PABIANICE, Poland — Jjoyful the screams reached a shattering level when Ukrainian children ran into the common room of the Hotel Piemont. They finally had room to play. Adult reprimands to calm down naturally went unnoticed.

The children who live in this suburban hotel, about 10 km from the city of Łódź, have spent hours queuing, by car and on foot, to cross Poland from their war-torn homeland.

Many came with mothers, aunts and grandmothers as border guards detained their fathers to help Ukraine’s war effort.

They come from places like Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and beleaguered and battered Mariupol. Their paths cross at the hotel, where a small group of Polish and American Christians help them start a new life.

Brandon and Jessica Zorn, missionaries supported by The Hills Church of Christ near Fort Worth, Texas, work with the 38 refugees – 18 women, four men and 16 children – living at the Hotel Piemont. They minister alongside members of a Polish congregation, the Genesis Nova Christian Church, which rents the hotel to Ukrainians.

This is not the ministry the Zorns had been preparing for when they left Texas in Poland in October 2016. They came to Łódź, the third largest city in Poland, to plant churches and work with Let’s start talking. This ministry uses Bible lessons to help non-natives speakers improve their English.

However, the family history of the Zorns is closely linked to that of the refugees.

Lidia, the Zorns’ 3-year-old daughter, was named after her great-grandmother, Lydia, who fled in the 1920s at age 4 from the Second Polish Republic – part of which is now modern Ukraine – in the aftermath of the Polish-Soviet War.

Nearly 100 years later, Lydia’s grandson and his family run weekly English classes and Bible studies for residents of the short-term refugee resettlement in Pabianice.

They imagine that Lydia’s story is not so different from that of Ukrainian refugees today.

Related: Christians in the United States are finding ways to support Ukraine

Difficult decision after a difficult trip

This is the second war to break up Julia Dubina and her family.

In 2014, Dubina fled Luhansk, Ukraine, with her mother, Inna, when pro-Russian separatist groups won importance in the Donbass region. Eight years later, she fled Kyiv with his 6-year-old daughter, Alice.

The trip was not easy.

Dubina

Dubina and her family spent hours their car – driving, sleeping, waiting. A man stole his mother’s bag, which contained his laptop and personal documents, after their stay in Poland. Find a place to stay long enough to decide how to approach the future proved to be a challenge.

Finally, his family arrived in Piedmont.

The hotel provides families with their own rooms rather than the dormitory-style accommodations found in other short-term refugee resettlements. This allows them to retain a sense of their family unit and mourn the loss of their previous life in private.

Residents can stay at the hotel for 60 days while deciding how to deal with their uncertain future: seek more permanent residence and employment in Poland, continue in another country, or return to Ukraine if the situation in their region improves. stabilizes.

Dubina, a lawyer, would face employment issues if she chose to stay. To practice law in Poland, she would have to submit an application to the district bar or chamber of legal advisers and pass an aptitude test on spoken and written Polish – a language she does not know.

Yet, as difficult as permanent resettlement in Poland was, continued bombardment in Kyiv made returning home just as daunting.

Dubina’s plans were uncertain at the time of the interview. All she knew was that she wanted to go home and get back to her job.

“I have clients,” Dubina said. “I have challenges. It’s time to go back to court.

‘Nothing to Return’

Other hotel residents shared Dubina’s desire to return to their old lives.

“One day they are ready to return to Ukraine. The next day, they’re like, “Obviously, there’s nothing to go back on.”

Missionaries Angela Shcherban and her husband, Valera, who became parents in Piedmont after fleeing their own home in Ukraine, witnessed the daily uncertainty refugees face.

“People are very emotional unstable,” Shcherban explained. “One day they are ready to return to Ukraine. The next day, they’re like, “Obviously, there’s nothing to go back on.”

But meeting the emotional and psychological needs of refugees is a challenge.

The Shcherbans are looking for a Christian psychologist in Poland who speaks Ukrainian – an uncommon combination – who could come to the hotel in person to offer counseling sessions. In the meantime, the couple are doing what they can to offer emotional and spiritual support, by leading Bible studies or simply listening to the stories of other refugees.

It was through conversations and Bible studies that Shcherban shared the gospel with Dubina, who had shunned churches in Ukraine after deeming them corrupt.

Shcherban

Now the Ukrainian lawyer begins to study for herself what the Bible has to say.

“When we started talking to Angela and Valera, they told us about God’s way and I started reading my Bible,” Dubina said.

“I didn’t know who God was. …Today is the first day I started reading the Gospel of Matthew, and I feel the heat.

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