LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

In December, I had the opportunity to talk with the older children, conduct Bible lessons with them and, as far as possible, answer their questions and pray for their needs. As for the topics of our meetings, we continued to acquaint the children with the life of Jesus Christ, telling them about His miracles. It’s amazing how God opens children’s hearts to accepting the truths they heard throughout the month! At the end of each meeting, the children approached me with different questions, both on the subject of the meeting, and with additional questions. For example, Artyom asked if we, living in the modern world, can see angels. Some of the children wondered if God could do such miracles in our lives too clearly. Another guy asked for advice on how to get rid of obscene language, and also shared how sincerely he wants to do the right thing, but he doesn’t always succeed.
The guys were especially impressed by two biblical stories: “The story of healing the paralyzed” and “The story of how Jesus fed more than five thousand people.” Children are particularly concerned with personal examples and testimonies from the life of someone who teaches them a Bible lesson. This month, Elijah told his testimony about how God met the needs of his family during the most difficult times. A simple personal example was remembered by the children as the brightest!
I am also very grateful to God that the children develop a prayer life. Many of them share the fact that they constantly pray and read the Bible. Some of them talk about how it is difficult for them to pray, because they are mocked and even humiliated by other guys who live with them. According to our good tradition, every week we pray for birthdays. Now the children are no longer waiting until we ask who has birthday this week, but they themselves begin to come up and ask for prayer for them. Perhaps I will give two more examples that inspired me! Girl Polina, twice asked us to pray for her healing, for God to restore her vision, which is rapidly falling. I felt how important it was for her and how her heart was just beginning to open up to God. We also have Martha, who in the last week of December bade us farewell, because she leaves school forever and goes to live in a disabled home. She finished school this summer, and all this time she waited for the room for her. She feels a lot of fears and feelings now, many tears. But just like Polina, she tries, as far as she can and understands, to look for a way out in God. We, of course, prayed for her. We hope now that the seed sown in her heart will give fruit at the right time!
Of course, the highlight of this month was the Nativity of Christ! In January, we plan to organize for all the guys from the Rudensky orphanage, a large Christmas production with the distribution of gifts. But before this event occurs, we first wanted to talk about the deepest sense of Christmas and the goal of the birth of the Savior to our world. That is why one of the meetings of this month we dedicated to Christmas. The children themselves, together with our team, sang songs about the birth of Jesus, participated in discussions and played various games dedicated to this topic.