BLAND — A group of mid-Missourians recently returned from Warsaw, Poland, following a mission trip to work with a church composed of Ukrainian people affected by the ongoing war with Russia.

Rev. Chris Cook of Parkade Baptist Church in Columbia, and a former Belle resident, went to Poland alongside a group of people representing the Gasconade Valley Baptist Association (GVBA), which has its headquarters in Bland, and includes 23 churches from Gasconade, Maries and Osage counties. First Baptist Church of Owensville Pastor Kevin Sullivan and GVBA Director of Missions Trent Young and his wife Dana accompanied Cook on the trip.

Cook met Pastor Michał Baloha during a visit to Poland in 2019. At the time, Baloha was regularly meeting with a handful of Ukrainian people to practice their faith. He had hopes that the group could become a church.

“He told me about this big idea he had,” Cook said. “He thought that he could grow a church of Ukrainian-speaking people in Poland. Fast forward to 2024 and that church has split into two churches: Warsaw Bible Church and another church called Salvation Church.”

Baloha said he started the church in 2017 when he felt a calling from God to serve Ukrainian and Russian speakers who relocated to Poland because of the war.

“For many of them, this was not only a physical relocation but also a spiritual search,” he said. “My mission was to plant churches that would become spiritual homes for these people where they could find comfort and support in their faith.”

Cook has been a pastor at Parkade Baptist Church for 23 years. The church began a partnership with Ukraine 10 years ago by helping church planters in the western part of the country sponsor a seminary Bible school. Over the years, he has been on nine European mission trips since his first in 2013.

The same year that Parkade Baptist Church began working with Ukrainian churches, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in southeastern Ukraine. The invasion and subsequent annexation of the territory marked the beginning of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

“The war brought shock, fear and an overwhelming number of refugees seeking shelter in neighboring countries,” Baloha said. “Poland became one of the first countries to take in millions of Ukrainian refugees, and we were faced with the huge task of not only helping these people adapt to new conditions but also providing them with spiritual support.”

By 2019, Cook had begun traveling to Poland on mission trips. Since the second Russian invasion in 2022, which prompted international military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Cook’s mission trips have been to Poland. He was in Warsaw only a week after the invasion. An article about that trip appeared in the March 23, 2022 edition of The Advocate.

“None of them really want war,” Cook said about the Ukrainian people who he had spoken with during his trips. “They want to live a good life just like we want to live a good life.”

During the early days of the full-scale war, Warsaw Bible Church helped refugees flocking to Poland.

“We hosted up to a thousand refugees daily, providing them with shelter, food, and basic necessities,” Baloha said. “Our church volunteers worked tirelessly without breaks or rest, showing true love and care for each person. During the first month, we managed to house over 12,000 people and feed around 8,000 refugees, which was a great achievement and a testament to God’s blessing.”

Cook said he has noticed changes in Ukrainian culture over the 10 years the country has been at war with Russia. He recalled what the culture was like when he made his first trip shortly before the conflict in Crimea.

“They’d enjoyed freedom since the early ‘90s,” he said. “But they knew it was fragile. Over the 10 years that I was interacting with Ukrainians, I began to see them harden, especially those people on the western side. There was a lot of animosity building.”

After 10 years of conflict, the Ukrainian people that Cook encountered reminded him of the patriots of the American Revolution.

“They embody the old American saying that Patrick Henry once said,” Cook said. “‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ Many of them are willing to die for their freedom today, and that’s what I’ve seen in that culture over the last 10 years; it gets stronger and stronger.”

Cook’s trips to Poland have led him to work closely with the Polish Baptist Union (PBU), an organization for churches throughout the country to collaborate. PBU President Rev. Marek Głodek wrote in a letter to the Advocate that Cook’s trips have made for “an invaluable and unconditional partnership.”

“Together with Chris and those who sent him, we were able to bring hope and support to thousands of needy war refugees,” Głodek wrote. “Our cooperation in many dimensions - spiritual, social, educational and cultural - has continued over the years, hence this last visit of the missionary team that came with Chris.”

Sullivan had been on a previous mission trip to Ukraine, where he taught at a seminary for a week. He said he had wanted to go back, but the war kept him from returning. When he got an opportunity to help the Ukrainian people displaced by the war, he knew he wanted to take it.

Trent Young, who was on his first mission trip to the area, said he was surprised to learn after speaking with Ukrainian refugees that many would be unable to return to their home country even after the war ends.

“It’s going to take years and years to rebuild,” he said. “They may not even have a home to go back to, a business to go back to, or jobs.”

Planning for the recent trip to Poland began earlier this year. During Cook’s trips, he represents the Future Leadership Foundation (FLF), an organization that, according to its website, “develops Christian leaders globally, collaborating with churches, ministry organizations and religious entities by addressing needs and goals that facilitate reaching people for Christ and equipping them for ministry.” Cook serves as the organization’s field service director for Poland.

