LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

I greet you, brothers, sisters and all friends who are interested in helping orphans! Belarus is definitely a country of opportunities, but, at the same time, many people do not know God. Problems people face, show that they lack close relationships with their Creator. Broken families result in appearance of social orphans. And this is a huge problem! The whole generation of children are growing up without fathers and mothers in our country. What does it mean? It means children have low self-esteem and adults are emotionally depressed, besides, they feel worthless and insignificant! That is why our country is on the list of countries with the highest level of suicide. People need changes but they cannot occur without changing of minds and coming to faith in God.
Rudensk orphanage is the place where children’s life stories really change. Today’s generation counts on Marvel heroes who cannot answer the main question – what can help me in my life and what can change it! Children need parents, moreover, they need right heroes who could help them believe in him or herself, in their personal value and believe that real changes can come true! David is a Bible character who turned over the whole epoch of disbelief, disappointment, betrayal and pain. Although hundreds and thousands of years went on from that time, the image of this hero still helps young orphans get right understanding of following God. Responsibility for the flock of sheep which was in his charge during his adolescence, his relationships with God, his wisdom, bravery, friendship, faithfulness to his views and many other things can be added to the list of his good qualities. God, looking at his heart, helped him reach the position of a king from being a slave. But such a status didn’t prevent him from being faithful to God.
When we came to the children in February, we told them about David’s life and reflected on the actuality of his example in our days. I am happy when the teenagers ask questions and think over of what they heard at our meetings. But most of all I am excited by their wish to change. The teenagers come closer to their dream with every prayer and our visits. The Bible becomes a life guidebook for those who are eager to know more about God. I think, in this month, despite cold weather, offence, price increase, cruelty, offence, failures, the children learnt how to see not only bad things in everything and look for the way out even in hard situations and make right conclusions. God is interested in their lives. Changes can come only due to closeness to God. Evaluating the work of the team, I see that we change together with the children. God transforms us and, as a result , the message we share influence the children’s destiny and eternal life!
I want to thank all who read our news! Without you and your prayers, it would be harder to see changes that God implements.

The brightest and the most exciting event of this month for the children in Rudensk orphanage became Christmas performance! The program was very fascinating and spectacular but the best thing about it is that the children could hear and see the real sense of Christ’s birth through the characters on stage once again. At the end of the performance, every child got a long-awaited Christmas present. Every year we share how programs and performances went on in different orphanages and how the children enjoyed presents. At first sight, it may seem usual and habitual. However, in reality every year each child manages to give us new impressions in a special way! It is impossible to express how joyful children’s faces are when they get presents even if they take a small and simple toy out of the box. Shining eyes, a big and sincere smile and words of gratitude from the children are the reasons for giving thanks to our Heavenly Father! We are grateful to God for this wonderful time!
All further meetings at the orphanage went through in a familiar way both for us and for the children. In spite of this, these meetings were marked by friendly atmosphere, Christmas recollections and the children’s stories about their presents. The older ones managed to be acquainted with some biblical stories from the Old Testament: ‘The story of Samson’, ‘The story of Ruth’ and ‘The story of Hannah and Samuel’. When we spoke about Samson, we gave them possibility to compete and play tug-of-war as a vivid illustration of the story. When we introduced Ruth to them, everyone had an opportunity to take roles of some of the characters in the story. The example of Hannah and Samuel shows how God answers the prayers and how it is important to be faithful to the promise you give to God.
The younger ones began to learn the story of Jesus Christ this month. They have already known about Christ’s birth, the family He was brought up in and who his earthly father Joseph was. Besides, they could know about Jesus’ disciples.
One of the vivid moments of this month became the talk with one of the girls from the younger group. Her name is Alina. We spoke about friendship. Alina shared what she thought about qualities of a real friend and noticed that she wasn’t always a good and faithful friend herself. But I cheered most of all when she said that she wanted to have friendship as David and Jonathan’s. Such words surprised and encouraged me at one and the same moment because we had shared this story in October! It is surprising that a small girl with mental and physical problems learned this lesson so well and could even make practical conclusions. Praise the Lord!
Thanks to everyone who supports us and is not indifferent to the service to orphans of our country!

