living in a chaotic reality for the past month, they now are reunited with family.
They traveled from Romania to Amsterdam to New York to Charlotte, and Columbia.
The two grandparents, Leonid and Lyudmila Garagan, tell News19 they witnessed kindness beyond belief to get them to the United States.
"They both are very thankful," Natalia Petrenko said. "They didn’t expect people to be so friendly, so open, so generous."
For the last several weeks, the Garagans have been staying in a children’s summer camp facility in Romania.
"She said that they were provided a lot," Petrenko said. "You know when there are a lot of kids, if there is one sickness, everybody is sick, so they got themselves the stomach bug."
The Garagans fled their hometown two days before it was bombed. They witnessed packed trains, heard air raid sirens and saw military vehicles in the street.
"The key point was when they saw military vehicles right below their apartment complex," Petrenko said.
But finally, rest and safety is their new reality.
As for what’s next, the Petrenko family will be spending lots of quality time with their grandparents.
Both grandparents have tourism visas that last for the next six months. After that, the plan is unclear. They are just taking it one day at a time.