- My name's Joe Ampe.
I'm from Marquette, Michigan out of Knights Council 689.
My wife and I have been open to children always,
just that openness to life
and willingness to bring more into our family.
- Our oldest is 22 and our youngest is three.
So I spend most
of my time in our household just managing life.
I see this just as an extension of our Catholic Faith,
just raising our own children to be good people
and to recognize the gifts we have.
We had eight children
and then we saw a listing on an advocacy site,
Reece's Rainbow.
It was a picture of Cazimir as a newborn
and I showed it to Joe and he said,
you don't just show me a picture
of a baby and then close the laptop.
And so we started the adoption process.
- We went for special needs adoption,
particularly because they have the hardest time
finding a home.
In Ukraine, because of their medical system,
any child with a disability is automatically removed
from the home unless the family is providing
all of the medical out of pocket.
It's not a financially feasible option.
- We traveled in August of 2018 when I was
six and a half months pregnant with Isadora.
And we met Caz.
And on the night before we left,
we found out that Henrik was available.
And so we sent a message to our children that were
in the United States and asked them to FaceTime us.
And they said don't come home without him.
And so we proceeded to adopt him.
- It was such a blessing to bring these boys home
and the blessings never stopped pouring out.
My wife and Henrik's mother
email back and forth frequently.
And from that, my wife reached out to me and said, hey Joe,
they're asking for these things.
Do you think that we could get them over to them?
- When they finally asked us for something,
our only option was to go.
We took the list that they had
for a hospital in Mykolaiv that
was running pretty low on everything.
They asked for ventilators and surgical tools
and things that we just wouldn't even consider hospitals
not having to operate.
St. John's Knights groups have been amazing.
Father Ryan has been really instrumental
in gathering support.
- He's a man ready to just kind of
buckle up and go where the Holy Spirit leads him.
Tiffany of course has been the support behind that.
Just doing what the Holy Spirit's telling him to do.
- We found out Ampe family
was gonna be packing medical supplies for over in Ukraine.
And I talked with my council and they were more
than willing to come down and give him a hand.
- [Joe] The Knights have been incredibly supportive
throughout the entire process.
It's been really amazing to see how our community
has stepped up to help people need.
It's a group of men doing what they're called to do,
but we're all called to be great.
- I think that's what the Knights of Columbus are about
is making a difference in the most impactful way possible.
- The people here
in Ukraine have been extremely friendly and very welcoming
and they say it gives them hope
and that the world is standing with them.