Wasilla church volunteers travel to Poland to help Ukrainian refugees

At 4:20 a.m. Monday, after a few hours of sleep and four days of scrambling to gather supplies and make other travel preparations, five members of a Wasilla church arrived at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to fly to Poland on their quest to support Ukrainian refugees.

The group from Word of Life Church in Wasilla — David Torba, William Maas, David Rudenkiy, Alena Ogolenko and Oksana Rudenkiy— will stay in Krakow for about 10 days, helping Ukrainian refugees access food and shelter in addition to offering translation services.

“We saw that there was a big need in helping with the refugees, and that’s what prompted us to go,” said Torba, a youth pastor leading the group. “Our main focus is taking care of the refugees that are coming in — making sure they go to safe places, making sure they’re able to just not freeze outside because the weather is cold there as it is here. It’s just taking care of the refugees in whatever way is needed.”

The group is bringing with them six suitcases filled with medical supplies, baby formula, diapers, hats, gloves, hand warmers and personal hygiene items, Ogolenko said.

The church group decided to go to Poland because “that’s where the most refugees are coming through right now, mainly women, children and elderly people who are allowed to cross,” Torba said.

Each of the travelers, who are all under 30, speaks English and Russian, and some of them also know Ukrainian. They hope to use their language skills to help Ukrainian refugees navigate a new country.

For some in the group, the decision to go on this trip was personal. Ogolenko’s father used to be a pastor of a church in Ukraine, and her close ties to the country, as well as seeing accounts of other volunteers on the ground, invoked a strong desire to help Ukrainians, said Yana Sinyawski, secretary of the Word of Life Church and Ogolenko’s friend.

“She said that she just really felt the burning desire in her heart to go,” Sinyawski said. “That’s how everything started. And same as with the other people in the group: I think they all just had that desire to go help people that are in need and just share the gospel.”

Torba said he has cousins who live in the area around Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and while his relatives are now safe, it’s not the case for many Ukrainians whose cities and villages are now being attacked by the Russian military.

More than 1.7 million Ukrainians have left their country in search of safety. Out of that number, more than a million came to Poland, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency.

In Poland, the Word of Life Church group will join the Awakening Europe ministry, which has been on the ground for at least a week and has a plan for how to efficiently provide help during an ongoing war, Sinyawski said

“Just because the war happened so quickly,” the preparation for the trip was quick too, Torba said.

Sinyawski said that the conversation about the trip started Monday, Feb. 28. Two days later, the group bought their tickets. In about four days, they needed to get everything ready.

Once the group was set to travel, friends, family, church members and co-workers expressed their support and provided financial help. After a few hectic days of acquiring supplies for refugees, the five church members took off from Anchorage.

“It wasn’t easy, but it was doable. We made it happen,” Torba said about making trip preparations on short notice. “We’re looking forward to serve people, to show that people care for them, and give them hope in a hopeless time.”