LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

Hello my friends! We glad to have such an early spring here! As a result we have some changes in our lives and ministry. With the arrival of spring everybody goes outdoors to walk, to fish, to exercise at stadiums and our guys are not the exceptions. The problem is that our friends stopped coming to our lessons because they wanted to spend their time outdoors. To tell the truth, they wanted to be with us and to communicate but a long-awaited spring has won.
So we consulted about it and decided to go to their territory and communicate individually with them in the places they wanted to be. Such conditions helped us to gain confidence of children and it opened their hearts for our words about Jesus. We raised such topics as “why do we go to church?”, “why do we read the Bible?”, “Life is not a game – we should have a serious attitude to it” and talked about many different questions. Guys spoke actively and we were happy that they are not indifferent. This is the right time when we can build the basis of the Christian life in their minds hoping them to use this knowledge outside the orphanage. Especially it applies to graduates as they have to make a step into their own independent lives soon. We pray for our graduates to have enough efforts and confidence and also to be blessed by God in their choice concerning education and their future profession. We thank you for your support and ask you to join us in our prayers for graduates of the orphanages.

There is time for everything under the sun. And it’s high time now to have a look at what was going on in Grozovo boarding school. We’ve been visiting  boys and girls regularly this month. There are more girls than boys at our fellowship at the moment, but it’s not a problem to have fun together and teach them God’s truth. Everyone celebrates St.Valentine’s Day on the 14th February, the day of couples who are in love. It didn’t elude us either: we’ve been talking about different stages of  love, what are its characteristics and what is true love. Everyone was interested and excited to talk about it.
We also discussed such topics as “Laziness and what remedies we should use to fight it”, “How to be content”, “The envy”. Obviously, most people understand that it is not good  to be lazy, dissatisfied or to envy someone. But unfortunately, not everyone tries to change. We encouraged guys to do their best not to let envy and laziness in to their lives. We tried to show that God considers it to be bad and judges it.
Everyone agreed. But any way now we should pray that the Word will change their way of thinking, their behaviour and actions and will change their lives for good. We’ve been praising the Lord in singing altogether recently. Everyone loves to sing joyful songs. Everyone loves worshiping Him. Lyrics of songs are a great testament for children when they can think them over and meditate on them, pray or just sing along. We thank God that we have people in our team who serve the Lord in music ministry!
That’s the way we spend time with our friends!

We are glad that on February we had an opportunity to visit orphanages. Usually we didn’t visit children in winter because lots of them caught a cold. In our country February was the coldest and severe month. Sometimes even classes at school were cancelled because of this. But this year Jesus blessed us with a very worm winter. There’s no snow outside, and the weather is good. Schools weren’t closed this year, that’s why we could visit children in the orphanages.
   We talked about Joseph, a very good biblical character, and recalled the story of Cain and Abel. We talked about consequences of pride. The greatest example of which was the story of The Tower of Babel. One of our classes we dedicated to art. Together with children we molded salt dough crafts. Children were meant to make gifts for each other: girls had to make gifts for boys on Defender of the Fatherland Day, and boys had to make gifts for girls on the International Women’s Day. In spite of these holidays are not Christian, we decided to spend this time so that children could make something pleasant for each other. They did make the crafts with pleasure! In the nearest future the orphanage is going to be closed, and children are unlikely to meet up again. That’s why we are willing to do our best for their relationships.

Grace and peace to all who follow the news of our team and read our page!
First impressions in January are positive. Our children are longing for us, rested at home, with friends, and someone just in orphanage. Despite the huge vacation holidays, gifts, chocolates, it’s nice to know that you are waited for more than just a Santa Claus. Though not everyone, but it’s cool! It surprises me and inspires! It’s inspiring that someone wants to improve his live and to know God, who can simply love.
In our first visit, everyone who was with us, told us what they were doing, how they celebrated Christmas and what gifts did they received. It’s great that they trust us their experiences, joys and sometimes sorrows from the “small” gifts. We’ve just wanted to talk, as through it we build the communication relationship. I started the communication with the fact that today I want not only me to talk, but I would like to hear the voice of each of the children. At the end, there was an encouraging word from the Bible for the upcoming academic quarter, that for having wealth and success in life, we must endeavor (Proverbs 21:5).  We were praying and asking God to help us with it. We have also talked about the unfairness, how to react on it according to the Bible as an example of the Apostle Paul and the Book of Proverbs. The topic raised great interest and debate since it was hard for them to accept the fact that they can not revenge enemies by responding with evil on evil, rejoice to the grief of their enemy. I believe that this word has touched everyone, because we all face with injustice. Only they can do their choice, we gave it to them and showed alternative reaction and behavior to such cases.

This month, we met with our children again, who had two weeks of winter holidays. During one of the lessons, we discussed how they spent the Christmas holidays. Every child told us where they were, with whom they communicated, and what did they do. Many of them spent the New Year in Ireland. They received a lot of gifts, they watched various performances, played a lot, and just walked around the festive city. All the children had very good memories and emotions. Almost all of them were very happy, they left Ireland with good experiences. Every child wanted to share his joy with us. It was very nice to talk to them.
Every time we come, they met us, hug us, and just want to be heard. We are trying to pay more attention to each child. Currently, there is the issue of closing of Grozovsky orphanage. Children will be able to live there only until the summer. After that, graduates will leave to study in different cities. The rest of the children, who have not yet graduated from high school, will be allocated in various orphanages around the country. Some of the children, those who are a little more fortunate, will be sent to new families. Several young children may leave soon. Therefore, we are trying to invest as much as possible in the children of this orphanage. So that even if we will not see them in the future, they will always remember what we taught them at our Bible lessons.
This month, orphans got to know good Biblical parables: “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”, “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.” We hope that guys will always remember that God is always waiting for them and accepts them the way they are. It is important and useful exercise to be good to other people. Besides our regular meetings, we had a Christmas program. Musical meeting, which was dedicated to Christmas, took place in this orphanage. Every child was able to get a gift after it.