LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

I want to thank everyone who is praying and participated in our service financially, as our united service has special value in the eyes of God! In June we still visited Belynichi orphanage. Despite the fact that children already started their summer break, they still happily came to our meetings. For some kids, they were the last meetings, because they have already graduated school and going to different cities to study, others already found jobs. The first meeting was held this month on a street where we had sports relay, which purpose was not to win, but simply to have a good time with children and to open up their characters. One of the goals that we usually have set for ourselves during our meetings is to unite the kids. The fact of the matter is that from the stories of children we know that they have hard time; they are constantly confronted with gossip and beatings by their peers. But thanks to our games, children build bridges that help them to overemphasize their relationships with others. We talked a lot to high school students about the value of every person in the eyes of God and that it is important to appreciate people who are around them, that it is important to love people, condescending their limitations, as well to be able to forgive.

Little kids also had an opportunity to participate in sport games, as well as to learn about God and about the power of prayer through Christian cartoons. At the end of each meeting small children had a desire to pray on their own, and thanked God for the day and for our meeting. We are glad to see how the word of God works in the hearts of children, despite their problems with mental and physical health!

Talking with alumni, we heard the guys thanked us for that we helped them to cope with challenges that life brings to them. Indeed, in many areas of life, they lack experience. And the world doesn’t forgive mistakes and it’s hard for weak children to survive in the harsh reality of the modern world! But God teaches them to forgive themselves, their loved ones and gives the person a chance to change your life! Today our prayers are that God gives these guys a new life and helps to avoid many of their mistakes.

Praise the Lord that the entire school year we are able to visit orphanage, serve the Belynichi orphan children and fill their needs! Let’s pray that the graduates would be able to find a church in the cities, where they went to study, and that Ministry to orphans in Belarus lasted!

This month was eventful and rather diverse for the children. The first meeting was held with puppet theatre, we were talking about Easter. At the end of the meeting the children were given presents and of course all of them left the meeting being happy and delighted. The warm spring days came and the children started to spend more time outside. We decided not to deprive them of a walk in the evening too and to hold a class outdoors. It was a fascinating and special time because there are more opportunities to play different interesting games outside. The special thing in this day was that a group of children with Down syndrome joined us. During camp time we were able to spend more time with such children. During usual visits we see them seldom, that is why I was happy to pay more attention to them, as they are deprived of many things, and at this meeting we were talking about friendship. We had an opportunity to surprise the children with little presents which were received with joy. The younger children had a class about Zaccheus, all of them were attentive and active while answering the questions. On the pre-last Thursday of May 50 children from the orphanage had a chance to visit the circus, that gave a lot of different emotions to the children. Everyone was happy. We are very thankful to everyone who participated in organizing the trip to the circus. It was an unforgettable time.

The elder children had discussions on rather serious themes. We were talking about “The Christ’s endeavor”, about sufferings and the meaning of Easter to us. There was also a theme about fears. The elder children also saw the puppet theatre performance and joined the trip to the circus. And the last theme this month was very serious, Dima talked about suicide and the “Value of life”.

We’ve got big changes and good results in our ministry – this is how I can describe our trips to Belinichy orphanage this April. We thank God for answering our prayers! We wish everyone who is reading this letter would have a chance to visit the orphans from Belinichy. The photos we take can’t fully reflect the atmosphere that we have at the orphanage when we come there.
Every Monday we pray God would do changes in the hearts of the kids, pray for the staff of the orphanage and we see how the orphans get to know God more and more. The lie that captured orphans’ hearts gets broken and goes away. We know that their heart should become full of trust in God and their fathers could teach them God’s love. But they don’t have fathers and they are orphans. It sometimes become a real challenge for the kids to believe that God is truly loving and caring like every father should be.
The orphans often shout, argue or even fight because they want to draw some attention to them. They want to seat on our laps and feel the comfort and acceptance. Our ministry goes on and and we see how their faith is being formed. Even though the kids have disabilities they do their best to take part in games and activities. It’s interesting to hear their feedback on Bible stories we tell them or to hear them telling others what they learnt from the Bible class. This April we taught them such Bible stories as: “The widow’s offering”, “ The blind Bartimaeus receiving his sight” and we also taught about Christ’s sacrifice at the Calvary and the real meaning of Easter holiday.
The classes with the senior orphans were also very exciting. They are different from the junior kids as they don’t try to seat next to us or hug us as the junior ones. They meet us at the car and start sharing about their issues. As they are teenagers they want to have good close friends who can listen to them, pray for them or give advice. Those orphans who are to graduate and leave the orphanage often ask us how the life outside the orphanage is. They are going to leave the orphanage in 1-2 months and they will face a real life there on their own. We discussed such topics as : “Stealing”, “Conflicts”, “The triumph of Christ at the Calvary”.
We are grateful to God and those who support our ministry in prayers! We ask you to continue praying for our team so that we could grow, become more numerous and we could work with more orphans closer!

In March we have started visiting our kids again after a whole month of quarantine in the orphanage. Because of a long period of our absence, the kids were very glad to see us again, and they have been preparing to our meeting. Especially the youngest ones. It was very pleasant to see their happy faces as they were running towards us with the words “Mom, I’ve been missing you so much!” and hugging us tight afterwards.

Even their housemistress shared her notice of how the kids were missing and getting ready for the meeting. The children were playing games extremely actively and were doing it with great pleasure. They were very attentive while listening to the story about Lazarus and the rich man. At the end of our lessons we always try to present the kids with some colouring pictures according to the discussed topic in order to help them memorize it and give them a visual example. I was very surprised to see that the children save all these colouring pictures with which they were working during the lessons in separate folds and that they do the colouring itself more seriously. One can see that this is important for them.

We also watched the cartoon “God-Man”. The kids reacted in different ways and all of them were impressed by it very much. While watching they were asking a lot of questions, empathized the plot and were very active during the discussion afterwards.

For the elder children there were also discussions on the topics “Alcohol” and “ Hypocrisy”. Dima told about what influence the alcohol brings on the human’s organism, that there is a danger of addiction and a lot of harm for a man. Zheniya talked about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a sin of duplicity. The hypocrisy is based upon lie, and the father of lie is the devil. The life of a hypocrite cannot be a life in God, his life is always controlled by the evil inclination. “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined” (Matthew 12:25). A hypocritical, double-hearted person lives two lives at once. One of them can be seen by others, and the other one is internal and hidden.

Greeting you my friends!
January turn out with bright impressions and memories: kids faces, their smile, happiness and a fire full of hope, wish burning up in their hearts. This month we could of work with kids from Belinichу boarding school. No matter that it was an eve and vacations, many kids were supposed to stay for the whole period in the boarding school. Year by year passing by, and they are waiting for the miracle to happen- that someone will take them home. Sometimes “home”-its battered word and mostly child doesn’t give it any importance? But those kids are dreaming and praying to leave the boarding school even for the events .They in need of love and care, like a kids, who has a family.
9th of January with the team more that 30 people went to organize special days for kids. Kids watched a big Christmas show involving adults and kids. The atmosphere that day was really festive. Kids seen not only the performance but also they could of hear a new Christian songs from a kids choir? Also could play a games and talk to volunteers ? who organized that for them. The meeting ended with a nice thing- giving presents.
Throughout the month, we came to the guys every Thursday, despite the snow and sometimes big snowfall. Bible lessons were held as a teenage, so as babies. Older children raised such topics as: “Lies”, “theft” and “laziness.” But the kids continued to get acquainted with the biblical stories of the New Testament: “The story of the rich man and Lazarus,” “About 10 lepers” and “prayer of the Pharisee and the publican.”
Despite the diagnosis of children, we see how the guys are changing for the better side, especially in relationships with each other and also with teachers. Children learn the skills of the Christian life. It remains to pray and believe that they will not forget what they hear on our lessons and will take this knowledge’s in their life, even when they will go on their own life, without the boarding. And, perhaps, I wont be mistaken if I say that the main thing in our travels – is changed life of an orphaned child, in which there is a believe that anything is ti happen in life- there is nothing impossible for God!