LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

It’s well-known that December is a wonderful festive time. Seems like people become more united and cosier because of the mutual awaiting. It is more obvious among those lacking home atmosphere. We use this special time to remind them about the meaning of this holiday. Holiday is a family, mutual table, delicious food and meaningful conversations. We tried to create something like that with teenagers who come to our meetings. We had separate meetings  with boys and girls. We sat in a circle with boys, there was a cake, Coca-cola and fruit. Every boy shared his wishes for someone else. Surely we reminded them about  the reason for Jesus coming to earth. God has lots of names. The most important one for Christmas is Emanuel  or God is with us. Jesus had a choice. And He made his choice to come and face what each of us face every day: rejection, injustice, hopelessness. That’s why because of the baby we are not alone now, there is He who understands it all. Boys were so grateful for the evening, we said warm goodbyes and they invited us to a school disco in a week. Well, we’ll see them next year. Girls also had a busy program. Below is a story of one of our  volunteers, Olya. “Thank God for the opportunities to spend time with children in Vileyka boarding school. That was our last trip with Yulya to the school before the holidays this year , so we decided to celebrate Christmas. We lit the candles, prepared nice tea and remembered what happened  during one very important night 2000 years ago: the birth of Jesus, shepherds coming and kneeling down before Him, the meaning of Christmas for us today. We sang Christmas songs. It appeared that many kids heard the song “Holy Night” in Italian. At the end of our meeting our beauties received presents, as well as  proper Bibles  that they had asked for. We are praying for kids so that Christmas would be special for everyone personally. Just recently new volunteer Vika has joined our team. Here are her impressions: ” I’ve been coming to Vileyka boarding school for a month now. Every time we come the kids joyfully meet us, shake hands and smile. We talk about different things that worry them, different topics, play together, tell jokes and laugh. Every child is unique and we find ways to communicate with them. After the talk we give them some sweet treats. They are always so happy to get chocolates and other sweet things. When the time comes to say goodbye they walk us to the car and every time ask when we will come again.

November is not only about greyish weather and shortened days. November is also about school holidays. And because so many children were leaving for holidays, we took a decision not to interfere with their lives during that period. However, after the holidays were over, it was so exciting to finally meet again – and everyone was looking forward to that meeting! Teens love to listen and watch videos by popular bloggers who really won the minds of the generation Z. A lot of bloggers are our teens’ peers, actually. So what we did is we talked about things they care – like cars, extraordinary stunts, pranks, tricks, etc. Bloggers become teens’ role models who they look up to, dreaming to become as trendy, independent and, of course, as popular. So we think it is really important to introduce an alternative mindset to our kids (Christian mindset) where one’s significance is not something they have to earn but something that is already granted to them by Grace. Kids love to listen to stories about Christ. The last one that we shared with them is the story where Jesus tamed the tempest. We focused on the fact that Christ’s friends were scared – and twice so! The first time the disciples were frightened of the storm. Each of us gets once in the eye of the life storm: when parents leave us, when friends turn their back on us, when things don’t happen as they should at once. And the storms come along with the bad feelings – fear, inferiority complex, lack of confidence… At such moments we feel as if God is so far away, as if He’s sleeping and simply doesn’t care… The second time that the disciples were scared was when the storm was over. They finally understood how powerful the Son of God is! There was Someone who has power over the darkest storm in life. People often underestimate Christ thinking that all the stories about Him are part of the religious rhetoric. But the Good News is about having a personal encounter with Christ after which your life won’t be the same again. A new volunteer Vika joined our team! She is a hair stylist – what will allow her not just to create beautiful hair styles but have a quality time with them also. Christmas season has begun and as usual we are busy with preparing gifts for our kids and arranging a trip to a Christmas play for them. Apart from our annual agenda for the season, we have had a request from the asylum’s administration. We got to know that hiking was one of the kids’ most loved past times. And now we need to collect funds for two hiking tents. And our prayer need remains the same – unfortunately, due to different circumstances not all volunteers on our team, including drivers, are able to join the team for each trip to the asylum. And we aspire for regular weekly trips – and ask you to support this wish of our hearts in your prayers! Thank you for your kind concern and help!

