PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Faith and family keep Pastor Trevor Littleton going as he watches the horrors unfold in Ukraine.

Five of his nine children are from Ukraine and all he wants is to get two other young women he considers his daughters to safety.

Love is a universal language that defies any language barrier.

“I miss you,” said Dasha, 20, during a virtual call with Littleton.

“I miss you,” he replied.

Littleton of First Church of Christ in Painesville is grateful to speak with Dasha as she’s at a church camp in Poland with other refugees.

He considers the young woman from Ukraine his daughter, although he wasn’t able to adopt her because she was too old. 

“We’ve really just stressed to her, ‘Honey, you are worth it. You are worth these efforts,’” he said.

The Littleton family is large. He and his wife have four biological children, five adopted children from Ukraine and two other unofficial Ukrainian daughters: Dasha and Nastya, 26.

“These are girls who have not grown up with a mother or father in their life and so for them to accept and receive that love is really — it’s challenging for them to do that,” said Littleton. “But I think everybody deserves that love. Everybody deserves that opportunity.”

Sergei, Nastya’s little brother, is one of Littleton’s adopted sons who lives in Ohio.

Nastya lives in Mariupol, Ukraine, and Littleton has not heard from her in three weeks.

“The last thing she said to me, that I remember, is she was too afraid to video chat because the bombing was too loud outside and she wanted to be ready to flee,” said Littleton. “She had a bag, bottle of water, and she was sleeping in her closet.”

The lack of communication concerns Littleton. The family meticulously looked through every piece of news footage they can to see if Nastya is there.

“So, other people who are watching the news will send us a clip like ‘Hey, we just watched this group of children come out of a basement. Here’s this brunette girl. Is this her?’ And I’ll go back and scour through and do slow frames and whatever and no, that wasn’t her and it’s just that let down over and over and over again,” said Littleton.

But he saw his other daughter to safety. Littleton told Dasha to flee her home in Lviv and meet him at the Poland border for a reunion.

“I don’t get emotional for much, but I was very emotional that night because I just knew she has a chance. She has a chance for freedom. She has a chance to really be healthy, to emotionally be healthy,” he said.

Ukraine is a special place with a lot of meaning to Littleton and his family. He said the orphanage some of his children grew up in was destroyed in a bombing last week.

Watching the war from afar has been tough.

“I’ve walked these streets. I’ve ate at these restaurants. I’ve been in these buildings that are now being blown up. It’s really surreal. It’s just a very odd feeling of helplessness,” said Littleton.

Now he hopes the federal government will grant a humanitarian visa for his daughters overseas and other refugees.

“Where we can go through and say, ‘Hey, I’ve had these children here in America before. We can take care of them. This not a taxpayer expense thing. We can house them. We can give them food. We can take care of them. When the time comes, if necessary, they can go back home. They can find citizenship or apply for it,’” he said. “But it’s a humanitarian process that does not exist right now for Ukrainian refugees.”