LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

Hello.
At the beginning I want to thank everyone who actively supported our ministry during the year. Dear friends, your prayers mean so much for us, and even more for the orphans. Despite the distance between you and us, we see God’s response to our prayers due to which we can together fill these children’s needs giving them faith, hope and love.
Orphans are a group of people who are brought up fully illiterate about Christianity. The vast majority of them don’t have a positive role model and the foundation for their life principles is very fragile. This is exactly why orphans are so desperate for help and support, especially spiritual. Their souls were crushed in the early childhood and the pain constantly reminds them of who they are. And Satan whispers that they are loosers because nobody needs them. There are tens of thousands orphans in Belarus alone. What is in store for our nation? Will it be lost or we will manage to get closer to a dream about Belarus without orphans?
During the whole year we did mission trips to the Belynichy orphanage. We are a group of young people who are indifferent about the future of the growing generation. We accept the challenge and start to fight for their souls. As Christians we believe that only with the help of common effort and prayers we can give hope to the kids. Summer camp that was organized in June the climax of all we had been doing during the year.

On the whole, there were 93 children. That was a very special camp. In the beginning we didn’t have enough financial support even to organize a camp for 50 campers. But God had His own plan. Only due to His grace and mercy this camp became possible. It was called “Goal oriented life”. The name wasn’t chosen randomly. I want to remind you that children from this orphanage have either physical or mental deficiency. But despite terrible diagnoses, we were often amazed by the talents they had got. Some of them draw wonderful pictures, other sing, write poems, some are fond of scrapbooking.
I want to point out one teenager. His name was Vadim. It was so amazing to see he had learned to play the guitar for only ten days! Moreover, he did it very well. The camp lasted 10 days which were full of both success and tears. From the very first days of the camp we felt pressure from the authorities. Every day we prayed and fasted so that we managed to get to the end of the camp, for no one to prevent us from sharing the gospel. Everyday we saw God answering our prayers. Besides, we witnessed children’s changes:some teenagers gave up smoking, they changed their attitude towards each other, elder kids learned to help younger ones and the most important was that many kids started praying and reading the Bible for the first time. And those who had already heard about God, could receive good spiritual support.
That was God who gave us strength to defeat the devil every day with the help of His Word and the prayers of our team. As the result of our camp 15 children repented. It’s hard to describe those tears of joy! I remember a couple of orphans came up to me and said: “Dima, my life is meaningless, my family broke, mom is an alcoholic, she drinks everyday and each day has a new man. She stopped looking after me and now I’m here”. The guys standing beside us told very similar stories: “We don’t have hope. We are likely to have the same destinies our parents did, we think we were damned”. I suggested them we pray and we asked God to remove patrimonial damnation. We prayed together and then separately. We asked God to cleanse their sins and change their lives. Then the boy, who’s name was Vanya, came up to me and thanked us for organizing this camp. Vanya is a Belynichy orphanage graduate. He was on his vacation and, for he had no place to go to have rest, he asked a permission to join the camp. During the time in the camp we saw the life of this embittered teenager being changed. Despite all the pain this adult world caused in him, Vanya regained an ability to smile, sing songs, he learned to play the guitar and the most important thing was that he repented. He said: “When I studied at school I didn’t fully realize, what would be in store for me when I go to receive further education and live in another town. And when I graduated from the orphanage I faced much betrayal and pain people cause each other. I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t have anyone beside me to talk to, to understand and support me, but the camp gave me hope”.
God’s Word says: “Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, oh hold them back”. (Proverbs 24:11)
I thank God for making this camp evangelistic! Each day was special ‘cause each day God renewed His mercy and added those who were being saved.