LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

I would like to share with you my impressions about our visits to the orphanage in Rudensk and tell you about our children. Wednesday, it’s 18.50. At this time our team normally greets and hugs the children. Then they have dinner, we wish them “Bon appetite” and go to the classroom to prepare for our meeting. Sometimes all together and sometimes one by one they come into the classroom. Communication, prayers, games, jokes, personal talks, the discussion of the biblical topics and their application in the children’s lives – all is actual and fine. But most of all I like personal talks with a particular child. This way I can deeper understand his or her inner world. During the last two visits I talked with Alesya. At night during a week he dreamt about her mother who is now dead. In this dream the mother offered Alesya to join her. So she was scared to go to bed. She was afraid that she can accept her mother’s invitation. After such a touching story I decided to pay a special attention to this girl. We prayed together, recollected what the Bible tells about dreams, God and protection. Then we talked about her mother, her thoughts and feelings. A week later a cheerful girl said that she didn’t suffer from those dreams anymore and she wasn’t scared. I hope Alesya believes in the power of prayer after all these difficulties.

Greetings brothers and sisters! School year has started and we came back to Rudensk orphanage. Summer went by quickly and every one of us missed children a lot! It is a special atmosphere and a special time when we visit this orphanage! Children running toward us, hugging us and telling us none-stop all together at the same time their summer stories! I am looking at these children and thinking how happy am I that I can continue to serve to them and continue to introduce Jesus to them! Beginning of the new school year it is not only familiar children’s faces which have become so dear and so important but also new children which just arrived to the orphanage and did not get a friend yet! While socializing with new children we have offered them our friendship! Their answer was “Yes”! Their reaction was shyness and distrust but in their voice we heard a firm “Yes”! We started a series of lesson on the subject of “David, a man after God’s own heart”! Quite often it is a man’s heart that does not have a value on the market of human friendship! These times more than thirty children attended our lessons!. They came out of their free will to spend time with us, to learn something new and interesting and to feel loved and be needed by somebody! Bible helps us to touch those threads of human heart that nobody in the world is able to reach, the place in human heart where there is the hole and this hole is of the size of God! The children asked us: “What should we expect this year?” We replied that this year we are going to have a fascinating adventure which is going to enrich everyone and will teach you how to orient yourself in life and not to be cheated! This year there were many graduates that have left the orphanage! Let us pray that the graduates would not get lost in the world but instead the local churches would have abilities and desire in participate in the lives and minister to the orphans! As I am writing these words the graduated orphan’s images come to my mind, it is so pleasant to receive wonderful messages from them in which they say “we go to a church, we pray and we see how God answers our prayers! Friends! We thank you for your continual support of the ministry to the orphans of Belarus! We believe that together we can help and give a strong rebuff as to the spiritual as to physical orphanhood!

We had 2 final trips to Rudensk orphanage in June. Earlier we’ve told that children there were very open to any meetings with us. But most of all they liked our stag-parties and hen-parties when boys and girls gathered separately. That’s why we decided to arrange one of our meetings in such a way. The topic for girls and boys was the same: “Social networks. The influence of the Internet. The Internet is an addiction”. This topic was of current importance for graduates. The reason is that while children are in their orphanage, they are taken care for, they are busy with their studies and other activities, and as the result they don’t waste their time in the Internet. But when they graduate from their schools they leave for other cities in order to either get another education or to enter a job. As a rule, they start feeling there absolutely free and independent. More often children don’t know how to use money, how to make friends and this makes them be wasted in the Internet. We tried to warn children against any addictions, showing what God thinks about these addictions. In the Scriptures it’s said: “Everything is permissible for me – but not everything is beneficial; everything is permissible for me – but I will not be mastered by anything”. (1 Corinthians 6:12)

Our second meeting was the last in this season. The graduates left for different cities either to study or to work. Those who are still in the orphanage were also sent to different cities for summer. Some of them left for Italy. The last meeting was held in a free format. Some of us focused on face-to-face communication with children, others played sports games with them. We were sad to part with the graduates, but we hope that we’ll be in touch with them and we also hope that God’s Word that they heard won’t be in vain.

Thank you all, who were with us during this year! May God bless you!

Another academic year is almost over. Our friends will have exams soon, then entering exams. Some of them will enter a job and become adults immediately. They are obviously worried now and we worry together with them too. What is waiting for them in their lives? What choices will they make in different situations and how they will use the knowledge we have already given to them? I cannot imagine how it all will work but I just believe that our God will take care of our lovely boys and girls and He will look after them as a loving Father. I am happy that many of them know Christ and know that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and they know that they always have a choice.
Our guys like when they can talk to us separately, in groups of boys and girls where they can discuss different topics and ask questions. During our last meeting girls talked about conflicts and the ways of solving such problems. What was interesting is that girls gave some concrete real situations from their own experience. Nastya, with the help of the Bible, helped the girls to analyze those situations, thinking about the consequences and making wise summaries. Unfortunately, the time we had wasn’t enough and that’s why we started corresponding with them. A lot of children there don’t have mobile phones and that’s why we decided to use their exercise-books where they can write about their lives, worries, happy moments and give these exercise-books to us for reading and answering. This helps us to learn much about our friends and to become closer to them. During this month we had some other meetings dedicated to such topics as: “Offence” (the example of the biblical Joseph), “How not to lose faith in difficult situations of life”. And also during one of the meetings we organized a Christian concert with participation of one of the rap-singers from USA. This was quite an unusual concert even for us, but at the orphanage there are a lot of boys who like rap music. As for us, we are always happy when after our meetings children are satisfied!

Another spring month is about to end. At this time of the year most of the children usually try to spend much time outside because the mood of children together with the nature becomes lively.

When it is warm they do not want to be in the classrooms and do the exercises. But we are so glad that they come to our meetings, although they sacrifice an opportunity to be outside. They open the classrooms, help us with the chairs and equipment.

In April we and children discussed why people need the church, how to be independent from other people’s opinion and, of course, the idea of the Easter. We organized a theatrical performance so that they could hear about the importance of Jesus Christ’s coming to the Earth. The cast showed where the sin leads to, how it deprives people of freedom. But Jesus suffered in order to give them long-awaited freedom. Also we organized competitions and then divided boys and girls. Boys listened to the topic “Pornography. How to resist temptation”. With girls we learned about Debora – a judge who was female.

Next month we are planning to give our children more joy. If the weather is fine, the meetings will be outside.