Traditional Ukranian Manna Kasha holds beautiful breakfast memories for Nika Spicer, memories she is trying to pass on to her children.

“It is a very yummy breakfast for kids, for grandparents making it for their grandchildren, but it’s good for adults, too,” Spicer said. “It’s a very simple meal, served warm. It is very nutritious. It has proteins, vitamins B, fibers, iron, magnesium.”

Manna Kasha is directly translated into English as semolina porridge, but it took a good deal of experimentation for Spicer to get it exactly right in her new country. It’s made with durum wheat, which is also popularly used for homemade pasta, but that flour is too finely ground to make Manna Kasha.

Spicer said she lucked out with Amazon, where she found the wheat in a granular size that works. Several options are listed with the recipe.

Milk in the United States was also a problem. It needs to be 2%, or whole milk; fat-free milk will stick to the frying pan. It takes about two minutes to make, with constant stirring, after it comes to a simmer.

“My mother would make it two times a week, and my brother, who is two years younger, would argue about who would get more chocolate,” Spicer said.

For her kids, she covers it with the same topping her mother and grandmother would typically use, a mix of cocoa and sugar.

“My son, he likes the chocolate. Who doesn’t like chocolate? Every Tuesday and Thursday he gets this,” Spicer said.

She said that hot cocoa mix works well, but many people will also top it with jam, or berries.

For this story, she added the Ukrainian trident symbol by using a template laid out in the cocoa topping.

“The trident is one of the official symbols of Ukraine that is over 1,000 years old. It’s a blue background with a yellow trident, which is also on the currency. It is a heroic symbol of the past, indicating the fighting spirit,” Spicer said.

With the Ukrainian war with Russia continuing, those sunny childhood summers at her grandmother’s house are a distant memory of happier times.

“My grandmother’s house wasn’t a big property, but it was in the village,” Spicer said. “The property around her yard was always cultivated, with strawberries in the front, a garden in the back, with fruit trees, raspberries, and gooseberries and currant bushes that we could eat off of. It was paradise in the summer for a kid. Eating fruit all day long and playing with our friends, it was safe and good.”

She worries about her children, and those of her family and friends who still live in Ukraine. She and her husband, Rob Spicer, taught at the university in the western Ukrainian city, Lviv. Today, he is the senior pastor at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Bowling Green.

She is a Ph.D. clinical psychologist with the Anxiety Treatment Center of Greater Toledo.

They have two sons, Peter, 14 months, and Nathan, who is 6 years old.

Like many kids, Nathan has the classic plastic army men. Just prior to this interview, he had them on the kitchen table. Spicer said that the three different figures, in green, red and black, were Russians attacking the Ukrainian families.

“We’re still in the middle of active warfare,” she said of her homeland, not wanting people to forget the conflict.

Lviv has seen lighter shelling than many Ukrainian cities in the eastern part of the country. The Russian army shelled several targets in Lviv when President Joe Biden visited Warsaw, Poland, Ukraine’s neighbor to the north.

“My family and friends are in Western Ukraine. Bomb sirens go off almost every day, and it is scary,” Spicer said.

At the beginning of the war, about six weeks ago, the couple started a fundraising effort through St. Mark’s. It was initially to help employees of her brother Vadym’s business. As the war has progressed, the employees have been able to flee the fighting, with a few staying to help, but the need for aid continues to grow.

The $10,000 goal, has resulted in more than $40,000 being raised.

After the success of hitting their initial goals, they sent money to pay for buses to carry refugees to the safer western areas and the Polish border, but the Russians started targeting them.

“My brother gets daily requests for help,” Spicer said. “In Bucha, on day two, that group was on the ground delivering supplies.”

Bucha is a city that the Russian troops have pulled out of, leaving extensive damage and death.

Vadym and his family were lucky to be on vacation, out of the country, when fighting began. His last name isn’t being used because of cyber attacks to thwart his efforts.

“These are local Ukrainian volunteers on the front lines, not the Red Cross. It’s food, water and first aid kits. … A lot goes to individual refugees, mostly to women with children,” Spicer said.

She said that most of the people remaining in the city of Bucha are hiding in basements, cut off from food and electricity.

“Immediate survival, humanitarian aid is so needed ,, lot of elderly, these grandmothers, bent over and sitting in their basements for weeks,“ Spicer said. “(The supported aid group members) are going there daily now … lot of it goes to individual refugees, mostly to women with children. Usually, they say ‘thank you’ with crying.”

Fundraising continues. The front page of www.StMarksBG.org has a link for “Ukraine Relief Fund,” with directions on ways to give. There is also an email newsletter with weekly updates.

“Many people in Ukraine are turning to God, during their darkest time. We, as Christians here, can answer their prayers in a very tangible way,” Spicer said. “To me, these funds are literally answering people’s prayers. That’s how God works. When someone prays, God calls us to action.”