2 minute read
Reflection
Captain Oleg Samoilenko (Warsaw) reflects on his experiences helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland
IREMEMBER the morning of 24 February, when my wife woke me up to say that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had begun. I couldn’t believe it, I started checking the internet and reading about how bombs and rockets were falling on peaceful Ukrainian cities. I didn’t know how to call my mother, living 30km from the border with Russia. I was afraid.
It has now been many months since we started actively serving refugees from Ukraine in Poland. More than 500,000 people arrived in Warsaw. Every day, 700 to 800 people turned to The Salvation Army for help – women with children or older people who left their lives running away from the war. It was impossible to listen to their stories without tears – a murdered husband, a raped child, destroyed houses. This is what will for ever remain in the memory of these women.
I am Ukrainian by nationality, so I consider Ukraine my homeland. It was especially difficult for me to serve the refugees, because in them I saw my mother, who was in a bomb shelter for two weeks without food and drinking water, and who saw a Russian soldier shooting people next to her house.
One Sunday, during a sermon, when I had to speak about love and forgiveness, I asked myself if I really believed what I was saying. It was difficult to find understanding in my heart when hundreds of Ukrainian children were killed every day because they were Ukrainians, with schools and hospitals containing civilians bombed.
But God reminded me that all our hope is in him.
My grandmother, who was a child during the Second World War, often said that you can survive a lot, but the worst is war. I understood this when I saw thousands of refugees on the streets of Warsaw. They were desperately looking for work, security and stability. They had not seen their husbands or partners for more than four months, bearing the responsibility for their children and their parents on their shoulders.
One evening, after we had stopped working, someone rang the doorbell of our corps hall. A woman with a child stood there. She said that she was passing by and came just to say hello, since she had no one here but only The Salvation Army, where she finally felt calm and the child was happy. Today, Natasha is our active volunteer, who every Saturday holds a club for Ukrainian children; while the children play, mothers can cry together and talk about common difficulties. I never imagined that my officership would be like that – with sleepless nights, many tears, so many difficult conversations – but today we are God’s light to these people. Together with the team at my corps, we can give them a little hope.