In October we continued to visit the orphanage. In summer a new director came to school. The previous director was tolerant to our team and all the activities that Christians have organized here. So, this time we had to think over strategies of cooperation with the authorities of the orphanage. On October, 11, 2019 Dima Nachina had a meeting with Sergei Nikolaevich who is a deputy director for socially educational work. By the way this man had a birthday a few days before. So, we used an opportunity to congratulate him and talk to him personally. The conversation was very warm, and he allowed us to continue coming here. We were provided with the list of the names of the orphans and their carers from 8 classes. It is remarkable that many of these classes consist of the children with parents (so called “home“ children). Before that we didn’t have an access to such classes because the authorities were afraid of parents‘ complaints. One girl from our team once said: “it‘s a pity we don’t have enough people. But it is just a prayer need“.

After the meeting with the authorities we had a meeting with teenagers. Dima shared the Word of God with the boys-teenagers. The topic was “Loneliness”. It goes without saying that every teenager has acute issues such as self-image, looking for friends and feeling of self-worth despite collective nature of their life at school. These questions are especially important for orphans who live in the atmosphere of rejection and rudeness.

It worked out very well. There were a lot of examples from the orphanage life and a lot of challenges for them as well. We could say that this topic touched the hearts of all who were present because they listened very attentively and asked a lot of questions. Undoubtedly, the climax of the lesson became the conclusion that God is ready to be everyone’s friend regardless of their social status. Faith is the foundation for such relationship and Jesus is the mediator who proved that we are not lonely in this world. At the end we, as usual, said goodbye in a warm atmosphere.We continue to pray and ask you to join in our prayer needs. Pray for our team and opportunities to go here; Pray that God will reach the children’s hearts.

September is a traditional restart of the ministry. It is easy to notice how grown the children are. Seems like it’s a different school without those who graduated this year, but the meaning of Gospel and the necessity of this ministry for the kids with hard lives is the same. At the beginning of a school year we had a meeting to discuss fall season plans with volunteers. Our first trip to the orphanage this year was on the 6 September.  We prepared a program to be held in the concert hall for the whole school to remind everyone about our team. Unfortunately, when we came over we could not find the key for the hall even though we reminded the staff what time we were coming, but we decided to not waist time and started our program in the hall where  we were waiting- our songs, games and other  activities with the kids who came over to see us. Children were so happy to see us again ,and we were happy to hug and talk with them. That’s why our meeting was really warm and emotional. And at the end of the meeting the teacher who had the key was found. She was really sorry. During one of the meetings we had a conversation about life and their values with the children who will graduate in 2020. One of the was Dima Osipov. A good boy who is planning to study carpentry in Minsk.  He was opened and sincere when he shared about all stuff he did in his life (and he is not even 18 yet). It is visits to police officers, drinking alcohol, a criminal record for stealing something while being drunk. To be fair, he understands he was wrong doing that. When we asked him how he imagines his meeting with God one day, he said God will sort his good and bad deeds and depending on which ones prevail God will make a decision. We want to explain that because of Jesus we are already accepted and we don’t need to earn His favor. This is something that can change the soul. Every Thursday we have prayer evenings. We share our prayer needs in the chat so that everyone there could join us in prayer. We invite you to join us in prayer as well, to pray for the team and opportunities to visit the boarding school and for the children’s hearts to be touched by God.

The 2018/2019 school year has become a special and vibrant year of ministry at the orphanage. First of all, our team underwent certain changes. New team members joined us – they are David, Grisha, Zhenya, Amy and Tania. At the same time Olya who had stayed with us committedly for the last several years, had to take leave for some time as she and her husband expect a baby. This year we had a bunch of joyful events. Together with the kids we celebrated the Thanksgiving Day, we attended the interactive Christmas performance “Road to Bethlehem”, and we were rooting for the kids at their fashion show at the National Beauty School. We did Bible studies for the kids, engaged in fellowship with the teens, we devoted our time to communicating with them via social networks, and we invested our time and effort to prepare gifts.

Building communication with the administration and faculty staff is a separate line in our ministry. And it’s worth mentioning that we have a very favourable attitude from teachers who are quite positive of what we do and our team. We are allowed to visit the kids each week (you have to get official approvals for that) and our invitations to make trips to the church are always willingly accepted. In our turn, we do our best to take part in social projects of the orphanage We have donated to buying hiking equipment, we have collected clothes for the children and covered for the transportation fares of the trips. We have closed the season with a traditional joyful event when our volunteers came to attend graduation ceremonies to cheer the graduates at this important stage in their lives. But not only we came to attend – we have organized a photo shooting for the graduates. The expenditures for the photo albums were covered by the team members and other benefactors. The albums will stay with each graduate as a special and memorable gift. It is summertime now, but we have already started to make plans for the coming school year. For the autumn is approaching with each new day and we already look forward to a new season at the orphanage! Until next time!