Genoa – “Witnessing what the war in Ukraine is causing was a strong feeling that really makes your heart cry. Many people who until yesterday led a normal life are now sleeping on a cot in a huge building side by side with other 3,000 unknown people, they are women and children of all ages, elderly people in wheelchairs”. Thus begins the story of Stefania, an SMA volunteer from the house of missionaries in Genoa, who recently returned from Poland, where she was a guest for a week of the SMAs in Birzencin, 14 km west of Warsaw, to do volunteer work with Ukrainian mothers.
“Together with the SMA fathers and some volunteers we went to visit one of the reception and sorting centers organized by the city of Warsaw for Ukrainian refugees, adapted into a center for fairs where there were women waiting for the moment to make a video-call with their loved ones”, said Stefania. “Their life is like this now, and they are in Poland, but with the strong hope of returning home soon”. “Women are always busy with the children and they help a lot in the house that hosts them. Suddenly – concludes the volunteer – my sadness disappears and gives way to the awareness that the moment they are experiencing now is peaceful. I have the perception that these women are able to live looking beyond the justified fears that many, too many times paralyze us”. “Since the beginning of the war until today we have welcomed 2 million and 300 thousand war refugees here in Poland” added Fr. Grzegorz Kucharski, Provincial of the Polish SMA. They are welcomed in private homes, but also in religious centers and houses such as our SMA, on the outskirts of Warsaw and near Krakow”.
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