Mariupol Christians Arrive To Sopot
On March 2, a week after the war started, the city of Mariupol lost contact with the rest of the world. As many of you know, there is a congregation there, led by UBI graduate and instructor Alexander Piletskiy. There are also several other UBI graduates who are a part of that congregation, including Alexei Kalchuk and Sasha Kapsha (who I wrote about last December in this update). In the days leading up to the information black out, the congregation was turning the building into the safest shelter they could.
Just a few days before we lost contact, Alexander was with two other church members in his van when they came under fire. The only news we got was that Alexander was shot in the head and the other two were also seriously wounded. Thankfully, we finally got word that the bullet just grazed him, and that the other church members were going to be okay too.
And then...nothing. Mariupol lost all cell, internet, and phone access. The city’s water and electricity were cut. And we all held our breath waiting for any news from the church there.
One week went by. Two weeks. Three weeks. Nothing.
Eventually we started hearing news and seeing images from the battered city, and it was horrifying. We were thankful to even hear from other Christians who had managed to get out, but none of them had been sheltering at the building. No one knew anything about those there.
Four weeks went by. Five weeks went by.
We saw video footage from the neighborhood where the building was.—so much destruction everywhere. I honestly began preparing myself for the reality that they might not have made it. That maybe we’d never know what happened to our brothers and sisters there.
And then we got this picture.
We were overjoyed to learn that every single person that had been sheltering in the church was alive, including Alexander who had at some point had been released from the hospital.
Days later the entire group managed to get out of Mariupol and make it to the city of Donetsk. After spending a couple days to regroup and make plans, they decided the majority of them would travel together to us in Sopot, Poland. To get there, however, they had to go through Russia.
We prayed hard that there would be no issues going through “filtration,” a process where others had been held up for hours and even days and often seriously harrassed. We were concerned that Alexander and his military past might cause some issues.
All posts about their exit and travels were removed from social media. They de-friended all their American contacts in their chat apps. They removed anything they thought might cause problems for them at the border. And then we all prayed.
And they made it. We were elated the next day to see that they had all made it through with no problems. And their faces couldn’t hide the relief they were all feeling.
But the journey was far from over. They had to travel by bus to St. Petersburg, Russia, then on to Estonia where they were put up in a hotel for several days before arrangements could be made to get them into Poland.
Meanwhile at the church building in Sopot, big plans were being made to celebrate their arrival. Even Tim Burow, president of Sunset International Bible Institute (and former missionary to Mariupol), flew out to meet them.
Then on April 26, a team of drivers, including missionary Annabelle Dawidow, drove throughout the night to meet the Mariupol Christians at the border.
Their arrival was sweet. A celebration of answered prayers.
We praise God for answering our prayers about the church in Mariupol in such a powerful way. It was another reminder of the power of prayer. In the middle of a war, in a destroyed neighborhood of Mariupol, a church building stood firm and those inside stayed safe.
I will be back in Sopot on Friday. I have been traveling around Europe visiting other refugee works (more on that trip next time) and so I missed the arrival of our group. I am anxiously awaiting sweet hugs and good conversations.
—Brandon