Transcript: My name is Paula Aguiló. I'm the oldest of 10 siblings, and I'm 25 years old. The war started, and a group of friends formed a prayer group to pray for Ukraine. Two of us felt we needed to do more, so we went to Ukraine. That's how it all started.
At first, we were clueless. We didn’t even know where Ukraine was when the war broke out. We said, “Okay, let's help Ukraine,” but we had to look at a map to find out where Ukraine was.
I've gone three times. The first time, there were four of us. I was the youngest in the group, and after that, two of us from that first mission kept going, Loreto and I. Each mission has been different. At first, it was going to Kyiv and bringing things to some priests who had set up a shelter in their parish. Then the second mission was a bit of a tour around Ukraine to distribute supplies to orphanages and charitable houses. And the third mission was the same: distributing generators, ambulances.
To raise money the first time, everyone who knew we were going to Ukraine pitched in. The whole list of what they had asked us for – and it wasn't food or basic supplies; it was things like a chainsaw, generators, very specific items… – it was incredible, it was a huge miracle, because in a single week, we had everything.
Every day is a new adventure. We've delivered supplies and distributed them to different places, like orphanages and convents. We brought electric generators to Caritas in Donbas. We've collected the deceased, whether they were Russian or Ukrainian, that doesn’t matter, and once we identify them, we return them to their families, which is the important thing. Families get the news, but they don't know what happened to them. So, the families really appreciate being able to have their loved ones’ remains and being able to bury them.
I go to Ukraine because right now it's closer to home, so to speak. If I could, I would also be in Syria helping the Church there, the persecuted Church in China, in Nicaragua.
And I know it's what I have to do because although there are probably better things to do to help, right now I am in a position where I can go there, now matter how long I stay. I understand that not everyone can do that. And also because I have prayed about it and I know it's where I need to be.
I've been asked about the fear of death, because it’s so close to you there. I'm not afraid of dying. What I fear is not dying in grace, but dying itself doesn't scare me. I know that at some point I will die, and I truly live in abandonment to God. I mean, it’s not that I can’t live that way here, but there, I have to give thanks because I'm aware that I'm living it, you know? At any moment, I could be shot, or a missile could hit me, and I can't do anything to prevent that. And it's true that it’s a very extreme reality. In everyday life here, we can live abandonment to God and his providence, but over there, I experience it in a much more tangible way.
There was a day when a friend had to bring things to the shelter where we were staying, and he got to a complicated zone. He was alone and he kind of froze, so we told him not to worry, to stay where he was, that we needed those things and that we were going to get him. When I started the van, there was no fuel left. And when this guy sent us his location, he was two and a half hours away... That meant two and a half hours there and two and a half hours back. So we started the van, prayed to Mary, and we started praying the Rosary. The van lasted for two and a half hours there, picking him up, and two and a half hours back. We returned to the shelter, and it lasted. The fuel gauge never moved at all.
If I, by baptism, am a child of God, I have brothers and sisters who are dying or at least suffering a lot in Ukraine. That’s the support... More than material help, it's the spiritual support that we bring to the Church in Ukraine.
Once, I was in a shelter talking to a girl named Eugenia, who asked me: “Paula, what are you doing here? I mean, you're 25 years old, what are you doing here?” And I told her, “Look, Eugenia, you and I have never met before, but we’re sisters, and I’ve come to help you. Everyone here has come to help you.” And she started crying and said, “I always knew it, but now I’m really living it.”