April turned out to be a bright and cheerful month of our ministry in Rudensk’s orphanage. The weather wasn’t perfect,
it wasn’t sunny, but rainy and sometimes even snowy. In spite of the weather God blessed our team and all the meetings took place. 
Moreover, now we have an opportunity to work with little children. Now we divide into two groups: younger and older ones. With the younger group we play games and watch christian cartoons. 
With the older one we continue discussing different topics. This month we have discussed the following topics: “Suicide. The value of life”, “Conflicts”, 
“The power of words” and “Sport in our life”. It is typical for teenagers to do thoughtless things. That’s why we decided to speak about suicides to show that you always have choice and your life is valuable for God. “Conflicts” is quite a topical issue for teens. Some of them try to avoid conflicts, some of them even provoke them. We tried to explain them that everyone is guilty in a conflict and it should be resolved. 
4Also we told them that all the words matter and can influence all the life.
We discussed sport at the “stag-party” and “hen party”. The girls found out the way sport influences our life and how to choose one or another kind of sport. The girls knew little about sport and they had no idea about fitness and aerobics. We are glad that the girls learned something new. With the boys we considered some champions of different sports and discussed how they managed to achieve such a success. It takes much time to become a champion. You have to work hard every day to achieve good results.
Archive for April, 2016
We’ve got big changes and good results in our ministry – this is how I can describe our trips to Belinichy orphanage this April. 
We thank God for answering our prayers! We wish everyone who is reading this letter would have a chance to visit the orphans from Belinichy. The photos we take can’t fully reflect the atmosphere that we have at the orphanage when we come there.
Every Monday we pray God would do changes in the hearts of the kids, pray for the staff of the orphanage and we see how the orphans get to know God more and more. The lie that captured orphans’ hearts gets broken and goes away. We know that their heart should become full of trust in God and their fathers could teach them God’s love. 
But they don’t have fathers and they are orphans. It sometimes become a real challenge for the kids to believe that God is truly loving and caring like every father should be.
The orphans often shout, argue or even fight because they want to draw some attention to them. 
They want to seat on our laps and feel the comfort and acceptance. Our ministry goes on and and we see how their faith is being formed. Even though the kids have disabilities they do their best to take part in games and activities. It’s interesting to hear their feedback on Bible stories we tell them or to hear them telling others what they learnt from the Bible class. 
This April we taught them such Bible stories as: “The widow’s offering”, “ The blind Bartimaeus receiving his sight” and we also taught about Christ’s sacrifice at the Calvary and the real meaning of Easter holiday.
The classes with the senior orphans were also very exciting. They are different from the junior kids as they don’t try to seat next to us or hug us as the junior ones. 
They meet us at the car and start sharing about their issues. As they are teenagers they want to have good close friends who can listen to them, pray for them or give advice. Those orphans who are to graduate and leave the orphanage often ask us how the life outside the orphanage is. They are going to leave the orphanage in 1-2 months and they will face a real life there on their own. We discussed such topics as : “Stealing”, “Conflicts”, “The triumph of Christ at the Calvary”.
We are grateful to God and those who support our ministry in prayers! We ask you to continue praying for our team so that we could grow, become more numerous and we could work with more orphans closer!
Praise God that He gives us such an amazing opportunity to serve in Vileyka’s orphanage and not only to tell children about Jesus, but also to share His love with them, hug them and be with them through foul and fair.
Another academic year is almost over and we can see the difference made in children from the 2nd and 3d forms. They became wiser and more patient. 
We are happy to see when they act not based on their benefits, but meet somebody half-way and help each other.
Children like listening to the stories about Jesus’ life, when He helped people, treated them and made wonders.
In our groups every lesson we learn verses from the Bible for children not to fear when they are alone, but to know that they always have God in them. They know that they have the Helper to come to and everybody is precious in His eyes.
That’s wonderful, but God changes not only children’s hearts but mine, too. He teaches me to trust Him and learn His Word more and more to answer all the difficult children’s questions.
It is not a secret for anyone that the world needs changes! There is so little peace and hope and so much worrying about everything under the sun. The world needs real Authority.
Our kids who live in Rudensk orphanage also need it. They look at adults and adopt their values. That’s why our task is to give them choice. They should choose between the life with God and the life without Him. We want to show them that society which is without God is overwhelmed by sins and lies.
We want to show that people who don’t believe in God fail in their lives and feel disappointed and hurt and, finally, to show that there is a way out in God and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This month we continued to help orphans meet challenges which concern every teenager. Long-awaited spring eventually came to Belarus bringing with it a lot of positive emotions! It is not accident that many poets call it ‘the time of love’. Modern teenagers begin to date, fall in love and, sadly, often make mistakes believing that intimacy is the most important characteristic of love.
And young orphans are especially prone to false feelings. This happens because girls lacked their fathers’ attention and boys didn’t see an example of caring and loving mothers. That’s why this month we raised the topic ‘Love and Affection’. 
First the teenagers felt shy a little but then they quite openly discussed this topic with us and some of them even shared their worries. We didn’t just want to keep them from making mistakes but also give them some advice how to build lasting relationships that will lead to a happy marriage.
Besides, we talked about such things as ‘Cunning and Slyness’ and ‘Hypocrisy’. We took these topics because kids, even the smallest, are able to be slier than grown-ups. 
We didn’t just want to show the kids that they, probably, have such sins but to underline the consequences they can lead to. We also decided to make our meetings in Rudensk orphanage more diverse by watching a cartoon, which revealed the theme devoted to different emotions that influence not only our life but also lives of people around us. We are eager to help orphans estimate their lives in the light of the Word God – the Bible.
If anyone who reads this article will want to change someone’s life, especially the life of an orphan, he or she simply needs to set a goal and try to fulfill it, because God Himself will lead them as He especially loves orphans and blesses those who care for them.
We have just finished our first month. At the beginning of the month it was cold and gray outside, 
However, Spring finally made an appearance. The weather turned from cold and gray to warm and sunny. Our children are doing very well. The appearance of spring has brought joy to the children’s hearts. This joy has made our meetings with the children even more joyous. In March we had the opportunity to work with 14 children of various ages. Due to the variety of ages we had to teach our Bible lessons in such a way to engage all of the children. We introduced the children to the Bible stories about the 10 lepers, and the rich man named Lazarus. We also had the opportunity to talk to the children about how G
od always fulfills His promises. March 8th was International Women’s Day. Due to this we had a special celebratory meeting in which we made cards for the children’s moms and grandmas to whom they dream of returning to! I so hope that their parent’s hearts change. I pray that as a result the children will be able to
return to a healthy and happy family. I also pray that the cards the children made would find their way to loving and caring grandmothers and mothers. At the second craft lesson the children made paper toys, this allows them to show their talent and exercise their imagination. We also had the opportunity to talk to the children 
about friendship. This topic is very relevant for the children of the shelter. Because, they are all only there temporarily. Often they either do not have enough time to build friendships or they make great friends that they quickly have to say goodbye to.
We have been teaching the children to pray and to bring their needs before the Lord. One boy has been praying very passionately to God. Begging God to return him home. The boy has such an open and sincere heart. His faith is so sincere; he truly believes that he will be going home soon. The Lord heard the boy’s prayers. Two weeks later he returned home. This brought so much joy to both the boy and us. This was such an amazing example to the other children about how God always hears them and is with them.
LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN 