By Tyce Dishman
He thought he was packing for a seven-day trip to his cousin’s house. Little did he know he was leaving everything and everyone behind to start a brand-new journey.
Denys Krushenytskyi is a senior at Delta High School. Denys grew up and lived in Kyiv, Ukraine, but with the imposing war threats from Russia, his family decided on Jan. 31, 2022, to begin the 5,070-mile trip to seek refuge in Muncie.
“I was just sitting at home, got back from school. My mom told me that we’re going to my cousins’ house for a week. We packed our stuff, and then at their house, she told me that we had to leave Ukraine because something might happen,” Denys said. “She didn’t tell me what or why; we just left.”
The family’s odyssey to Muncie took several months. Denys and his family spent several weeks in different countries such as Hungary, France, and Germany.
Their first stop in Hungary lasted two months. They stayed in the village of Alsóörs, next to Lake Balaton.
After those two months, it was time to hit the road again. They packed up everything once again and traveled to Budapest. They weren’t just taking a vacation; they were there for a purpose.
In Budapest, they visited the United States embassy and secured visas for Denys and his little brother Nazar to travel to the U.S.
After securing the visas, it was time to start making plans to head for the United States. Along the way, they drove through Austria, then arrived in Germany, where they stayed for two months in the town of Kandern.
When it was time to leave Germany for the United States, Denys had to leave something behind. Not something: his mom. Denys would be traveling to the United States without both of his parents while his mom figured out travel papers.
Leaving their home, family, and friends behind in Ukraine, Denys and Nazar had nowhere to stay in this unfamiliar territory. The only people that they knew they could count on were family members.
They asked their cousins, the Tokars, if they could stay with them for a while until they figured out what they were going to do.
Josh Tokar, Denys’s uncle, was a missionary in Ukraine where he met his future wife, Denys’s aunt Sveta, but Josh had originally grown up in Minnesota. So Denys and Nazar stayed with him and his family in Minnesota for the remainder of that school year and that summer.
However, they had family in Muncie, so they moved here. The Krushenytskyis were not the only family in need of the Tokars’ generosity.
Like the Krushenytskyis, the Koberniks were also leaving Ukraine because of the war. With the addition of these two families, the Tokars’ four-bedroom, two-bath house was no longer so spacious.
“With all the extra people at the house, we had to share space, and it was hard to get used to at first, but we all got closer because of it,” said sophomore Jacob Tokar, who is a cousin to Denys.
After living together for three years, Jacob and Denys’ once-distant connection, separated by thousands of miles, became a different bond.
They spent nonstop time together at the house, at the dinner table, and at sports practices.
“Since we lived together, we’re kind of just brothers now,” Jacob said.
Denys and Jacob both play tennis at Delta. Before he arrived in middle school, Denys had never picked up a tennis racquet. Now, over his four years of high school, Denys compiled a record of 51 wins and 17 losses in JV competition and a record of 1-0 in varsity on senior night.
Tennis has become more than a sport to Denys.
“Tennis is a way for me to escape everything and hang out with my friends; it’s just like a family,” Denys said.
Tennis is not the only sport for Denys. He joined the wrestling team his junior year because he wanted another fun experience to hang out with friends. In his first season with limited experience and ability to get into duals, his record was three wins and six losses.
He didn’t just stop with wrestling. He joined Unified Track and played a role in helping them advance to regionals.
“You rarely, if ever, see Denys give up in a match, or anything like that,” tennis head coach Tim Cleland said. “He fights and tries his best all the time.”
The variety of sports options is a new experience for Denys. In Ukraine, the schools didn’t offer sports for him to play.
However, with fewer opportunities to play sports, his time and focus were spent elsewhere.
That elsewhere being the classroom. While for most students “elsewhere” means the traditional classroom, for Denys it is 5,000 miles away, in a different country, behind a computer.
Denys took Ukrainian classes online while still attending and taking classes in the United States.
“Having to learn the work by myself was hard because I couldn’t easily talk to the teacher,” Denys said. “If I had any question, I couldn’t just ask about it; that was the hard part.”
Nevertheless, he didn’t let the challenge of online school bother him. Denys finished up all of the classes he is required to take in Ukraine in order to graduate. He now only has to take a test when he gets back, and he can walk the stage.
Denys is on track to complete the double and graduate from Delta, making him one of very few, if any, students to fully complete graduation requirements for two different countries in Delta High School history.
Denys’s future plans are not set in stone due to the unknown. Denys and his family are not sure if they will head back to Ukraine. His father has remained in Ukraine where he serves in the military and has been fighting against the Russians for 12 years. Denys wants to join the military if he goes back. But if he stays in the United States, he plans to become a firefighter.
