Family Retreat Opens Doors Among Ukrainian Refugees in Hungary
Photos courtesy of Bridge UA
After leaving the retreat in Vajta, Hungary, Ukrainian refugees living in Hungary have bonded together to encourage each other. Since saying goodbye, they have started visiting each other and talking about having regular reunions.
“Who believes in God?” he interrupted me, standing up in the middle of class and looking around the room at the group of 3-to-12-year-old kids. His name was Bohdan. He was young, but he exuded confidence and defiance, an 8-year-old going on 18. The rest of the kids hesitantly raised their hands or murmured that they believed in God.
“Well, I don’t!” He was cocky and locked eyes with me.
“OK,” I said, shrugging and smiling gently. Inwardly, I was panicking, wondering how I was going to manage this boy for the next three days. We still had six more sessions to get through together! I began to pray that God would touch Bohdan’s heart.
Calvary Chapels across the U.S. and Europe gave selflessly to sponsor these refugees to attend this life-changing retreat at the Calvary Chapel Conference Center in Vajta, Hungary.
We were at the Calvary Chapel Conference Center in Vajta, Hungary for a family retreat—a time to deepen relationships with the refugees and help them get to know God and His Word. Situated in a beautifully renovated historic villa, this facility had welcomed Christians from across Eastern Europe for over two decades. For a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it also provided temporary refugee housing. Now it was once again welcoming refugees, but this time they were choosing to come by invitation, rather than being forced to flee because of war.
These sisters came to the retreat with their mother and older brother. Their father was not able to attend, but not because he was stuck in Ukraine. These girls and their brother get to have their father in their lives because Ukrainian law allows men with three or more children to leave the country. All other men between the ages of 18 and 60 must stay in the country. Most of the children at the retreat probably had not seen their fathers in months or even years.
Invitations to this retreat had come from Bridge UA, a Calvary Chapel ministry to displaced Ukrainians. When asked about their vision, George Markey, Jr., Bridge UA founder (and the author’s husband), said, “Our dream is that no refugee would feel alone, but that each would have the opportunity to become part of a vibrant community of people who love and follow Jesus.”
Bridge UA—Ministry Amidst War
The Bridge UA team is composed entirely of people who were displaced by the war in Ukraine. George and I had been ministering with Calvary Chapel in Ukraine for 30 and 19 years, respectively, before the war forced us to flee with our six children. The other members of the Bridge UA team are all displaced Ukrainians who share our vision.
When our family evacuated to Hungary during the early days of the war, George and I immediately began to look for open doors to minister to Ukrainian refugees. Realizing we could do more with a team, George handpicked a group of Ukrainians who, like us, were desperate to serve the thousands of refugees streaming into Hungary and share the love of Jesus with them.
In the spring of 2022, Bridge UA began distributing humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees who were beyond the reach of the many aid organizations working in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Bridge UA spent long hours on the road, crisscrossing the country to personally deliver aid packages. News of what we were doing spread by word-of-mouth, and each month more Ukrainians asked to be added to the distribution list. During our busiest season, we were ministering to 250 Ukrainian families in 22 cities all over Hungary.
During the first phase of Bridge UA’s ministry in Hungary, missionaries traveled up and down the country delivering aid packages to Ukrainian refugee families, most of whom had to leave their husbands and fathers behind in Ukraine.
Olya Syniuk, a member of the Bridge UA team, recalled those trips. “The people who received those packages had absolutely nothing. They really needed what we were bringing: shampoo, laundry detergent—you name it—and, of course, food. But despite the fact that we were bringing them all these things, what they were most thankful for was the opportunity to talk to us and hear someone who could understand them. In time, I realized that what we had been doing in Kyiv [before the war], when we were planting a church by creating a community of people who lived in the same area, was what we could do here [in Hungary] too.”
This was the dream that captured the hearts of the whole Bridge UA team. It kept this small group of people going, even through the immense challenges of serving an impossibly long list of refugees.
This picnic in Miskolc was part of Bridge UA’s second phase in its efforts to plant churches for Ukrainian refugees in Hungary. Calvary Chapel Miskolc has often allowed Bridge UA to use their church facility to reach out to refugees in their city.
Ukraine is a historically Orthodox country with some Greek Catholics. As a result of this cultural heritage and 70 years of Soviet communism, many Ukrainians have a deep distrust of Evangelicals. Though the Bridge UA team was aware of this prejudice, after tirelessly serving these families for months, we felt like we should have earned enough trust to begin Bible studies. However, almost no one was interested.
Left to right: BridgeUA missionaries Olya Syniuk, Tanya Blinova, and Svitlana Ihnat organized many aspects of the retreat.
