Father of two Andrew Renkas gives insight into war in Ukraine

A Ukrainian father, who has called Queensland’s Fraser Coast and Darwin home, has spoken of hourly frantic phone conversations with loved ones caught in the war and what everyday Aussies can do to help.

It’s worse at night.

Held back tears flow as the crippling agony of being oceans apart from his loved ones but right there with them in spirit, as Russian shells rain down on his homeland, fuels tortuous insomnia for Ukrainian ex-pat Andrew Renkas.

He chokes on his words as he tells of his hourly conversations with family caught in the war, his brother, who has turned his car into a coffee and food van for soldiers, sister, who spends her nights in a friend’s underground cellar and the piece of his heart that still remains in the historic village of Zelena Polyana where he grew up.

Andrew Renkas (left) visiting with family on a Ukraine holiday.

He thought he’d experienced grief at its most raw when he lost his mother two years ago but nothing, he says, could ever cut as deep as seeing centuries-old buildings crumble and freedom under attack.

“The pain is something you can’t even describe … I can’t stop myself from crying” he tells the Fraser Coast Chronicle

“You don’t have an appetite, you can’t sleep.

“The most difficult time for them is night time, they have bomb raids … my sister told me that two days ago ‘we had so many raids’.

In his new home city of Darwin, where his four-wheel-drive with customised sign-writing reading ‘Stop the War’, draws enthusiastic cheers and horn honking, Mr Renkas is every bit the Territorian.

His Australian story however began 14 years ago in Queensland’s own historic city, Maryborough, and is intertwined with two of the riverside community’s well-known families.

His cousin Maria was then the partner of and had a son, James, with mobile accommodation giant Neal Guilmartin who is also father to Jade (Fraser Coast councillor Wellings) and Sara.

He worked for the Guilmartins and helped care for James, who Andrew muses, was “very little” at the time but is now a “very handsome and very Ukrainian” looking teenager working at the Maryborough slipway.

Maryborough is also where he met his wife, Michelle Hastings.

Andrew and Michelle Renkas with their children Nadia and David in traditional Ukrainian clothes and colours.

The couple has two children, David and Nadia, and in happier times, took them on regular trips to visit family in Ukraine.

They have a strong Christian faith and draw on it when speaking honestly with their children about what’s happening.

“They’ve been so many times and love the country, the people and their cousins,” Mr Renkas said

“My nine-year-old daughter is devastated … they are terrified, we show them video and they cry with us and we just say we will just pray … ‘God is very strong and he can help’.”

Enjoying the simple, peaceful life, Nadia Renkas plays in the hay at a farmhouse during a family holiday to Ukraine.

Mr Renkas also has faith in the strength of the Ukrainian people – he’s hearing from family that those who have stayed behind are doing exactly as has been suggested in news reports, anyone who is able, and even those who are barely mobile, are taking up arms.

But there’s three things he believes will make all the difference.

Financial assistance is essential in a climate where all the admirable will of the people will only go so far if they run out of money and/or do not have the right resources.

A horse-drawn plough on the family farm.

“I am so proud of Australia and so glad to be surrounded by people who are warm hearted and have been asking ‘how can I help you’?

“I’ve been able to send money from church services and friends.”

Among those friends is Mr Guilmartin who was on the phone offering to help just moments before Mr Renka’s interview.

“He invited me to this country … God bless him for that and for the opportunity he gives to people.”

Along with financial support, the people of Ukraine also need air support.

“They don’t have protection, the sky is open,” Mr Renkas says

“They can’t defend themselves in that way but anyone who can hold a gun, is.”

Above all however, the number one thing people can do is continue to stand in solidarity with Ukraine and against the war on social media and any settings where they have a platform.

In his church family and the wider community Mr Rankas has been supported at peaceful demonstrations where he’s been joined by both Russians and Ukrainians who simply want peace.

He hopes Australians will continue to help others, in particular the younger generation, understand what’s going on in Ukraine and that it’s not just a threat to a foreign country but “the whole world”.

The Renkas family with the Ukrainian flag and their supporters at C3 Church, Darwin.

“We want them to know ‘hold on, we are with you.
“Even when I am driving in my car and people are so supportive, opening their car windows … it means something to me and to my people on the ground sitting waiting for the enemy to bomb them.

“So many places are suffering from this cancer – in unity we can defeat it.”