LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

Greetings, dear brothers and sisters!

We thank you for praying and supporting our orphan’s ministry despite these difficult times! During this challenging season we see how difficult it is for orphans! The orphanage in Belynichi passed through covid-19. Many groups of children were sick. But we thank God for supernatural healing and restoration of the children! The orphans were quarantined and during that time they felt extremely lonely. What happened to you when you were in quarantine? – we asked kids. They answered that the sick children were treated, and the rest of the children were forced to be in isolation. The children shared that they often recalled our visits to their orphanage. We remembered songs and games that you learned with us, – they told us. They remembered how they felt during this period, and who was cheating in games. Someone made fun of others and began to shout: “The believers have arrived!” – and many children ran out of school to see us, but alas, there was no one and the one who shouted simply said that he was joking. The children even prayed that the counselors (that is, we) would come soon to their orphanage. At such moments, according to the children, it was important to feel that someone needed you. The children said: “We always know that you need us.”This year the director of the orphanage in Belynichi died. For many children it was a shock, and a tragedy because they loved Alexander Mikhailovich strongly. Many children called him dad. For our part we shared about God and believe that God worked in his heart. We are very glad that we can make trips to the boarding school again! Yes, we have to use personal protective equipment, but still we appreciate God’s answer. When we arrived, the children ran out with a cry of joy, and everyone wanted to hug us. “We are so glad to see you and we missed you so much, because you love us!” Love is manifested by action and it is so nice to hug the children again and see how they have grown up! Everyone has a whole bunch of stories, and everyone tried to attract our attention to share a story with us. We have prepared a program where we were able to share that God gives His peace and in this new academic year we will experience God’s love and care! Not only the children were happy to see us, but also their teachers, who also wanted to tell us not only about the children, but also about their families, and about their victories. After that start trips are made weekly, Thank God! Also we were able to visit the graduates of that orphanage, and I am so glad that God blessed us with a great time together. At the meeting we had 8 graduates who recently graduated from the orphanage in Belynichi. Everyone shared their experiences. “When I was released from the orphanage, says Karina, I cried every day and wanted to return back there.” Alesya echoes her: “There was more comfort for us at the orphanage, no one hurt or bullied us. It’s hard when you are an orphan and then you are at a school where all other children are from the families – they have a dad and a mom. Teens from families pay attention to you, and then some shows compassion, and some starts to scoff. When you came to the boarding school and share with us, we didn’t believe that it could be difficult after graduation from the orphanage. But the reality turned out to be even more difficult than you said. We do not know how to cook food, they have cooked for us all the years, and now we are on our own.” The graduates have come to a turning point and at that moment God sent us so that we could support them! We bought potatoes for the graduates so that they could cook their own food. We also introduced the graduates to the youth from the local church, so that them knew to whom they can turn to at the time a need. We prayed, talked about God and invited the graduates to the church. I am glad that in such moments of life the graduates are looking for God. Friends, let’s pray for the ministry so that we can continue to visit the children in the orphanages, as well as for the graduates of the orphanage, so that they will be open to God and go to church! Please pray for our team that God will keep us in His hand! Thank God for the opportunity to bring light and be salt for this earth!

Every time we visit children in the orphanage, I come back with a heavy heart. For many years I have been blessed by God with the opportunity to serve the orphans, but I cannot soothe the feeling I have when I come bank from the children, it is about the injustice and those circumstances the children occurred into. It is about those kids for whom there is no future such as those with Down’s disease… I always feel sorry for the children. I always think of what I can do to make their life better. And every time I realize that only God can really take care for them and change their lives, so that these children could also have Hope! For better life, life with God in Whom all their desires, dreams and goals can be satisfied. In this ministry most of all I see God’s hand and His care for the orphans. Our God is the God of the fatherless. I rejoice that I can at least a little bit be useful in God’s work. That I can tell about the truth and God’s love to the kids, to have a good influence on them. And to help them get to know about a better life with God through such stories as “Prayer and promise of Hanna”, “Samuel and Elijah”, Joseph’s story about dreams, betrayal, Potiphar’s house, forgiveness, “Hagar and Ismael”, these were the themes we discussed with the younger kids. With the eldest we spoke about “alcohol and drug addiction, deceit”.

