ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) – Ukrainian families in Austin are helping people from their homeland settle in Central Texas as the war with Russia continues.

Tatyana Myslovsksya of Round Rock is part of one of those families who are lending a hand. A friend recently connected her to journalist Lesya Moskalenko who lives in a village right outside of Kyiv.

Moskalenko had been visiting people in the United States when the war started. She was unable to go back to her country and needed a place to stay. Myslovsksya took her and her family in.

“All Ukrainian people are family. We are very strong and very connected,” Myslovsksya said.

For Moskalenko, every second is filled with uncertainty. Her parents, animals, friends and colleagues are still in Ukraine, with no sign of being able to get out.

“Everyday she is waiting for her parents to wake up and text her that they are OK,” Myslovsksya translated for Moskalenko. “Today the bomb just fell right in the center of her village.”

While trying to hold back emotions, Moskalenko told KXAN the situation in her homeland is “horrible.” Rape and murder have become too common. She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to go back home.

“Being in your mid 40s, starting all over but not having a future, you live day by day trying to figure it out,” Myslovsksya explained for Moskalenko.

Myslovsksya says there is some hope after President Joe Biden requested nearly $33 billion from Congress to help Ukraine. Another glimmer of hope is the new bond between these two Ukrainian women, once strangers, but now family brought together through the devastation of war.

“We are going to continue our relationship,” Myslovsksya said. “We already talked about us flying to Kyiv.”

They say many Ukrainians who have fled their home country are either waiting to go back or are applying for Temporary Protected Status or Refugee Status in the U.S.