Good afternoon!
This month we have begun to visit the Smilovichsky orphanage. Smilovichy is a small city near Minsk, 
and its population is about 5000 people. Among low buildings there is a big two-storied building which is the orphanage.
Since October our weekly trips to the children to the orphanage were restarted again. Nowadays, there aren’t enough children in the orphanage, but I am so glad that we could spend time with them, because at our meetings they can hear the Word of God. 
At every meeting we talk about God or read a story from the Bible. Also we sing Christian songs, play different outdoor games, do a colouring. Singing and playing games is a good way to prepare children for hearing the lesson, and the colouring helps to fix the material.
At the first meeting we talked about who God is. 
We were speaking with the children that we aren’t ideal people and we have answered the question “why has God come to our earth?”. In a week, we spoke about creation of this world. Children have very different opinions about how our world has been created and where this world is moving to. 
At the two other meetings we discussed a prayer and the Bible as the Word of God. At the latest meeting we said that God is pure and we told them a story about Jesus Christ and the woman taken in adultery.
Throughout the first four meetings there was a boy with us whose name is Yura. In spite of the fact that his elder sister sometimes goes to the church, his personal knowledge about God was very poor. When we asked him some questions about God, his words were often tangled. 
The information from the theory of evolution, from someone’s stories, from movies was added to his answers. For children at the lessons we use very simple examples about God and his creation – for example, we have written approximate quantity of stars in the sky, and we have told that the Sun is more than earth in 333000 times. And at the latest meeting after which that boy have had to go to the other city I have asked him what he has remembered. He gave several examples of God’s creation and he has remembered the lesson about a prayer.
We will continue to go to the Smilovichsky orphanage and communicate with the children about God. Thanks to all of you who remembers about us, and who supports us.
Archive for November, 2017
This month I dealt with the youngest group of the kids aged from 7 to 11. Different kids came to our classes. 
Sometimes there were few of them just 7-10 kids and sometimes there were more than 20 of them. These are the kids with serious behavior problems, with different levels of intellectual disability and with obvious delay in their mental and physiological development. 
In addition, this is not the whole list of their problems. We can clearly feel that they lack love, affection, personal attention and just need someone who will listen to them. You shouldn’t listen to them just for show but should be really interested in them. It may seem that there isn’t anything interesting in their stories about their troubles/ wishes and thoughts. What can this give to them? Nevertheless it is truly very important for them to know that they worth our attention. As for me personally these kids are important, significant and very dear to my heart. It is so sad there are so many of them and I can’t always pay each of them enough attention. But I believe that even spending a little time with will bring its fruit to the Kingdom of Heaven!
As long as you enter place where the younger ones live you don’t hear silence – the kids are so active and noisy! 
If some of them play in the hall, they go and tell the rest that we came and almost all the kids run to us ready to give a lot of hug. It is so pleasant to feel they wait for us and are happy to our coming! This month we spoke about Daniel, about his relationships with God, his way of life and his friends. 
As for me, Daniel is a great example of faithfulness to God despite everything! That is what we all have to long for! Therefore, we wanted to show and tell it to the kids. We tried to tell them as colorful as possible, how Daniel got to the palace what position and lifestyle he had there and that his and his friends’ faith had to be seriously tested. The most important idea was that God is always faithful to His promise! That is what really impresses and gives hope! Especially the kids remembered the vivid example with a few plastic bags and flour. We wanted to show that like flour goes through the bags with holes the same is with our hearts which are spoiled with the sin, dead and have ‘holes’. 
But when our heart is ‘whole’ and clean it vice versa keeps good thoughts and deeds and love to God and people. That is the heart the person needs if he or she wants to spend eternity with God!
My special attention was paid to one boy called Ilya. He tried not to miss our meetings and almost always listened with attention and interest. As for me, he differed from the rest because he heard out story very well and did great in answering our questions. It was interesting that he answered that God kept Daniel when we asked why hungry lions did not slaughter him. He said it plainly but that phrase had deep sense! I believe that this boy really thinks about such simple but utterly important things.
What concerns the older ones they started to speak about a new character Moses. It is a bright example how God can do great miracles through and average person who is faithful to Him! Besides, they had sports competitions, which both the teenagers and people from our team liked. Through this we noted that our mood and good behavior is past to the teenagers. So? it depends on us how they will respond to winning and losing!