Brothers and sisters, I am grateful to you for your prayers for orphan ministry in Belarus and for children! We are glad that God has moved us to a new level and all our dreams have already come true! This month God has blessed us and we have had a great opportunity to visit the orphanage school in Belynichi. At first, we saw that God fulfilled the children’s physical needs. When came there they ran to us and told how God answered their prayers. Some of them got a new long-awaited pack of pencils other got a new pair of shoes, a flashlight or new glasses. Simple gifts brought great joy to the kids whose childhood was stolen. “Dima, what unusual present did you use to get?” they asked me. It was hard for me to remember something like that because my father had been brought up at orphanage, so he didn’t give us any presents and often got drunk. That’s why the best present for us was our father’s good mood and sobriety. When I told the teenagers about that I realized that the majority of them have the same past. God also blessed us, and we could organize a Christmas event! I thank you, brothers and sisters, for your help with getting and spreading presents, your prayers and your participation in the program itself! We notice that during such events children and orphanage workers are especially open to talk about God and faith. Christ is born! “But who is He?”, newcomers asked. They grew up in small villages and didn’t hear about this holiday and its birthday person. We were happy to tell them that Father God gave Jesus, the Son of God, who brought Peace, Joy and Love to the world! We could also visit them later and discuss more serious issues connected with the orphans’ everyday life. We talked about swearing, why they swear, what people around think about it and, which is the most important, what God thinks about it. We discussed what we could practically do to get rid of swearing. Roma said that when he lost his temper he would try to restrain himself for at least the first ten seconds. He said that he would do it step by step. Sasha said “if you want to come to the finish line you have to move toward it”. I am happy that it was a good time where everyone said that during the week they would try to cope with their addictions.Many children have a wrong example of life and we are the only ones who come and help the teenagers to see the right way. Friends, let’s pray for God to keep the planted seed and their faith would grow on the right grounds! Praise the Lord!

 I would like to tell you about our trips to Belynichi in December. With the youngest kids we discussed such themes as “Job’s faithfulness”, “Birth of Jesus Christ”, and during one of the meetings we were doing crafts. I noticed that crafts is one of the kid’s favourite activities. During the ceative process we strive to pay more attention to personal help for everyone, to show care about the children, to let them reveal their creative potential and implement thier ideas. Doing crafts we always seek opportunity to communicate personally with every kid, but of course not always it is possible, because there’s only one hour to finish their handicrafts, and we want everyone of them to leave the lesson being happy. Sometimes it seems to me that our visits have no results at all. But receiving serious questions from the kids I understand and get assured that they hear and understand us. And only God knows every kid’s heart. And only God has strength to change hearts. I get surprised by their questions when they ask: “and when I die I will be with Jesus in heavens as long as I believe????” or “Will God forgive me if I believe???” Each trip provokes more changes in my heart than visible chages in kids which I expect to see. But the children do change, and it encourages us and brings much joy.I liked what one of the elder boys said to Dima: “During holidays time a lot of people come to us with merry programmes. But only you come to us for real because you tuly love us and want to be friends with us. I was touched by such sencere observations. The elder children had such topics this month: “Greed”, “Not simply a carpenter”, “Life of Jesus Christ”, “Not an ordinary Teacher”. By the example of Christ’s life Dima spoke about hope and, of course, delivered many other important thoughts to the kids. He told that each of us and of the children has the opportunity for changes in life. And that Jesus proved His love by His life, and now for us He is the true example, Teacher, Saviour. He is the one who understands us genuinely.

Once it turned cold, it became more and more difficult to get outside, but it didn’t impact our meetings with the guys. So every week, as usually, we met with them. Our lesson topics were ”Noah’s ark”, “The tower of Babel”, “Moses”. Though the guys were familiar with these topics there was no lack of interest. Through Noah’s story we emphasized that God hates sin, but sees and loves people loyal to him. Then they answered the questions and for every right answer they were allowed to “save” one pair of paper animals, which were stuck on the poster with the ark. They tried to do their best to get that animals.One more interesting moment was during the story about the tower of Babel. Everyone was allowed to speak any language one knew. English, German, Italian, even French were used. Then we found out we did not understand each other.It is when our story about the tower began. I memorized the boy Vanya’s prayer at the end of the lesson. In his prayer he wanted the school to change, so that it would be peace instead of feud and misunderstanding like in Babilon. It was really sincere and touching. Despite other children’s mockery he continued praying and then it became quiet. I hope everyone heard that short and honest prayer and changings will take place. Changings in the hearts of the guys and the educators first. The older guys discussed “Revenge”, “Fears”, “Envy”, “Greed” which are simple, but always actual and important topics.We’re praying for changings in the children’s hearts and glad we can be with them and be a little part of their lives.