LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

Any change of season is beautiful. And autumn, replacing summer, is just beautiful! October turned out to be very warm and colorful this year.

This made the trips to the guys even more enjoyable. Every time I come to the boarding school, it’s nice to understand that the guys are looking forward to us, tell us all their news, hug and just don’t take a step away.

A lot of guys have been added this new academic year. The guys are very good, but many have rather difficult diagnoses – they do not speak, they hear poorly or are difficult to communicate. I remember well one moment when we were playing games. We tried to maximize the involvement of these children who did not fully understand the rules of the game. One of them is Maxim.

A very kind, calm, shy boy who stands on the sidelines, and never offends anyone. He doesn’t talk at all, but he hears and understands a little. When it was Maxim’s turn to run for his team, he did not always hear, but the guys prompted and pushed him to run and he ran. At that moment, there was so much joy in his eyes that could not be expressed in words! And it doesn’t matter that he did it slowly and not quite fast! How happy he was that he could run, that he was together with everyone and not on the sidelines! For us, this moment may mean nothing at all, but for Maxim, these actions are a manifestation of love for him! He may not hear or understand the words addressed to him, but love and acceptance do not need loud phrases. Love is an action. And Maxim felt it. This month the topics of the talks were: “Bitterness of resentment”, “Envy”, “Betrayal”. We tried to fully disclose each topic and make it as accessible to understanding as possible. At the last meeting there were sports relay races, where all the children participated with pleasure. We pray for every child so that understanding of the Word of God becomes real for them, and Love to be in every action!

Greetings to you. Thank God that we have the strength and time and desire to attend boarding schools, tell children about the Lord God Jesus Christ, pray with them and for them, play and make friends, communicate and know their needs and their lives, as well as sing Christian songs, which carry the truth and which you can croon during the week and music that is easily remembered.

This month we covered topics about different types of soil, explained to them what dangers they can expect in life and that they should strive to be a good soil that accepts the Word and does not stop to bear fruit. We also told them about the Pharisee and the publican about the fact that if we do good deeds and exalt ourselves and are proud of it, it is not pleasing God and that the heart of publican saw his sin and humbly asked for forgiveness and that it is such a heart that pleases God. There was also a story about how the Pharisee invited Jesus to visit, but he did not love Jesus, and a woman who was a sinner poured expensive oil and wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. She humbly came to ask God for forgiveness and loved God greatly because she saw many of her sins and knew that Jesus was able to save her. We tried to explain to the children how it relates to their lives.

Also, God blessed Nikita and Dasha to make documents and take Alesya, 19, and Bozhena, 17, for patronage for the weekend. When they came to pick up the girls, the children greeted them joyfully, the girls asked to take them to the hairdressing salon, after that they ate, showed them the apartment and went to a teenage meeting at the Bethlehem church, but since it was canceled, they had a great game of volleyball with the local youth. On the way, they talked about various topics, including Christ and the Gospel. In the evening before going to bed, they decided to show them a Christian cartoon and were worried that they would not go to bed in time, but when Dasha went to turn off at 22:15, the girls had already turned everything off themselves and were already asleep, apparently the sleep regime in the boarding school had done its job. In the morning after breakfast they read the Bible together, Nikita drew them on the timeline briefly about the general history of our world, creation, flood, Moses, Jesus, our days, the second coming of Christ, the millennial kingdom and eternity. And they also read the last chapter of the book of Revelation, because it’s interesting to find out how everything will end. After the Sunday meeting, they went to a teenage service at church Resurrection, where they had a great game of volleyball, talked, listened to the word and sang songs. After that, at home, the girls and Dasha baked cupcakes, (they turned out delicious by the way) and took them to boarding school. Before coming back to boarding school at sunday evening they visited the local church in Rudensk for a very short time, and now they know where there is a church in their city. In those 2 days they visited 5 churches, I think they could compare them. The teachers at the boarding school asked: were the girls behaving well? Nikita was glad to honestly admit that everything was fine. Thank God that He gives such an opportunity and strength.

