Coming of new children and teenagers to the Bible lessons has become the most joyful event at Rudensk school! Earlier they used to come to get presents, to watch a performance, to play games but they didn’t take any interest in the things we teach. This month they were with us each Wednesday. We are gra
teful to God for that!
According to the opinion of the you
th, we understood that they enjoy gathering in groups, when girls are separated from boys. That’s why we try to arrange such meetings once a month. We continued to discuss the topic ‘Cohabitation’ with the girls, which was raised last month. This topic is very acute in our country. Nastya dispelled all the wrong views of this problem providing the examples from the Bible and statistical data. The atmosphere was warm during the lesson and everyone could open the heart and share their troubling thoughts. Generally, they are afraid of being alone, afraid of loneliness. That’s the main reason for them to look for a person to live with soon after they leave the orphanage. I believe that we managed to tell them about the love of G
od and remind them that He is always near and they aren’t alone.
Evgeny raised an actual topic, too, he spoke about laziness. Not being obtrusive, with the help of a slide-presentation and leading questions he was able to explain the children of different age groups what laziness is and how to get rid of it. Many chilpren admitted that they are often lazy and don’t want to work because of various reasons.
This month Dima took the topic ‘Humor’. Taking the biblical example he showed the children that it is normal to have fun and joke, but there shouldn’t be those who are offended and humiliated and surely there shouldn’t be the m
oments that upset God.
We watched the cartoon devoted to the topics ‘faithfulness to God’ and ‘faithfulness in friendship’ at two other meetings.
During this month we tried to find time and meet with graduates of Rudensk orphanage. We invited Nastya on a weekend. Her village is nearly one hundred kilometers from Minsk. She has strong faith and attends the church in Stolbcy. We try to help her to live outside school walls, be friends to her, and continue to tell her the truth. Nastya is an encouragement for us! We are pleased to see how her life has been changing in a better way!
Archive for November, 2015
All praise to God for each new day and for this new month we had! This month as usually we were able to visit the orphans in Smilovichy. The orphans are constantly changing there. But each time we come to visit them, we meet new orphans there who got there recently and they are open and they trust us from the very first day they met us. They tell us the story of how they got into the orphanage, how they s
tudy there, tell about their new friends they made in the orphanage and they also complain about those who treat them bad. 
Anyway, they try to be friendly to each other even though it can be difficult sometimes.
Every time we come to the orphanage our hearts are full of joy as we see these kids, their love to us and as we see how they wait to see us. This month we continued introducing orphans with some new Bible stories of the New Testament. Kids are already familiar with such Bible stories as “Jesus healing a woman who had suffered from her disease for 12 years”, “Jesus raising a dead Jairus’s daughter”,
“Jesus having fed 5000 people“, “the Good Samaritan”.
At the end of each lesson we asked questions and we were glad to see how enthusiastic the orphans were to answer them corre
ctly, to do tasks, to play together with us. One of our lessons was dedicated to crafts. 
We called it “Each orphan has a talent”. And indeed, every kid is talented and a lesson in crafts gives a good chance to reveal these talents and develop them. Kids could decorate glasses for pencils and use them later for their school needs. Sasha, Alina, Diana were with us for the last time. Their parents were able to finish the repair works in the house, to pay debts for utilities and the social work supervisors allowed kids back home. So, Sasha and Alina were returned back to their family and Diana to her family. It was a good example and a reminder of God’s faithfulness to answer the prayers of orphans. At the end of our lessons kids said prayers together with us. 
The most common prayers were about asking for good health and coming back to their families. We praise 
God that He knows our needs and the three orphans have been brought back home. Let’s hope the seed that was sewed in their hearts will bear fruit one day.
Now there are 2 more orphans left in the orphanage – Artyom and Nikita. Nikita is very young, he doesn’t go to school yet. He needs some prayer support and it’s difficult for him to get used to the orphanage as he often gets ill. Artyom is very open, cheerful and obedient. He keeps on praying and asking God to come back home as soon as possible. He’s looking forward to court decision on his case to know if he could be returned back to the family.
