Nursing faith: Visiting nurse from Belarus has ties to Southeast Missouri Hospital employee

Yulia Ihglitskaya came to America from Belarus to begin her education, but she had already learned about the kindness in others thanks to Southeast Missouri Hospital nurse Brenda Parkhurst.

In 1993, the Missouri Baptist Convention began a "link-up" program with Baptist churches in Belarus — a landlocked country in Eastern Europe that borders Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. At that, time 140 churches took part. First Baptist Church of House Springs, Mo. — where Parkhurst and her family attend — volunteered to be a supporting church.

Ihglitskaya first met Parkhurst in 1994, when she was only 9 years old. Both women said that, although Ihglitskaya was young, that day was life changing.

"I was very young and not able to communicate well with them, but I knew they would help," Ihglitskaya said. "I feel like this has all happened for a reason. It was sure we were supposed to meet. It is God's will."

Parkhust agreed. "You know you have someone you meet every once in a while and you just know that spirit is in them," she said. "We went to Belarus to make some good happen and one of the things that came out of that was meeting a special person, and now I think she is going to move on from here and do more great work around the world."

Church members Carl and Polly Griffith made the the first trip to Volkovysk, Belarus, in 1994. At that time they learned much about the families that lived there, and that the church owned land but had no building. First Baptist of House Springs decided to work with them to accomplish this and many other goals, and in 2000 the Ark Baptist Church was dedicated in Volkovysk.

"I can't tell you how great it is to do that for the community there in Belarus," Parkhurst said. "And the great thing is, through all the time there, Yulia has become just like one of my own and is in the Parkhurst crew as far as my family is concerned. We've been through so much with her, and she is such a wonderful person that we wouldn't have it any other way."

Ark Baptist became a teaching center as well as a house of worship, with educational programs and English being taught by the First Baptist volunteers. It was at this time — during the church's last visit in 2004 — that Ihglitskaya decided to further her education in America in order to become a medical missionary. A scholarship to Hannibal-LaGrange Christian College in Hannibal, Mo., and a friend waiting in America made the transition much easier.

"I love going to school and love being here," Ihglitskaya said. "I don't really have any free time, and I don't really have many friends so social time is limited to my close circle of friends, most of whom are also foreign students as well. But as far as Americans being different, everyone from everyplace is different so this is not something that I even notice or care about."

Now a 23-year-old senior nursing student working with Parkhurst in the orthopedic wing at Southeast, Ihglitskaya has become great with patient care and communication.

"I think she gets through to the patients better than the rest of us most of the time," Parkhurst said. "You know, most Americans may not notice it, but we don't tend to use the English language very well or in a understandable fashion. We like many versions of slang. Yulia speaks very properly and keeps her communication simple and easy to understand. She also puts the nicest inflection on what she says."

As far as where Ihglitskaya plans on doing medical missionary work after graduating, she says it's all up to a higher power.

"I have places like Africa or India I would like to help, yes," Ihglitskaya said. "I can make every plan I want to, but it is not up to me, it is God's plan that takes me wherever I'm going to go. I just want to do good work for people, and I know he will send me where I need to be."

~ James Samons