Hello, our dear readers!
This month we told the guys about the miracles of Jesus that he performed during his life on Earth. We have repeatedly told them about the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, as well as about the resurrection of Lazarus. But every time new guys come to us, for whom these stories are new, and those who hear them not for the first time, learn more and more to admire God, for whom anything is possible!
When we tell about the Jesus’s miracles, faith is strengthened in children’s hearts, and after such Bible lessons, children with great desire ask to pray with them for their personal needs. Polina asks to pray for her eyesight and God sending her good doctors, Vitalik and Nazar ask to pray for their parents’ freedom from alcohol addiction. Someone asks to pray for the strength to forgive the offenders, someone pray for academic success, and graduates for passing the upcoming exams. All these moments confirm that the word of God is alive and effective, because stories about Christ strengthen faith and give hope to children!
We devoted our other meetings with the guys from Rudensk to Easter. Unfortunately, in the modern world many children and adults are limited only to associations with cakes, eggs and rabbits! That is why we try to talk more about Christ at this time, about His crucifixion, death and resurrection in order to convey to the children the true meaning of Easter. We invited a puppet theater to one of the meetings, where the characters told about Easter – starting with the story of Moses and the Egyptian plagues. In addition to the theatrical performance, we held games, where both older and younger children could participate and get sweet prizes. And at the last meeting of this month, Dima held a bible lesson, where he also talked about Easter, but already telling the children in detail about the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ for each of them personally, as well as about the love of God for people, Who sent His Only Son into this world so that everyone would have the opportunity to be saved and spend their eternity with God! We thank everyone who supports our ministry and wholeheartedly congratulate you on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Greetings to you. God blesses that the doors are open to boarding schools and we are grateful to him that there is such an opportunity to serve in boarding schools. In March, in Rudensk, as in Smilovichi, we also passed stories about how: “Jesus heals 10 lepers.”, “A wonderful saturation of five thousand people with five loaves.” and “The Healing of Bartimaeus.” we tried to explain Scripture to children in a language accessible to them with examples from life and explain how these truths relate to their lives. Thank God that He brings children and they have a desire to attend our games and our lessons, usually about 15-20 children come. We are glad that we can make friends with children through communication and games, as well as sing songs together, but the most important thing for us is that they listen to the Word of God and answer our questions, through this we see that they learn something and understand, that the Word sounds to their hearts – it is very encouraging in the ministry. As in other boarding schools, we ask them a passage from the Bible so that they would read it and retell it to us when we come next time, we also teach a lesson on the same passage and this allows them to think twice more and understand the Word. I am very grateful to God that there are children who regularly read the passages that we ask them, for example, Petya and Polina, several other people have also recently started reading regularly.This is how we teach them to read the Bible on their own. I am also glad that the guys always meet us when we arrive and wait for us, they even go outside, far from the entrance of the boarding school to the parking lot to meet us as soon as we get out of the car.

Petya always opens us a classroom in which we can put things and take tables and chairs from there for games and for the lesson. I am also grateful to God that David and Anya joined the ministry and that the local church also began to take part, although it is small, but there are a couple of people there who can sometimes help and this is encouraging. Children often ask to pray for them, for example, Sasha, who in the 6th grade asked to pray for his parents so that they would stop drinking and take him away as soon as possible, and Polina from the 12th grade often asks to pray for her needs. After the lesson, we usually divide into groups so that there are about 4-5 children for the one believer and personally ask them “how to pray for you” and so we pray in such small groups. Children see that our faith is alive and that we are doing this for the sake of Jesus Christ. May God bless us to be a good witness for them and for all the staff of the boarding school, both for students and teachers.We are also grateful to God that we can help the children financially within our means, for example, Polina’s gums are bleeding and the doctor told her to buy a special toothpaste and a means for rinsing teeth. Petya asked simply to buy them 1 pack of sugar for the class and that their electric kettle was broken. Sometimes someone’s glasses break, and sometimes the guys just need to buy socks or sneakers. We decided to buy all this and help them at least in a small way. There is still a time ahead when we will have to pack things for graduates, so there will still be an opportunity to serve them.

Greetings brothers and sisters! I want to share how our February went and what we did this month. This month was full of trips, as well as fellowship with the guys. Even though many are leaving Belarus God is blessing us with new kids on the team. We are happy that God hears and sends his servants to the field. Anya and David are new helpers in sharing the Good News with the orphans. Pray for the kids. This month we started with the topic of stealing and what to do if you really want to. All of our meetings are held as a dialogue and many of the kids get involved with what is going on in their lives. “Dima I often have people take things without asking, tell them it’s not allowed!” And we dealt with the topic of stealing. We realized that for many of the kids, the topic is very relevant, and also that for them there is a very blurry line between stealing and borrowing things without asking, which is definitely a sin. When they take things themselves without asking, e.g. deodorant, shampoo, a phone to play with so it’s just borrowing. And we used to say that there would be a consequence for all the guys who do that. Because when you get out of school and go out to work, go out to school, and if you do something like that, the consequence is you’re either fined or locked up. And at times like that, you realize even more how much more at risk these kids are because of their naivety. The other time we came, we were doing a creative activity. We were making beautiful gift cards. The kids were very happy when they found out that we would be making cards because they don’t often get the chance. And it can be noticed that such creative breaks bring the children an opportunity to disconnect from all the problems, as well as those guys who come with us can communicate a lot while helping the guys. Polina said that this year she wanted to learn even more about God, so she decided to go to correspondence Bible school and then Petya said the same thing. The kids are doing an assignment from the Bible school and mailing everything back. We are so happy that the guys want to learn more about our Savior, Praise God. They also said they were thinking of getting baptized this summer! The next time we came we talked about the subject of Esther. Many of the kids at boarding school have low self-esteem and it is important for them to hear stories like this. We talked about how Esther dealt with challenges and fear. It was a revelation to many of the children that an orphan became a princess! That God can help the most unprotected, as Pauline said. But I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that, Masha said, because it’s hard for me to fight my fears. At the end of the meeting, we suggested that we pray for them and ask God to help them overcome their fears. The next lesson we had was on the wonder of Jesus. How Jesus healed a paralyzed man. Friends brought a paralyzed man and seeing their faith Jesus healed him. And the guys said we wish we had friends like that, then we said, so you can be like that for somebody. Because of your faith, the people who don’t come to our meetings can believe and have the salvation that God offers. Dear Brothers and Sisters, please pray for the children!