Another month of our ministry in Belinichy orphanage is about to end. From the one hand, what can happen during such a short period of time? From the other 
hand, all the guys became older and closer to adulthood. What persons are they going to be? What values will regulate their behaviour? What will be important in their life? Moreover, they have got another piece of faith during this month.
God blessed us, so we could work well with the guys. With the older ones we touched upon such topics as Condemnation and Humor. As for Humor, it was an actual issue for them. But not everyone understood that no
rmal humor is if no one is offended and disappointed, especially God. Besides, we watched the cartoons devoted to such topics as Faithfulness to friends and God.
The ministry among the younger guys was quite interesting. All the lessons should be special as children can be
attentive not for long. This month we have discussed some parables of Jesus, for example “A good Samaritan”, and also the story in which Jesus fed five thousand people. In order to tell the children about the Samarian and pay the children’s attention, we sat on the floor. It w
as an interesting parable. We named actual names of the characters and the children played by roles. Then we asked some questions about this story. We were glad when some children could tell this story with their own simple words and express the idea of it. Next time when we discussed the second topic mentioned we prepared pictures on the topic and the children coloured them. Except the lessons, we sang a lot, played games, watched cartoons about biblical characters and devoted time to creative work.
We are extremely grateful to God for the opportunity to visit this orphanage! Thanks to everyone who is not indifferent to the orphans of our country!
“November 8 is the World Day of Prayer for Orphans. If you care about the futures of orphans, you can make a difference! You may not only pray for orphans during the day, but also visit them in orphanages, run charity campaigns at you local church or organization. Besides that, during your church service you may devote sermons, songs, poems etc. to this issue.”
Our service in the orphanage in Vileyka is growing very fast. Our team is working with two groups of junior school and all groups of senior school who want to attend our lessons. I want to share how we work with the older groups. 
We don’t have a music worker now, so we put emphasis on biblical lessons and sometimes on games. We try to make our lessons bright and recognizable using pictures, videos, cartoons. We started from learning the Creation firstly the children to know the truth and secondly to dispel an illusion of the Theory of Evolution. Children didn’t like the idea that they came from monkeys. 
The truth that God created them and everything that is around us and that they are God’s children they liked most of all. They were astonished at God’s power to create the World for 6 days. The most difficult thing to understand was that they are created in imitation of God.
Several next meetings we spent talking about God’s Names. The Bible gives us different names such as Elohim (Almighty God), All-seeing God, Justifying God, Emmanuel (God is with us), 
Adonai (Lord and Sovereign), Yahve (God will trace) on which we stopped to learn in details on Joseph’s example. We told that God will trace their lives if they obey God’s Word not succumbing to devil’s tricks. During that lesson I tried to draw a parallel between Joseph’s life and orphans’ lives as any orphanage is not the place for a childhood. Moreover, many children are victims of abuse. 
Joseph’s life seemed to be much more difficult for children than theirs, but with a happy end! The reason is that Joseph stayed trust in God and never gave up. And God blessed him. I am sure that for children Joseph’s life will be an example to follow.
On the last day of October we decided to plan a trip to Minsk for children from Vileyka’s orphanage to distract them from Halloween. There were two major aims of this trip: evangelical and cultural (or entertaining). Firstly, we visited the Museum of Great Patriotic War were guides told and showed us the history of our country during World War II. It was very interesting. Then we moved to our church Bethlehem, were children had dinner. 
After dinner, there were games for children, relay races, songs, testaments and prayers. Children left us with happy smiles on their faces! Firstly, because the dinner was so tasty that even our team couldn’t eat everything given. Secondly, both children and educators were at our Baptist church for the first time and they were interested in the place where people who visit them every week and tell them about God go to. There is one Baptist church in Vileyka, but they don’t have a proper building,
that’s why every Sunday there is a service but at pastor’s house. That’s why neither children nor their educators know about Christian churches. I was asked a lot of questions about our belief and our church. It was a pleasure for me to answer to them. I am glad educators have positive opinions about our church now as they can have an effect on children. If the educators speak only good things about our team and our service, the children will also look on us as an authority. Also, the educators will tell the rest educators about their trip to Minsk. Nevertheless, children were our main goal. They got many good emotions, they heard about Christ and visited God’s church. In my opinion, the main aims of this trip were reached. Praise God!
LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN 