The invasion began in February 2022. We arrived in March. We keep coming back.
The Renewal Initiative was forged in presence long before it was a registered nonprofit. We came to help. We keep showing up. The work changed because we did.
The first chapter was emergency. It was not the last chapter.
Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022. By March, Russian columns were still moving toward Kyiv, and Andrew Moroz arrived in Ukraine carrying a passport, a desire to help, and the belief that presence mattered more than plans. The Renewal Initiative did not yet exist as a registered nonprofit. It existed through the efforts of our volunteers and the supplies we gathered to help vulnerable Ukrainians.
The early work was what the early work had to be: relief delivery, evacuation support, food, medicine, blankets, gas, the things that keep people alive when the structures around them are failing. We came with what we had. We met people who were doing the actual work of holding their country together — pastors, chaplains, medical workers, community organizers, frontline responders — and we asked how to help.
What they taught us, over months and then years, became the work we do now.
What the field taught us, and what changed because of it.
The work did not stay the same. It could not. Three chapters mark the arc of how we became what we are — what we now call the Three Movements.
Respond
The emergency chapter.
The first months were what they had to be. We helped move food, shelter, medicine, and gas to places that needed them. We supported evacuations where evacuations were possible. We came with what we had and did what was useful that day.
What we learned in those first months was that the most important work was already underway. The Ukrainian leaders we met — chaplains, pastors, medical workers, community organizers — were the ones who would still be there when the visitors left. They became the people we wanted to invest in over the long arc.
Restore
The carrying chapter.
By 2023, international attention had moved on. The war had not. The leaders we had come to know were now entering the long, quieter work of holding communities together — processing trauma alongside families, helping schools and clinics get back on their feet, sitting with people whose lives had been split in half by it all.
We shifted our weight with the field. Relief work continued where it had to, but the deeper investment moved toward the people doing the carrying. Care networks, formation work, resources, retreats — the things that keep carriers carrying. Dnipro Lego Club began in this season as a consistent, relational space for children impacted by trauma, led by Ukrainian leaders and sustained through the kind of monthly partnership that only comes from people who have decided to stay.
Rebuild
The structural chapter.
Four years in, the most consistent signal from the Ukrainian leaders we walk with is that the need has changed. Emergency relief still matters, but it is no longer the primary need. What the field is asking for now is durable structure — leaders who can keep going, care networks that hold over time, and communities that can carry their own future without outside hands.
Our 2026 field survey of Ukrainian leaders confirmed what our partners had been telling us for months. Frontline Leader Intensives have become the primary work. Care Networks have deepened. Relief work continues where it is needed, but the center of gravity has moved toward the long arc.
Andrew Moroz. In the work since March 2022.
Andrew founded The Renewal Initiative after his first trip to Ukraine in March 2022 and has continued returning to lead frontline work, formation intensives, and care networks for Ukrainian leaders. He has spent years inside the work he writes about.
Alongside the field work in Ukraine, Andrew pursued doctoral studies in intercultural studies at Columbia International University. His research traced faithful leadership through the life of Richard Stearns, former president of World Vision US — a leader who carried a global organization through identity tension, public scrutiny, and slow institutional renewal without losing his own footing.
He is also the founder of Renewal Leadership, the formation practice that pairs with The Renewal Initiative inside the Renewal Ecosystem.
The world is held by people. The people need to be held too.
Emergency funding ends. Communities rebuild for years. Leaders carry weight for decades. The work that actually changes a place is the work that stays. We stay.
If you believe that dignity and durability are worth investing in — that giving should outlast a news cycle, a funding cycle, or a founder — you understand why we exist.
The story keeps moving. So do we.
See the current work, partner with the long arc, or learn how The Renewal Initiative pairs with Renewal Leadership inside one ecosystem.