Saddleback's Advance Relief Team Update

It’s a five-hour drive to Medyka, one of the largest border crossings in the southeast of Poland.  We’re traveling in three large vans so we can take refugees back to Warsaw or any other stop along the way.

Our first stop is the train station in Przemysl, 6 miles west of Medyka. We meet Edita, who came from the other side of Poland, 600 miles away on the German border to help here. She gives us an overview of the situation and the rudimentary process. When Edita isn't helping handicapped people roll their wheelchairs to and across the border, she floats around in the train station to answer questions in Russian or Ukrainian. She directs people to the right check-in center, finds the next train, get one of the free SIM cards organizations are providing or point them to the relocation center. 

The Przemysl station is constantly packed with transitioning refugees. Most of them are women and children, some of them packed in snow suits looking like little Michelin men.  Like everywhere else here, it’s a beehive of sparingly organized chaos. Whatever is missing or not working is patched up by compassion and improvisation.  In and around the building swarm policemen, members from many different churches, humanitarian organizations in yellow vests, city employees and volunteers from across the world. Within the train station humanitarian organizations and private groups provide other essentials like clothes or just a warm fire in a barrel. Today it was sunny but in the 20s.

Our next stop was Medyka. There's a small path from the actual border crossing down to where the buses and cars wait. At the end of that path officials ask the refugees about their plans and point them to the next step in their journey. Along that narrow aisle are a range of tents and made-up kitchens resembles a county fair. It’s a menagerie of people holding signs showing the way.  Along the path are Chris & David, the owners of a furniture store in Scotland, who came down to cook canned soup and provide heated tents for people who missed the last bus of the day. 

We met Kirk Conrad, a Rams fan from L.A. who’s been cleaning out trash before being self-promoted to pushing a shopping cart (donated by a local grocery store) to transport the refugees’ belongings down the hill to the buses. Kirk knows he is moving everything a family has left down that hill.

At this point of the journey, people have walked days to get to the border. If they drove, they’re leaving their cars on the Ukrainian side to reach the safety the border offers. The wait at the border can be up to 35 minutes and over a mile long.

We are also seeing people going the opposite way up the hill, like one German-Ukrainian woman who escaped a week ago and is now traveling back, trying to save her parents who aren’t in the physical condition to escape by themselves.

Despite the dire situation, the overall atmosphere is calm and positive. Both ends of the emotional spectrum coexist side by side. While an older woman jokes with Kirk without sharing a common language, inside one of the soup kitchens a mother breaks into tears for a moment before pulling herself together so her kids don’t see her fears. For many people this is the first hot meal in days.

The thread in all of this chaos seems to be the concept of relocation. There are - very intentionally - no refugee camps. Everybody gets transported to a local mall that functions as a distribution center. In the first room of the mall, drivers register with their ID. They give their destination and number of passengers. There seems to be an official registration system that provides some level of tracking and safety for both drivers and refugees. The danger of human trafficking at any of these arrival spots is glaringly obvious. 

People who don't have a relative or friend, choose a location to be brought to. Each shop in the mall represents a country of destination. There's long rows of beds in each room for people to rest until their transport is ready.  The majority of the refugees want to stay close to the border because they want to get back home as soon as possible. 

Being immersed in this overwhelming sea of refugees and first responders, we realize this is not just a Ukrainian or Polish, European or global crisis. It is a human crisis.  People are responding in a unified effort to serve, not solve.  We are acutely aware of the deep loss Ukrainians are experiencing, but we are also watching strangers selflessly sacrifice so much. People are driving from 1,700 miles away in Portugal, taking time off from work, emptying their own car, driving 3 days to pick up people they don’t know and often can’t even communicate with in the same language. 

As people, we all share in the sufferings of others and as neighbors and fellow human beings, we also share in becoming a friend to strangers. 

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,   I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Matthew 25:35-36

PRAY

• Peace and an end to war
• Safe travel for the refugees
• Strength for parents (specifically mothers)
• Comfort for children and families
• Wisdom for the local churches and volunteer teams as they serve

If you're interested in going on a Relief Team, apply here.