We continue visiting kids and sharing Good News and everything that we have, as everyone in the team has special gifts and talents. During the whole month older kids were learning about Moses. We talked about his dedication to God and to people. That was a topic very close to their hearts, as everyday they moan and groan complaining about their lives, circumstances, people, everything and everyone around them. Some of the kids don’t want to make any effort to change for the better, they just live in “today”, accepting everything as it is. The story about Moses and Israel people made them think about their calling in their lives and what to do to draw closer to the Lord and have relationships with Him. It made them think about things they can be grateful for and about their talents and gifts which they can develop and use for others.
We learnt new songs with younger kids and they become calm and quiet while singing, God’s peace filled their hearts. Every meeting we had a different bible story for them, like a story about Naaman, Esther and, as we were approaching Christmas, a story about the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. We were building episodes of Christmas story using tangible blocks, so now Christmas won’t be associated with Santa and gifts under the Christmas tree! Now kids now for sure that Christmas is the birth of our Savior! It is so great to see kids contemplating on God’s words, and their eyes filled with faith and love! The power of God’s love and truth is changing children’s lives forever.
Next month we are planning to organise a Christmas play for kids from Rudensk boarding school, it will reveal the meaning of a Christmas story to kids even deeper. Every child will get a present after the play. I love this time very much because I love seeing kids happy.

We did not know many of the children who started visiting our meetings in September, but they have already become so close and dear to us. Every one of them has his story, pain, worries, dreams, gifts, as well as victories and loses. The one thing that unites them is that they are all orphans. They never saw warm and healthy relationship in a family. Of course, we cannot replace parents or give them love and care to the extent that it is needed from the parents whom they lost in their childhood. Nevertheless, we are trying our best to do everything so that they will not get completely disappointed with people and with God, Who truly loves them, and who is the only One, who can give that love to orphans. Love, that is greater than the love of a mother.
Older children met a new biblical character this month called Moses. For many of them Moses’ life is an example of many victories, which God can make through a person. Many of the kids, just like Moses, are afraid of public speaking or in general of just being in public eye and they consider themselves useless. However, we believe God can make them victorious, they can become professionals at work, good parents and good friends, if they open their hearts to Him! Children form Rudensk orphanage love singing that is why we sing with them even more than with kids from other orphanages.
One day we organized a sport event for them. Both girls and boys enjoy doing sports in this orphanage. School administration provides every opportunity for the children to participate in different competitions with other schools and kids do bring victories and prizes. It is great to see that children have opportunities to show how gifted they are in sport! From our side, we try to organize from time to time sport events with older kids, too. It is a special time for us when we see children’s characters and how they win and are able to accept loses!
Younger kids have a separate program: creative classes, Christian animated cartoon movies, bible lessons where they get to know bible characters. This month they had learnt about Daniel and his friends, as well as about Jonah, who was swallowed by the whale. Sometimes it seems that children do not always listen to us and actually hear us due to being too emotional and active, but when ask for a feedback, we are amazed every time how well they remember the bible story we talked about! Praise God for that! We also have another good news. There is a new person, a musician, in the team who works with younger kids in Rudensk. His name is Sergey and he plays the guitar. So now, our younger kids are very excited about it! Sergey is also a big blessing for the boys. There used to be only girls in our team who worked with younger kids there. Boys needed someone who they could look up to, an example for them. Thanks be to God for His love and care!

Hello!
We are grateful that God gives us an opportunity to make the God’s kingdom on this earth! This month, every week we were going to the Rudensk orphanage. The autumn time itself pushes children on thoughts about life. It is so pleasant to speak with children about belief, God and also how to build their life. Not all of the children who have left the orphanage this year have settled well in their life. Having such examples, we see that children have a question: “What do I need to change in my life not to have the same destiny as my parents?!” Joseph’s example is a powerful tool, which helps to understand that the orphans can also have a good life, having close relations with God. We often hear from children that nobody needs them and everyone reminds them that they will be the same as their parents (alcoholics, drug addicts, etc.).
In this world, to very big regret, there is an opinion that if you are an orphan – you are the loser! However, it is sad as well as the fact that children trust in it and since their childhood, they expect from people and from life only the worst. But we want to change it in children’s life, we want them to have a set of victories, true friends and strong families. We know that based on the Bible principles, we will be able to see it in the future! Joseph is a right image of the teenager who was taken away from home, who had had betrayed and left alone. Meeting this bible hero, almost every child remembers how parents betrayed him or her and how he or she was taken away from home by special security services. The pain that Joseph had is the same pain, which is muffled by children, gathering and telling each other about their life before the life in the orphanage. When Joseph was betrayed by close people, he felt pain and loneliness. But the Lord has helped him to go throw all those difficulties and He has even ennobled him because Joseph has entrusted God his life.
The Lord opens for our team what topics will be relevant for the children in this period of time through planning. We believe that God shows us the most important topics for the children. Responding to the orphans’ needs, we give the healing of their hearts that is hidden in the Word of God.
We thank God for an opportunity to minister the children – to orphans of our country; many children need a consolation and the truth that God loves them. For this reason, we need your prayers and your support!