Olya recalled, “Sometimes I felt disappointed, like we were just helping for the short-term, without any hope of it turning into something greater, because the people were so guarded and closed. It was like they wanted to hear us, but they didn’t really want to be a part of what we were offering.”
In response, we met them where they were. Pulling together research, strategies, and Scripture that had helped her cope with being displaced by war, Olya created a six-week course on emotional health for refugee women. She and Tanya Blinova, another of Bridge UA’s refugee missionaries, took the course on the road to the city of Győr. By the time they completed the six-week support group format, the ladies in Győr were open to attending a Bible discussion group. Svitlana Ihnat, another Bridge UA missionary, followed up, teaching them how to read the Bible and discover its truths for themselves.
By that point, many of the refugees we had been serving initially had left Hungary, either returning to Ukraine or moving on to other countries. Now we were able to focus on just five cities: Győr, Kecskemét, Miskolc, Veszprém, and Budapest. We transitioned from aid distribution to organizing picnics, special workshops, and holiday celebrations to create a sense of community for these displaced people. It was during this new season of ministry that George got the idea of organizing a family retreat, a time to deepen relationships with the refugees and help them get to know God and His Word.
A Family Retreat
Though the project seemed daunting, everyone on the team sensed it was the right thing. Ukrainians who had been scattered from Calvary Chapel Kyiv came to help, and Calvaries in South Pittsburgh, PA; Erie, PA; and Myrtle Beach, SC, sent volunteers.
Nearly 100 refugees converged on Vajta, Hungary, for four days and three nights of fun, fellowship, and pampering. Each morning and evening, the adults gathered for teaching and discussion of the Word while the kids and teens met separately to learn the Gospel story on their own levels. A massage therapist, hair cutter, two certified counselors, and a professional life coach volunteered for hours every day to serve the refugees.
Nikki Panarello, the massage therapist from Calvary Chapel South Pittsburgh, reflected on her time at the retreat. “I went on this trip with the intention of serving the women refugees through touch. I was excited to nurture them and care for them. I'm the one who left being refreshed, because these ladies were so trusting, vulnerable, and loving towards me. I felt like a true disciple of Christ, spreading the Good News, sharing Christ and His love with a hurting population! I'm forever changed by it.”
Every morning and evening, the adults discussed Bible passages in small groups, learning how to study God’s Word on their own. Here BridgeUA founder George Markey, Jr., (right) facilitates a group.
Bohdan—A Changed Heart
During the retreat, some of the volunteers noticed Bohdan and made a point of reaching out to the cocky 8-year-old. Gary Kimpel was one of them. Supported by Calvary Chapel Myrtle Beach, Gary serves internationally to encourage full-time missionaries. He related how he went out of his way to spend time with Bohdan each day. One night he told him, “I don’t know who’s lying to you, but you have value. I don’t know if anybody’s told you, but you are loved. Jesus loves you.” Immediately, Gary could see the boy’s smile change.
In class the next day, I noticed that Bohdan was calmer while I was teaching the Bible lesson, which was about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. While I was talking, Bohdan walked to the front to stare intently at the picture of Jesus being mocked and beaten. Bohdan’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand what was happening to Jesus, and then he volunteered to explain it to the rest of the class. I was stunned. God had answered my prayer and touched the heart of this little atheist!
As BridgeUA missionary Sharon Markey (center right) was telling the kids about the crucifixion of Jesus, Bohdan (center left), a self-proclaimed atheist who had usually been disruptive, suddenly became interested and helped explain the story to the class. Lower photo: After being loved on by multiple members of the retreat team, Bohdan left Vajta in a different frame of mind than when he arrived. Sharon is in the background.
After everyone returned home from Vajta, Bohdan’s mom sent George a message. She said Bohdan couldn’t stop talking about the retreat, and she was so grateful for the positive effect it had on her son.
Lingering Results
The four days we spent with the refugees in Vajta forged deep relationships and a level of trust we had only dreamed about. As a result, numerous refugees have professed faith in Jesus, and in the month since the retreat, Bridge UA has realized its dream of starting regular Bible studies in each of the cities where we minister!
Olya Syniuk (far right) shares her testimony at the first Bible study in Veszprém, Hungary—a direct result of the retreat.
Looking at where we are now, George said, “I believe God is going to do something powerful! Pray that He gives us wisdom.”
Reflecting on the last two and a half years of ministry, Olya said, “Our weakness was our strength. We didn’t know what we were doing, so we had to pray constantly and ask God, ‘What’s next?’ It was like being in a dark room, groping to find the door. But sometimes being lost in a dark room is the best thing that can happen, because God’s plans are so much better than ours.”
The beautiful CC Conference Center in Vajta.
Enjoy the photos in the gallery below, highlighting the different activities provided to the refugee participants.
Learn more at BridgeUA.org
Connect with Sharon T. Markey at MommyJoys.com
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