When Jed and Kim Johnson moved to Ukraine from Salem three months ago, they never dreamed they would witness history.

Earlier this week, accompanied by church friends, Jed Johnson visited Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital — also known as Maidan — where mass protests that began about the time the Johnsons arrived in Ukraine forced the president out and prompted the parliament to organize a new government.

Barely a week earlier, however, government special forces fired on the protesters in the square and killed a number of them.

“As difficult as this revolution has been, we got to hear the heart of Ukrainians through this,” Johnson said in a FaceTime call Thursday, the day after he returned from Kiev.

“We have fallen in love with the country and these amazing people, who are such hard workers, resilient and caring. You see the best of it come out in people and some of the worst come out. On the streets in Maidan is right where you see it. It is right there — right in your face.”

Kim Johnson laughed as she recalled that when they arrived in mid-November, the couple were offered a chance to apply for emergency evacuation in the event of a crisis.

“We said we’re going to Ukraine; nothing will happen,” she said.

Although Jed Johnson said he he and his wife are not political activists, he has heard from some of the protesters and their supporters on the square, and even a couple of the political figures involved.

Among them were Yuriy Lutsenko, the former interior minister released from prison and an opposition leader, and Petro Poroshenko, a parliament member and pro-Western businessman known as the “chocolate king.”

He also caught up with a 20-year-old student friend, “Sasha,” who was beaten by police last month but is recovering.

“He was not really sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he is being very focused on this,” Johnson said. “He found a sense of identity.”

Johnson acknowledged that the ending is not yet written.

“People are willing to deal with upheaval if it means they can be free,” he said. “The mess does not feel permanent. But who knows where it goes from here?”

What it’s about

He said that contrary to news accounts that frame the conflict as East against West or Russia against Ukraine, the protesters have told him theirs is a struggle against internal corruption and for freedom at home.

The Johnsons got an inkling of what was to come a week after they arrived, when President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a trade deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. They met friends in Kiev who told them that students were going to protest in the square.

The initial protests were reminiscent of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, which toppled a dictatorial government peacefully 10 years ago. But soon afterward in December, when Jed Johnson visited, things changed when police moved to clear the square — and the issue became the government itself.

“It was the tipping point for a lot of people,” Jed Johnson said.

“As an American, I value freedom highly. I was proud to be there and see these people standing up for their freedom, putting it all on the line and saying we’re going to stay all night here in the cold.”

After last week’s shootings, which triggered international reaction against Yanukovych, photos, candles and flowers popped up on the square to commemorate those who died. Johnson said a number of them chose to sacrifice themselves to head off the special forces preparing to advance on the protesters.

“I can only describe what I saw and heard,” he said. “I still do not have words for everything I have experienced.”

How they got there

Jed and Kim Johnson and their four children moved in mid-November to Zhitomir, a city of 270,000 about 90 miles west of Kiev, set in an area half the size of Salem and Keizer. They said the city has been relatively quiet, although the political upheavals are Topic A in local conversations.

Jed Johnson called it “a big village.”

However, after the shootings in Kiev last week, protests also arose in Zhitomir that resulted in the toppling of a statue of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the old Soviet Union, that dominated the town square. It’s been more than 20 years since the Soviet Union dissolved and Ukraine became independent.

They are volunteering with Mission to Ukraine, a nonprofit that provides educational and medical services to children with disabilities. Once a week, they visit a boys’ orphanage in Romaniv, a village about 45 miles away. They have founded the Salem-based charity Wide Awake International.

“We are able to help boys who really need it now,” Kim Johnson said. “It also gives us a glimpse of the bigger picture of why we are here.”

Prior to their move, Jed and Kim Johnson had visited Ukraine twice, but without their children. Kim Johnson said she got the idea three and a half years ago after reading a woman’s online account about special-needs children in Ukraine.

They have set no limit on their stay, but say it will be at least one year. They said their first year will be spent mostly in learning the culture and language — they have decided to switch from Russian to Ukrainian, which both use Cyrillic symbols — and not imposing themselves and their ideas on their hosts.

While in Salem, Jed Johnson worked with nonprofit organizations, including Family Building Blocks, and was a community news reporter for the Statesman Journal about a decade ago. Kim Johnson was a pediatric nurse at Salem Hospital.

“When we got married, we knew at some point we wanted to live overseas and that orphan care was important to us,” Kim Johnson said. “We were looking for the opportunity to go.”

pwong@StatesmanJournal .com or (503) 399-6745 or twitter.com/capitolwong

Online

See this story at StatesmanJournal.com to watch video clips of Jed and Kim Johnson discussing current events and their lives in Ukraine, where they moved from Salem three months ago.

They also have websites: wideawakeinternational.org for their charity based in Salem, and wideawakefamily.com for their personal posts. Their Facebook page is facebook.com/HeartsWideAwake