LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

September is the beginning of a school year in our country and the beginning of the season for our ministry. This month we especially miss those who graduated and left the school, because we have known some of them from the beginning and we watched them growing up. They became so dear to us.
Beside that, September is special because we get to know the children who just started coming to our meetings. We are so full of hope that we will become older brothers and sisters for them or at least good friends who will be able to reach them with love that was once revealed to us by God!
For now, we have decided to introduce both older and younger children to main characters in the Bible and tell them about heroes of faith. This month, older children got to know the story about Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham and Sarah. Every story was accompanied with a practical example that was showing how important it is to be obedient, be faithful, and most of all to trust God. Apart from bible stories, we have sung a lot and played different games.
There are new kids in the school who have been brought from other orphanages this month. So we try to spend more personal time with them, it’s obvious that it’s difficult for them to get used to a new place, new people, and some children from this orphanage don’t accept new ones.
Together with younger kids, we continue our series that we started last year. We dedicated this month to a biblical character – David. Children were so impressed that this character was an ordinary shepherd and managed to become a king because of his kind heart and his love to God.
There are new kids among young ones and we can see they are getting accustomed to a new atmosphere quicker and others joyfully accept them. I’d like to mention 2 new boys – Andrey and Vanya. Surprisingly enough, they are so creative and artistic despite their mental and physical disabilities! At the end of each lesson, we ask every child for a feedback. Andrey and Vanya were the most active and with each answer, they tried to copy a biblical character with their voices, intonation and facial expressions. Moreover, they used quite complicated, emotionally colored expressions! I’m so delighted that God gave me this chance to meet and get to know these wonderful children! I hope we will be friends!

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!

Another month of our ministry in Belynichi orphanage has come to an end. All of the planned meetings with the kids were held and each meeting was filled with a special atmosphere. We have already succeeded in building good relationships with most of the children who visit our events, but there are yet some of them with whom we still need to create good friendship.
Together with the elder kids we have completed a series of themes dedicated to the qualities of God. In my opinion, the themes were rather relevant for children, as we were talking about our Creator. From our side we wanted to teach them to be like God, not only expect their friends to display those qualities, but to do it themselves always. We touched on such themes as: “God is light”, “God is the way”, “God is bread“. We also held relay races with elder kids this month. Children are thrilled and excited about such events. During relay races they pour out their different emotions, and physical exercise is always good for them.
Younger children and middle classes were going through the Old Testament themes: “Ruth”, “David”. The Puppet Theatre visited children this month, which also brought them a lot of joy, they always meet new people warmly and gladly. During lessons children try to behave themselves. You can tell by the expression of their eyes with what interest they are listening; they love to participate in the course of the lesson and answer the questions vying with each other. 
This suggests that the kids understand and embrace information. Roma was a special joy of mine this month, he knows very well how to behave in the right way and what sin and bad actions are. During a lesson he happens to push a friend or call someone names. And after that he remembers “Ah, this is not right” and always tries to ask for forgiveness and doesn’t repeat those bad things at least till the end of the lesson. I told about it because here I also see changes. Previously I saw that after doing something bad or harmful they would just laugh, but now they understand that this is bad and try to change. It is a joy to see each small victory and transformation in the behavior of the children.

The ministry in Belynichi orphan school helps us to see how great our God is and be sure that the Bible is accessible to everyone! We have shared for many times that this orphan school is for kids who have mental and physical disabilities but it doesn’t prevent them from knowing God. It’s true that sometimes we have to make a lot of efforts to explain in a simple and understandable way some topic to the teenagers or a bible story to the smaller ones. But these efforts bring good fruit! All the glory is to God for this!
This March was exemplary in the way that we once again saw that diagnoses, the children’s age and their life stories are not hindrances to their knowing of God. It’s nice to hear how the children recall and tell us what they heard at the previous meeting a week ago! The older ones discussed such topics as ‘The importance of obedience’, ‘Sin and its consequences’, ‘Correction of mistakes’, ‘Following the crowd’. We wish so much that the children will realize how it is important to be obedient, to know how to control their behavior, respect their teachers who take care of them as the Bible teaches this. Sin is the problem urgent for everyone. We wanted to explain the children that each sin leads to sad consequences. But there is always a way out in repentance and forgiveness! And eventually the theme ‘Following the crowd’! Teenagers often live according to the motto: ‘I live the same as others live’. But more and more often this principle becomes destroying especially if we take orphans who are often influenced by people. This month this topic was very urgent! On March 13 we got very sad news. The graduate of Belynichi orphan school Dima by name died in the resuscitation… Dima was a lively, friendly and active boy. Our team remembers him looking neat, longing for being the first and always smiling. But 4 months ago he tried to commit suicide! Dima jumped out of the window from the fourth floor and got a lot of fractures, brain and spine injuries, then he lapsed into a coma and died… Dima’s motto was ‘Try everything in your life!!!’ It was what he talked a lot about at our last meeting. This young man really tried a lot of things. And his life ended so sadly. A lot of thoughts were in my mind ‘Did we tell him everything that we had to?’, ‘Did we pay enough attention to him?’, ‘Our team and teachers from orphan school talked to him a lot, so how could this happen?’ We don’t know for sure what thoughts were in his head at that moment but I know one thing exactly – we must do our best to prevent other teenagers from making such decisions in spite of hardships in their lives! Dima’s death is one more challenge for us! Now we continue our orphan ministry with even more eagerness and desire because we want to acquaint them with the living God who is able to heal all the wounds and give real freedom from sin!

This month was very productive and interesting. There are three groups in the orphanage in Belinichy right now. We split our team in three groups and work with different ages. The first group are the youngest kids, the second group is older, and the third group are teenagers.
The youngest have already learned about creation, Adam and Eve, Abel and Cain, Noah and how the tower of Babylon was built.
It inspires our group to see that the kids in spite of the special diagnoses are active during JDT time and a lot of them remember and can retell what they have learned before.
In the middle group the kids have learned about Moses, Egyptian curses and the life of God’s people in wilderness. After every lesson the kids have special tasks or crafts and they can do it very well.
The teenagers group had some lessons, where such questions as “ How to really value what you have “, “Everyone has got a talent”, “ Everything starts with idea” were discussed.
Some of the kids are school leavers this year. We decided to have a special lesson for them to understand the difference of being loved or attracted. We want the kids to build strong families in the future .
Every time when we get ready for the meeting with kids and are in the process of preparing all the materials, we understand that God really works in our hearts too. In general , this ministry for these kids helps you to understand who you are and if you are really ready to sacrifice your time and money and energy. It helps you to see if you are able to accept the others the way they are. While there, you understand how important every word or action can be. The kids see how you react to different situations. They read you as a book! We highly recommend everyone to go and serve such kids at least once a month and through this ministry God would change not only the kids’ hearts but also yours.