SINGAPORE - Mr Matthew Tan, 51, meticulously plans his family holidays. He plots the routes and rest stops that he, his wife and their two daughters, now in their 20s, will take; he even checks out crime statistics in the cities before they visit.

But when he flew on his own to Poland, which is located next to Ukraine, in April, he had no idea how he would be helping the refugees at the border who had fled the war, or where he would stay for two whole months. Before he left, he contacted many non-profit organisations there, but did not hear back. The only accommodation he could find was a hostel which he booked for a week.

The pastor, who also writes Christian songs, says: "It was the first time in my life that I didn't plan for a trip. But I realised that if I kept waiting for things to be confirmed, I wouldn't go.

"Looking at the faces of war on TV, I felt that the war had caught these Ukrainians off guard."
help them. He added that he felt a burning spiritual desire to "go beyond (his) comfort zone" to
For many years, he has taken part in overseas humanitarian trips, usually with Christian organisations, such as to Henan province in China to support a village populated by Aids sufferers, and to help victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

In April, Mr Tan made his own way to Medyka, a village on the Polish border that has been receiving Ukrainian refugees.

He had packed a sleeping bag and dozens of portable heating packs in case he had to sleep on the streets in sub-zero temperatures. But the need never arose. Within days, he made contact with an international non-governmental organisation working there, Operation Blessing, and rented a room in a local home.
The job he landed was to welcome refugees and help them get orientated. He handed out bowls of soup and blankets, carried their luggage, and directed them to the government agencies of the different countries they wanted to get to, which were all represented at the Polish refugee centres. Once, he escorted some 40 refugees on a bus from Poland to Porto in Portugal, a journey which took about 42 hours.

He says the Ukrainian refugees he encountered were quite unlike those he had assisted years ago in a United Nations refugee camp in Thailand. There, the refugees from Myanmar were more settled, having lived in the camp for months or years.
Some of the Ukrainian refugees, he recounts, were well-dressed women who looked like tai tais, carrying a designer handbag while pulling a suitcase on wheels. Some had dogs, such as golden retrievers and schnauzers, on a leash. The refugee centre he worked at had a carousel and bouncy castles for children, and a tent for vets to tend to animals in distress, typically house pets unaccustomed to walking such long distances.

Despite these trappings of upper-middle-class life, Mr Tan saw flashes of menace and post-traumatic stress disorder. Police found unauthorised people donning official vests and roaming among the crowd, raising the spectre of human trafficking. As Polish helicopters patrolled the sky, a group of refugees froze in horror, thinking those were Russian choppers.

"I understand that Ukraine was a developed country. Many of the refugees were probably living a normal life in the city, eating McDonald's and going to work or university, when they were suddenly forced to go on the run. There's a lot of psychological trauma," says Mr Tan.

He hopes that he has achieved his "ultimate purpose", which was to give "a glimpse of hope" to those he encountered during the two months he was there.

Mr Tan says: "I'm looking forward to going back again some time. I hope I can play a part in rebuilding Ukraine, whether in big or small ways."