We did not know many of the children who started visiting our meetings in September, but they have 
already become so close and dear to us. Every one of them has his story, pain, worries, dreams, gifts, as well as victories and loses. The one thing that unites them is that they are all orphans. They never saw warm and healthy relationship in a family. 
Of course, we cannot replace parents or give them love and care to the extent that it is needed from the parents whom they lost in their childhood. Nevertheless, we are trying our best to do everything so that they will not get completely disappointed with people and with God, Who truly loves them, and who is the only One, who can give that love to orphans. Love, that is greater than the love of a mother.
Older children met a new biblical character this month called Moses. For many of them Moses’ life is an example of many victories, which God can make through a person. Many of the kids, just like Moses,
are afraid of public speaking or in general of just being in public eye and they consider themselves useless. However, we believe God can make them victorious, they can become professionals at work, good parents and good friends,
if they open their hearts to Him! Children form Rudensk orphanage love singing that is why we sing with them even more than with kids from other orphanages.
One day we organized a sport event for them. Both girls and boys enjoy doing sports in this orphanage. School administration provides every opportunity for the children to participate in different competitions with other schools and kids do bring victories and prizes. It is great to see that children have opportunities to show how gifted they are in sport! From our side, we try to organize from time to time sport events with older kids, too. 
It is a special time for us when we see children’s characters and how they win and are able to accept loses!
Younger kids have a separate program: creative classes, Christian animated cartoon movies, bible lessons where they get to know bible characters. This month they had learnt about Daniel and his friends, as well as about Jonah, who was swallowed by the whale. 
Sometimes it seems that children do not always listen to us and actually hear us due to being too emotional and active, but when ask for a feedback, we are amazed every time how well they remember the bible story we talked about! Praise God for that! We also have another good news. There is a new person, a musician, in the team who works with younger kids in Rudensk. His name is Sergey and he plays the guitar. So now, our younger kids are very excited about it! Sergey is also a big blessing for the boys. There used to be only girls in our team who worked with younger kids there. Boys needed someone who they could look up to, an example for them. Thanks be to God for His love and care!
“November 12 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.”
It is well known that autumn is the time of harvest and thanksgiving. Traditionally, there are celebrations in churches at Sunday services where people thank God for the abundant harvest,
which is not just connected with the appearing of different fruit or vegetables, but it raises us spiritually. Our team had an idea to make the truest Thanksgiving Day in the orphanage. Thankfulness is a quality you need to learn from the earliest years of your life. We wish the orphans would learn not to take for granted the help from teachers, foreigners, each other and finally our meetings, despite of their hard lives. 
So, on the 13 of October we prepared for the Thanksgiving Day in the orphanage. Looking back at our experiences, we decided not to gather all children at once. We divided them into 2 big groups: younger and older children.
At the beginning, there was a part for those from primary school. 
We played games, sang songs with actions. Children were especially keen on rhymed riddles about vegetables and fruit. You can not stay indifferent to what’s happening around you if there is a chance to win a sweet prize. Even teachers helped kids to win and get those sweets.
Children were watching the little play we put on that was informative but at the same time, it was fun. So-called “baptists” as children call us, in one moment turned into a sailor, a neighbor, a friend and even in to a grandma. After that, 
Misha Tishkevich shared about the meaning of that play. Every one of us has thousands reasons to be thankful for. Ungratefulness makes us blind and prevents us from moving forward and developing.
Older children also watched this play and got a practical advice to start a journal of things they are thankful for and to write down those things every day, even one little thing that makes them grateful.
They had a chance to get a prize that was starting from the letters in the word “THANKFULNESS”. 
If they named the thing that was in a bag correctly then they were able to take that thing. It was a lot of fun!
We prepared The Tree of Thanks for every team at the end of celebration. Children wrote down on little pieces of paper what they were thankful to God for. Here is some of things they wrote down.
I’m thankful to God for:
– For the life, for my dear dad
– for the game
– for the freckles
– for health
– for love
– for bread
– for friends
– that God helps me to be successful
– for the help for God
– that I was born
– for my sister
– for the apple
– our friends who come visit us
– that my brother and relatives found me.
Everybody got a juicy apple at the end. It’s a special joy for the team – to hear the words of children’s thankfulness addressed to us. Praise God for Hos work!
LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN 