LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

High school students in Belynichy orphanage prepare for final tests these days. During our visits guys passionately share with us about their progress in studies during the late week and also about their preparation for moving to new towns. It’s easy to feel how they’re nervous about something new and unknown. In such a period guys are in a big need of personal relationship and they’re more open to prayers. That’s why we’re focusing on communicating to each of them personally, «tet-a-tet». Besides that we had common meetings for all children, of course. The main topics of our meetings on May were: «God is our Helper in needs» and «Faith».
Also guys from our team played volleyball with older boys this month. Sports is a wonderful opportunity to teach children how to accept wins and loses in a right way because during the game children usually fully express their characters.
For the smallest children we organized the puppet-play, we were watching biblical cartoons and continued learning about Bible characters on common lessons. This time we learnt about Moses and Elijah. It’s very encouraging that kids can perceive the information and remember biblical lessons because that is very hard for them by harsh medical reasons. Our God is God of wonders! Moreover, we have success in the discipline! Our kids behave much better. Earlier, leaving the children we had our voices lost. That happened because we always had to speak louder so that the children could hear us. Now that doesn’t happen because our kids are changing for the better. These are our pleasant news!

This April the orphanage Belynichy had a chance to hear what our God the Creator has done for us, about his plan of salvation as we celebrated Easter. I was so excited to see all these familiar faces and to see how they congratulate each other on Christ’s Resurrection Day. We told the orphans about how Christ came into this world for us because of His great love He’s got for us and He came to show the way and to give a chance to every person to hear about Him and be saved, get a new sense of life, joy and fulfillment in God. The orphans were sitting calm and thoughtful which happens quite rarely. We hope all that they have heard will help them in the future to choose the way among other different ways which leads to Christ, and they will be able to avoid the mistakes and sins remembering all they know about God.
We also ran a sport competition at the orphanage this month. Playing sport games really joins kids together: the leaders and the orphans, the orphans among each other. The kids compete with each other, they can sometimes argue or shout the odds but they are sincere in this. They are genuine, they don’t pretend. We don’t convince them they need to participate, they are very active. I like communicating with the orphans, seeing their friendly smiles and joy they have when we visit them. Wewould like the orphans to have real changes in lives.

It was a special month working with the kids from the orphanage in Belynichy! The team was participating in the lives of these kids by prayer and seeking solutions of problems many of them face, especially those who graduate. Sowing God’s seeds in them is not in vain. Many of them a thinking about continuously seeking God in their lives – praise the Lord! Our prayer request is for the hearts and their future lives: when they leave the orphanage, they won’t be lost but found for the kingdom of God.
This month we’ve been learning “The Prayer” unit, and also we’ve told children bible stories about Lazer and rich man and about Kind preacher. Through these stories we wanted to show children how to make a right choice and also we were trying to show how much our Lord loves every one of us and shows His care. Younger group learned the story about Abraham and David. They also had an opportunity to watch good Christian cartoon about the gift Jesus gave to us.
Also we managed to order tables, chairs and developing games for defectology class. Now children will be able to have classes in well-maintained class, using developing games and stuff like that. Praise the Lord and thanks to everyone who takes part in this ministry!

This month was dedicated to “Prayer” and the major topics of our Bible studies at the orphanage in Belynichy were about it. We told the kids what a prayer is, we explained that God doesn’t always answer all the prayers right away and God not always answers the prayers the way we like or expect. We read the stories from the Bible that told about a prayer and showed the example of how to pray. We discussed it more with the senior orphans.
Nevertheless, the part of the team went to see junior orphans. This month they got to know the story of Abraham and the Tower of Babel. But the orphans not only listened to this story. They had a chance to do crafts – for instance angels made of paper.
This month the members of the team had a talk with some orphans. We established good relationships with the orphans after the winter camp this year. In order to know how they are doing, to know about their moments of joy and sorrow we need to have strong close relationship with them. One of the orphans – Sergey – had a chance to keep on learning how to play the guitar and communicated a lot with his guitar teacher who he got acquainted with at the winter camp.
Winter camp was a great blessing both for the orphans and for the team. Orphans hearts got more open and attentive to God’s Word. And it encourages us as a team a lot! I give thanks to all who are interested in orphans’ lives.

We had a camp in December and at the beginning of January. It was blessed time! I noticed that the more often you visit children the more you understand how you love them. You know them by name, and it is important because it helps closer communication, so, you begin to understand them. Time I spent with these children helps me to estimate my own life and changes me. First of all, they teach me to love.
Children are getting closer to my heart  and I feel that I can’t be indifferent to their future. Especially I think of children who haven’t enough chances to sucseed in their life.
In the orphanage there is a group of children with “Down syndrome”. Working with them, I seriously thought of how I could make more for them. This thought doesn’t leave me. I want to try to take one of such child home for the weekend that they could live in family, feel what family means, feel that they are loved. There are six children in group, and anybody never took them home. Their only house is the orphanage. We visited children on Thursday in a week after camp, and I felt that I missed them so much! And how close they became to me! Children were happy to see us again, we told them about “good Samaritan”, about what kind of people we could meet (good and not really). Children discussed it very active.
Once again we went to the orphanage with Christmas program and gifts. I was nicely surprised to see that the children were more happy to see us than to recieve their gifts! Also it was obvious how important for them is the communication with us.
I notice changes in the children. It is shown by their  behavior, they ask serious questions about God. Not just to talk about something but because it really interests them. They ask how to do the right things in life  and how to react when temptations come. They ask if I were them what would I do.  They tell about their temptations and about their victories.