Andrew Kelly, a 2001 graduate of Abilene Christian University, and his wife, Jenny, were in Abilene when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, but their hearts and minds immediately were back in the land they knew well.

In 2003, Andrew and Steve Taliaferro, a 1990 ACU graduate, started a ministry called Jeremiah’s Hope that operated a rescue shelter in Ukraine that housed 10 orphans. When war broke out, they knew the children had to be evacuated to Croatia. The harrowing ordeal is detailed in an article for ACU Today by Robin Saylor.

“As news of the war unfolded, the Kellys knew they had to do whatever they could to help,” Saylor wrote. “What followed was a chain of events that reads like an international thriller, involving the Kellys, Taliaferro, former U.S. Navy SEALs, clandestine phone calls, a dangerous convoy through a forest past Russian tanks, and a church in Croatia where Taliaferro now serves as a missionary.

Read Dramatic Rescue Orchestrated by ACU Alumni Brings Ukrainian Orphans Safely to Croatia