Last Sun­day, my mom and I attend­ed a Ukrain­ian Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty fundrais­er in Chica­go, Illi­nois. After singing both the Unit­ed State’s nation­al anthem and Ukraine’s nation­al anthem before the cer­e­mo­ny, my mom shared some­thing inter­est­ing with me. She said, “When we sing the nation­al anthem in Amer­i­ca, we thank God for our free­dom, while the Ukrain­ian nation­al anthem prays for free­dom: ‘We’ll lay down our souls and bod­ies to attain our free­dom, 
and we’ll show that we, broth­ers, are of the Cos­sack nation.’”

I’m thank­ful to be Amer­i­can, but I’m also blessed & proud to be Ukrain­ian. As we cel­e­brate Veteran’s Day and hon­or our Amer­i­can vet­er­ans, I can’t help but think of the tur­moil in Ukraine today.

One of the rea­sons I made the effort to attend this ben­e­fit was to share the com­pa­ny of Ukraine’s pop­star, Rus­lana. Not only does Rus­lana inspire mil­lions with her music, but she also touch­es many with her human­i­tar­i­an spir­it. She is a brave polit­i­cal activist and the exu­ber­ant leader of Ukraine’s pro‑E.U. protest move­ment. (Learn more about her here.)

I’ve loved Rus­lana and her music for many years now. (Watch her award-win­ning Wild Dances Euro­vi­sion per­for­mance here. This song has been one of my top played songs for at least 7 years!) But after Sun­day, I’m even more inspired by her ded­i­ca­tion to Ukraine. Rus­lana rais­es mon­ey for injured Ukraini­ans and refugees, but above all she asks us to pray for Ukraine’s free­dom and peace.

Please keep Ukraine in your thoughts and prayers. If you have the desire to help mon­e­tar­i­ly, more infor­ma­tion can be found on Ruslana’s web­site here.

For my part, I’m hop­ing to cre­ate a few Ukrain­ian inspired items to auc­tion off for the cause. Слава Україні! Героям слава!