For two years, Serhii and Yulia Marchenko tried to ride out the war in Ukraine. Along with their six children — the youngest now only 7 months old — they hoped to stay in the home they built in central Ukraine. Before the war, Serhii had planted grapes in their front yard, and a large garden and greenhouse full of potatoes and other vegetables.

But the children were suffering from the stress of the war, and they could attend school only online — or in claustrophobic basements.

“It felt like there wasn’t even enough air to breathe,” Yulia said.

After two years of endless sirens and sleepless nights, the Marchenko family finally left their home, arriving in the Boise area in March.

They wound up in Idaho in part because their family friends from their city, Oleksandriia, had fled here two years earlier. One of the friends, Volodymyr Molebnyi, and Serhii worked as welders. Both families were active in their church, the United Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith.

It can sometimes feel, the families said, like the world has moved on from Ukraine. Headlines about Israel and Gaza dominate today’s news, and many Americans’ desire to support Ukraine has lost steam. A December poll by the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of Republicans and 15% of Democrats believed the U.S. was providing too much aid to Ukraine, up from 9% and 5% in the first weeks of the war.

But at Meridian’s Full Gospel Slavic Church, where both families have become members and joined the choir, volunteer Leo Martsinyuk pointed to the parallels between the families’ stories, and the fact that they were forced to leave home two years apart.

“This has not ended yet,” he said.

The shifting economics of getting aid to Ukraine

That is what drives Martsinyuk and other local volunteers to press on with aid to Ukraine, even as the landscape — and their approach — shifts.

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