Ukrainian refugees find support in church community
By Lethbridge Herald on March 30, 2023.
Herald photo by Al Beeber
Madina Kononenko, left, talks to fellow Ukrainian refugees Natali Yaschchenko and daughter Alona in a pew at SS Peter & Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The parish and community of Lethbridge itself have been welcoming to the newcomers who have fled their war-torn homeland for safety.Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Recent arrivals from Ukraine who have escaped their war-torn country are feeling Lethbridge is home thanks to support from the community.
And that community includes the parish of Ss Peter & Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
The northside parish was founded in 1920 and rebuilt at the same location after a 1968 fire. Its first bishop later returned to Ukraine and died a martyr at the hands of Russians after the Second World War, according to pastor Gary Sedgwick.
Before the arrival of Ukrainian refugees to Lethbridge, his church had 30 or 40 members regularly attending services. That number has now doubled.
Among those now in the pews is Madina Kononenko, who came to Lethbridge on April 18, 2022, leaving family behind. That family includes her parents, both police officers who couldn’t leave the country.
She came with her sister on a Monday “and my friend, she’s Canadian, she told me ‘would you like to go to the church?’ And I was pretty excited and I said ‘yes of course I would like to.’ But I was afraid, you know. Maybe people didn’t speak my native language here. My English was a little bit lower than now and I was afraid I cannot speak with them,” she said.
“But when I came here my first excited feelings, I started to cry. I was crying a little bit during all our prayers and I felt really this feeling that you’re a little bit like home here. So warm in your heart. So after one year I really like this church. I keep going here and I’m trying to help Ukrainians out. Also I’m trying to get them here so when I meet new Ukrainain newcomers I always try to suggest that they come here and they will for sure make friends here. You will for sure find support here. Our community here is trying to help each other,” she added.
Language is not a problem because even people who don’t understand English feel safe in the church community.
“I want to do my best to improve our community, to get it much more bigger,” Kononenko added.
“The first time I saw a couple of benches” at the church with people seated and “now it’s a full church… and it’s really big prayer on Sunday. You can see the growth of the community every day. Every single week it’s growing. It’s bad for the reasons it’s growing” she added saying its painful for the Ukraininan refugees.
“The community is growing and we’re getting stronger and we’re praying for our native land to be safe.”
Kononenko said she told her mother this week “I feel here like in my native town. So Lethbridge has become my native town… I have this community, I have lots of Ukrainians who are here, I have lots of friends who are Canadians now” and she feels safe here.
“Canada has helped me to realize my future will be here. My future kids will be here” and when she gets old, her kids will tell theirs that their granny came from Ukraine,” she said.
“Thank you to Lethbridge community, thank you to this church for this opportunity that I have now. I’m really blessed.”:
Another new parishioner came from the city of Mariupol now occupied by the Russians with her husband and family.
Natali Yashchenko and family arrived here on Feb. 19 after leaving her native home of Mariupol last year. That city has been occupied by Russian forces since last May.
“This is a miracle for us,” she said, noting many people have died in her home city.
Yashchenko said her family has gotten a lot of support from Canadians as they adjust to their new lives here.
“You feel that you’re welcome,” she said, adding the family has gotten a lot of support from Canadians.
The first time they attended the church, they met a lot of Ukrainians and “all the people people very, very friendly and nice…
“We’re very grateful for this support and thank you so much for the opportunity for our kids because our kids are the main reason we chose Canada” to start a new life.
“We are very excited” to start that new life in Lethbridge, she said.
“All the people I met are so nice. I never expected people could be so kind to strangers.”:
“We have a lot of friends now,” she said adding the Ukrainians support each other and don’t feel alone here “in this big and beautiful country. We would like and hope that some day we and our kids can be a part of Canada.”
Sedgwick said the church started people seeing people trickle in five years ago when the war started but after it intensified there’s been a huge number of people fleeing Ukraine.
And he has seen the size of the parish double in size “which from the parish’s point of view is good but the events behind it are very tragic. We have a very much of a blend now, English-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking,” Sedgwick said.
The church across Alberta collected $2 million last year and some of that money has been used to help people locally, he said.
Outreach has been a big impact on the parish as members try to help the best they can the people in need.
30-29
A lovely piece!