LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

Greetings dear brothers and sisters. We are grateful to you for your participation in the ministry of the gospel to the orphans. Thank God that He allows us to visit children, gives strength both spiritual and physical, encourages, opens the doors of boarding schools and brings people who would like to participate in this ministry – please pray so that God would support the team, give wisdom, love, friendliness and children could receive God’s blessing through this, when they see a good example in us.  God has a special attitude towards orphans, as He says many times in the Scripture: Isaiah 1:17 “Learn to practice what is good; seek justice, alleviate oppression, defend orphans in court, and plead the widow’s case.” This month we made meetings and talked about the miracles of Jesus. The first miracle we talked about was the “Wonderful Catch” we talked about trusting the word of God. Being disciples, despite the fact that they have been fishermen for all their life, they trusted the Carpenter and the result surprised everyone. This story revealed the Divinity of Jesus, and also the fact that trusting the word of God changes circumstances. When we arrived another time, we talked about the friendship of Jesus and Lazarus, told the children about the resurrection of Lazarus and that Jesus had friends in his earthly life. The story of Lazarus gives us hope that when we die, Jesus will raise us from the dead. Also this month we talked about the importance of the Easter holiday in Christianity. We tried to explain why this holiday is so dear to all people. We talked about the importance of the death of Jesus Christ, that thanks to the obedience of Jesus and His death on the cross, redemption from sins took place.
And the resurrection of Christ shows us that death was defeated and each of us has hope for salvation. We see in our country that people usually do not understand the Easter holiday correctly, this is why we have paid so much attention to reach out to the guys. Easter is not eggs, not buns, but Christ who died and rose again. We talked about what would have happened if Jesus hadn’t died, and the guys said that we would all die. I thank God that we could play games with children, be friends with them, sing Christian songs, pray and talk to them about Jesus Christ. We are grateful to God that there were quite a lot of children, about 20. We are glad that those who are interested and who have questions come. We see that children come with their teachers who watch us and we show God’s love and care with our lives. We pray and believe that the word of God works in the hearts of not only children, but also educators. It’s great that many children treat us as close friends since we go to them every week and we have become like relatives for many, as part of the family, we feel it in relationships and conversations. Some children are especially attentive when the Word is spoken, but others unfortunately do not listen and it is clear that they are not very interested in it. But we hope that God uses according to His will the truths that they have heard and that we have explained to them in sincerity of heart. We are glad that the event that they had at the same time as our classes was canceled and now more children come to us. May God help us to continue to do this ministry.

In March we were regularly visiting Vileyka. Our Friday meetings continue for 1-1,5 hours and take the following turn. Right from the entrance the kids are running to meet us and we hug them and invite to the assembly hall. We begin with a welcoming word, an ice-breaker (getting to know each other, or any other activity to engage everyone) and common games. Singing altogether is an essential part of our agenda. One of the kids’ favorite songs that they would ask us to sing again and again – “Each New Day Airplanes Take Off”.
We gave out Children’s Bibles to a lot of kids. We assign texts for the coming week from the Bibles we gave out to the children so that they would read them during the week. And on Friday we have a quiz for those who read the text. And those who actively participate in the quest – get sweet awards. After the quiz we have our Bible class. In March we were telling the kids about the miracles Jesus made while He was on the earth. We really wanted the children to realize that Jesus is not some kind of an ancient sage but He is real and He lives and can work powerful things in their lives. For example, the story about Jairus’s daughter teaches us that faith is more powerful than all doubts and fears.
Very often, tutors attend our meetings with the kids. They are very polite and appreciate our effort.
During one of our March meeting, a 8-10 year old boy approached us and showed us a sheet of paper where he noted down his thoughts about God entitling his essay “God and Us”. Hleb wrote that heaven is life and hell is death. God is peace and life. We believe in God and we are God’s friends. We want to live in the world where there is no war. We are peaceful people….

