LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

So here is the end of an other school year and this season of our ministry. We had a lot of bright memories, positive emotions and victories that we got to see this year. And the biggest victory of them all has changed the lives of the children that we serve! And we are very grateful and we glorify our Heavenly Father!
The bigger part of our team served in the orphanage in Belinichi because right there we served in three different classes. In the beginning of this year we, for the first time ever, started having meetings with the youngest kids with the most difficult diagnosis. The first 2-3 months were the most difficult for us and for the kids. It was hard for the kids to understand what we wanted from them, it was difficult for them to pay attention and it was hard for them to receive bible lessons. And also they were really checking out our reliability! Often they would scream something on purpose in order to upset a lesson, they would spit on us and dry their wet hands with our cloth. They did all of that just to see how we would react in those situations! They wanted to see if we were gonna yell at them or if we would be able to love them just as they are. But we steadfastly withstood those difficulties and today we realize that it’s only God who gave us this victory because we would not be able to do that in our human power! Praise God! Today when these children meet us they meet us with joy, they try to be active during our bible lessons, and they remember some of the bible stories. The most favorite bible characters this year became Moses, Ruth and Samson. Isn’t that a victory? After all a lot of these children have difficult diagnosis, they have mental and physical disabilities, but despite this God makes them able to understand and remember bible lessons!
In the mid group the kids are special because it’s always quiet during the lessons and also they have some great mentors that work with them and even after our meetings they try and read the bible stories to the kids which we talk about during our lessons. And sometimes kids tell us which bible stories they read during the week on their own. Also often they tell us their little testimonies of how God answers their prayers.
We have special relationships with the oldest group. Some of them we know from when they were still little, when they first arrived to the orphanage. And today some of them are already graduates who very soon leave to live and study in different cities, who will very soon enter into adulthood. During this last month we tried to give them as much admonition as possible, and also answered the questions that they had. We talked to them about peace in our relationships with people and with God, about faithfulness and about the meaning of a word “freedom” from a biblical worldview. We believe that all of these admonitions are not in vain and that God will not leave these kids and He will continue to reveal His Fatherly love and care to them more and more!