Through FLF, Cook helped to initiate the partnership between GVBA and Warsaw Bible Church, which includes monthly financial contributions.

“This partnership is of immense importance to us,” Baloha said. “It not only helps to develop and strengthen our churches but also contributes to the preparation of new leaders who can effectively serve in various areas. The support of the missionaries from Missouri is an invaluable resource and inspiration for us, and we are grateful to God for their involvement and contribution to our ministry.”

GVBA previously had a years-long partnership with a seminary in Lviv, Ukraine, but the war has shifted the organization’s focus to Poland to help Ukrainians the war had displaced. Cook suggested taking a vision trip to see what the organization could do in Poland.

“A vision mission trip is when you take a few people and you go and you experience the culture,” he said. “Meet the people with the idea that it’s going to lead to future mission trips.”

After speaking with Sullivan and Trent Young, they picked a date and set the trip for August. Once the group arrived in Poland, Cook introduced the others to church leaders in the Polish Baptist Union. Then, they toured Warsaw to get an understanding of the city’s history.

“Poland was ground zero for World War II,” Cook said. “Poland was pretty well decimated, especially Warsaw. There were only a few buildings left standing after the Nazis bombed it, so there’s a fascinating history there.”

One of the landmarks the group visited was the Warsaw Rising Museum, named for the Warsaw Uprising operation in World War II in which underground Polish forces fought to liberate the city from Nazi occupation in 1944. Retaliation for the failed uprising is what caused the Nazis to ultimately destroy the city. The group also toured Warsaw Old Town, a neighborhood that was rebuilt from photos following the end of the war.

After seeing the city, the missionaries met with Baloha and listened to the story of Warsaw Bible Church and its progress so far. In the 2.5 years since the full-scale war began, the church has served approximately 70,000 refugees with minimal staff.

“Having not been to Poland, I didn’t know what to expect,” Trent Young said. “The people are wonderful. The food is great. We were pleasantly surprised that the churches we were working with there are doing an amazing job of ministering to the Ukrainian refugees and now Belarusian refugees, too.”

“Every day, they have classes in their church,” Dana Young said. “They have Polish classes, English classes, art therapy classes, Bible studies.”

One of the priorities for Warsaw Bible Church has been bringing new leaders to help meet the needs of the high volume of refugees. On the Thursday of the trip, Sullivan led a three-hour training on discipleship with about 35 men and women church leaders.

“That was devoted to discipleship, not on the individual level, but in the bigger church, how they as leaders can help develop a discipleship program in their church all the way from one-on-one mentoring to small groups,” he said. “It doesn’t always have to be in the church building; it can be home groups. That’s big to them because they don’t have the big facilities. They don’t have the big budgets like we have here in America.”

The people who came to the training were so enthusiastic and asked so many questions that Sullivan said he did not cover nearly as many topics as he had planned.

“They’re eager to learn,” he said. “Many of them are younger and new to the Christian faith. The church is working very hard to develop these young folks and to see them become leaders in the church because the numbers are so great that they’re needing more leadership.”

On the Friday of the trip, Dana Young led a women’s conference, specifically for widows with a focus on managing grief. GVBA locally hosts a group called Grief Share with a similar purpose.

“We were able to take some of those same topics and material and translate it into Ukrainian for those ladies to help to grow that in their area,” Trent Young said.

The expectation was for about 10 people to attend the meeting. When the conference began, 51 women were in attendance.

“It was an overwhelming response and a tremendous need,” Dana Young said. “I heard story after story of women who are grieving the loss of their loved ones and the ones who still have family members back in Ukraine fighting the war. They are stressed with fear and worry for their loved ones. It was deeply moving. It reminded me that here in America we do not know what it is like to have war in our home country. Families have lost everything.”

Dana Young’s message to the women included reminders that God loves them and their fear and concern for their families are normal and they should try to talk to people about those feelings instead of suppressing them. During the gathering, a handful of women shared their stories.

“That’s why I’m praying that someone will step up and lead the ministry there for their grief group,” she said.

The Saturday of the trip had no scheduled events. Cook said the group used it as an opportunity to shop.

“I always encourage groups that when they go into a new culture, go spend some money,” he said. “Go buy some souvenirs. Help their economy out.”

On Sunday, the pastors preached during Warsaw Bible Church’s service. Cook said a difference between American churches and Ukrainian churches is the Ukrainian practice of including at least two sermons in a worship service as opposed to the typical one sermon in American services. Polish culture follows the one-sermon standard found in Western culture.

“Ukraine kind of has this idea I’ve picked up in the culture,” he said. “The more the better. Even though we were in Poland, we were operating in a Ukrainian-speaking church, so two of us preached in one church and another of us went to another Ukrainian church and preached.”

Sullivan admires the faith of the Eastern European people he has met, whether they are Belarusian, Polish or Ukrainian.

“We could learn so much from them when it comes to dedication and being committed to living out their faith,” he said. “They think we have it all together when it comes to what it means to be a Christian and how to live that out in culture. We have so much to learn from them.”

Although not every church in the GVBA could send a representative to Poland for the trip, Cook said they helped in other ways, such as how First Baptist Church of Linn provided scarves to the women who attended the women’s conference.

“It’s really a three-county effort among the Baptist churches there,” Cook said. “My role in this was representing the Future Leadership Foundation and to help (GVBA) grow and develop that partnership. My hope is that the Gasconade Valley Baptist Association will be able to take a group of people next year on a mission trip over there and continue to serve Warsaw Bible Church and continue to help them grow.”

Cook said his mission trips to Eastern Europe have helped expand his world beyond the tri-county area where he grew up, and he encourages others to take similar trips to expand their understanding of the world.

“I believe that the Americans grow their hearts when they go over to another culture that speaks a different language and serves,” Cook said. “My world growing up in Belle, Missouri, was very small. My world consisted of Owensville, Belle and Vienna, practically. So when I got out and went to Ukraine the first time to explore a partnership, my heart grew larger to love the world. I tell the people that I work with to build these partnerships that if we’re going to love the world like God loves the world, we have to experience the world.”

One of the ways Cook said taking mission trips has changed his perspective is that it has helped him realize the similarities between other cultures and his own.

“Whenever I go out into a different culture, I realize that they may have the same beliefs, serve the same God, but they speak a different language, and they may approach worship in a different way,” he said. “But that just enlarges my understanding of the world, and it makes me more humble. It also makes me more in awe that my God is a much bigger God than I ever envisioned.”

The “small world” experience with which Cook grew up colored his impression of Ukraine and Poland before he visited as an adult.

“The only thing I knew about Ukraine, primarily, and a little bit about Poland, was that they were part of the old Soviet Union,” he said. “I grew up in a small world where they were our enemies. They had a nuclear bomb aimed at us; we had one aimed at them.”

Once Cook got to Ukraine and began meeting with the people there, he realized that those feelings of animosity from the Cold War era were long gone.

“My first time in Ukraine, I learned that those people weren’t my enemy,” he said. “They were people just like me who just spoke a different language and had a little bit of a different culture that had some of the same values that I had.”

Cook quickly formed bonds with the people he met in Ukraine. After his first trip, one of the sons of a Ukrainian church leader came to the United States to stay with Cook’s family and attend a year of high school.

“He was just like my other three sons,” he said. “That kind of revolutionized our family.”

Trent Young said he also bonded with the Polish citizens and Ukrainian refugees he met during the trip.

“The people are just so sweet,” he said. “We really enjoyed getting to take them to meals. Just sitting down and hearing them was a great experience. They go out of their way to make you feel welcome.”

Trent Young added that going to Poland and meeting the refugees was a reminder that they are people just like anyone else and their struggles are real.

“We encourage people to pray for the war to end,” he said. “Even if they don’t go back (to Ukraine), their friends and families are still there. They are people who have been hurt deeply and they need to be encouraged, and loved on and prayed for.”

The Youngs said the success of the trip has them thinking about a return trip to Poland.

“We hope to go back,” Trent said. “Not only are we going to continue providing for Warsaw Bible Church financially every month, we hope to take a group back to maybe help with a camp or some outreach efforts. We told them that we don’t want to add to their very busy schedule, but maybe there’s something that they’re planning that we can come help with and take some of the burden off them.”

Głodek said he would be happy to welcome back the missionaries.

“I was able to meet several times for talks with this missionary group from the Gasconade Valley Baptist Association, and I am convinced that we will cooperate many more times,” he wrote. “These are our plans. The arrival of such people from other countries always broadens horizons, provides an opportunity to exchange views, deepens historical knowledge about these nations and brings us closer culturally and spiritually. I am grateful to these people and the organizations behind them, for their dedication, for their time, for their open hearts for people who are geographically so far away from their homeland of the United States of America.”

Although Warsaw Bible Church receives help from many churches, including those in the GVBA, Baloha said the need for aid continues with the ongoing war.

“The need is still great,” he said. “Currently, about 250,000 Ukrainian refugees remain in Warsaw, unable to return home due to the ongoing war. They are in constant need of help and support, and our task is to continue serving them. We are actively seeking new partner organizations that can help us in this mission so that we can continue to provide both material and spiritual assistance.”

As someone who has experienced Ukrainian culture firsthand, Cook has a different perspective on the country, its people and the ongoing war than many Americans who have only heard about it on the news. He said he understands the idea that we cannot always fund the war but he does not want to get into what he characterized as a “no-win situation.”

“These people have a desire for freedom,” he said. “It is a deep-seated desire for freedom, and it is worth our time, I believe, to partner with them where we can to support them, whether that’s through prayer or other means because they are determined people.”