Greetings. Dear brothers and sisters, I want to share my gratitude for your support and your prayers for serving orphans in Belarus. With each visit to the boarding school, we get to know new teachers and educators, because our trips take place in the evenings and not everyone stays to work until the evening. Communicating with educators and teachers, they said that the guys after our meetings became more confident and responsive. We can also say that the children’s inner emotional clamps gradually disappear and the guys smile more and communicate more willingly. When we are told about the changes in the guys, we simply thank God that He is transforming the guys. We thought about how we can diversify our trips so that they can also be unique. Therefore, we decided to make a meeting with the guys in an unusual way for them, we did crafts. We made a bracelet and each color had its own meaning. On this trip, Nastya was with us, who lead and help us with crafts. Nastya asked to take a yellow bead and yellow means that God took care of the person and placed him in paradise. But then the man sinned and the next bead that we strung was black. But God did not want people to perish in their sins, and God sent His son, and He died for people, and everyone understood that the next color after yellow and black is red. The guys sat with waiting for the next color in the bracelet. And this color was blue, which symbolizes repentance and baptism. And then all the guys were surprised by the next color – green. It is the green color that reminds us of spiritual growth. Indeed, in order to grow in the knowledge of God, we need to read the Bible, pray to help our neighbors, and then our life will become full-fledged and beautiful. And the last bead was purple, this color indicates the great mercy of God. Guys, when they collected the first bracelet, they said, can we collect more for our friends, educators? One boy said: “this bracelet will always remind me of God’s love for me”. When we arrived another time, the guys said that other guys asked: “what kind of bracelet did you do?” and then the guys themselves told the gospel to other peers in a simple way. And when the guys told they were so happy. We also talked this month about trusting God and how God answers our prayers. We discussed the story about Esther and the guys realized that the fears they face can be overcome not alone, but with God. Alena said: “that fears look like a big Goliath and it can be so scary, but please pray with me for God to help me to win once and for all”. Sometimes simplicity helps to reach the guys faster. We are glad that the guys get to know a loving God and understand that they just need to trust Him and then the whole life will change and sparkle with new colors. I want to thank God for the open doors of children’s hearts, because everyone in life needs hope and confidence that He is not alone. Let’s pray that the knowledge of God in the lives of children becomes stronger and the children will grow in faith.

Our trips to Vileyka’s orphanage continue and we are happy to spend Friday time with the kids. It’s nice to see how they consciously look for answers in the gospel or ask us. All the children who prayed the prayer of repentance come to every meeting and share with shining eyes what God is doing in their lives, how He answers their prayers! Dima, who does not know his parents at all, has stopped feeling abandoned and useless, he has become more confident and open with people. Two girls were very ashamed to speak, because they were born with problems and did not learn how to pronounce words correctly, now they communicate without fear and feel accepted by God. This is only a small part of everything that the Heavenly Father has done and healed in their lives.

When we prepare Bible topics, we always focus on what the guys are facing and try to give them not only theory, but also help them overcome difficulties in practice or get freedom from sin. One of the current topics this month was the topic of gossip. When we asked: Do you like it when others gossip about you? Everyone answered with one voice that No. But to the question: Who of you can sometimes gossip about others, everyone raised their hands and it was clear that they were not pleased to be aware of themselves as gossips. Listening attentively to everything we said on the topic of gossip, they said they did not want to participate in gossip anymore and asked for forgiveness before God. It’s nice to see that the Lord opens their hearts and transforms their minds. We also held a Christmas meeting in the form of games, singing and talking, and we also distributed gifts to everyone, collected with love and care, individually for each child. One boy shouted: Jesus gave me this gift! Everything I needed is here! Thank you very much to each of you for participating in the child’s life. May the Lord bless you and your families!

Winter came to Belarus, roads to Vileyko didn’t become shorter but became more attractive. Our Friday trips continued. With great pleasure we were seeing our friends and they were seeing us back. December is the last month of the year. It is a special month in every person’s life and in each family. It’s time to rethink some stuff, to prepare for a New Year, to buy some presents and decorate Christmas tree.

December is a really special month for us because this month Jesus was born. This is what we were trying to convey to our kids. One of our traditions is standing together and hug each other The topics of the month were “The greatest personality/person, Christmas, Why Jesus came to the earth (Если вопрос то: Why did Jesus come to the earth?” Each topic is important but they all have got one point and the point is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ the greatest person of all time was born and died in orders to give us salvation. The was an amusing incident while we were on a trip. When we told a story about Jesus and what gift he had given to all humanity we gave a huge box of chewing gums to Nick/Nikholay/Kolya as a present. He thought that it had been a part of show and he would need to return them but when He was told that it had been a present, he was really surprised and couldn’t believe that all those chewing gums were for him and he could have/eat the all. That evening Kolya understood that those sweets had been given to him as a present for free. We sang a lot. A favorite song of all the kids was “unique”. That song was about each of us, how all we were important and loved by Jesus. Our tradition is to hug someone standing next to you and sing songs together. The kids really like it. One of the brightest moment of December was relay race inspired by the theme of Christmas. It was fun and noisy. Everybody took and active part in it and got presents. Each trip is a special time for us. We pray for our kids and believe in changes in their hearts.