LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

In May we enjoyed warm days and the children from Vileika school were happy because of coming holidays. That is why our meetings were in a good and vivid atmosphere and with feeling of expectation of a three-month celebration. In this report we collected interviews taken from some of our volunteers. Enjoy the results.
Olya Yarmolchik:
“May is the last month before holidays. God gave us unexpectedly warm May this year and the children had more sunshine so as more outdoor games and more smiles.
Lyonka loves playing football so he listened to the story of Jorginho, a famous football player, who believes in God, very attentively. He had a hard life from his childhood, but he did his best to achieve his goal and became an excellent football player. However, the main idea was that God touched his heart and changed his life, his relationships with his relatives and friends.
Such stories encourage the teenagers, give them an example how to aim their efforts at making their dreams true, and enable them with the hope that God will not give them up.
We blessed the children and their summer and hope that God would allow us to continue our relationships with them”.
Vlada:
“Our last visits in May were special for me because of many reasons. Firstly, I made friends with the team, knew everyone better, learned a lot from each of them during the whole year of working together and I am so grateful for this! Secondly, we became closer to the children. They became so dear to me and I hope this is mutual. I think that due to this they could be open and trust me as their friend. We had serious private talks with some of them and they were very open, asked questions and shared the deepest wishes of their hearts. Of course, they didn’t say everything and didn’t share many things but I believe that the time will come and God himself will incline their hearts to be more and more open) I think this year was fruitful and I hope we will do more next year if God allows!”
Katya Shvedova:
“One day we had some talk with one of the teachers of the orphanage about graduates and we found out that they just get diplomas on the last day of their staying there. The orphanage cannot allow such an obvious thing for graduates as a photo album because of lack of finance and technical possibilities. That is why our suggestion to solve this problem was accepted with great encouragement and gratefulness.
On May 18 three people from our team came there to take pictures. Beforehand, we made a special chat in the social network for preparing and discussing with the graduates how and where all this would take place. However, unfortunately, there was a heavy rain on that day and we had to change our plan. We were allowed to take pictures in the last two lessons. First, we took the pictures of the whole class at the desks and then the teenagers wanted to have photos with their first teacher and we went to that classroom. Then we made individual portraits for everyone and made group photos of close friends.
After lunch, not everyone came back because some boys were shy. So, we took some funny pictures of the rest outside. They jumped, photographed with the local dog and even with the director who was passing by.
During this time, the junior pupils ran to us with one important question: “will you do the same when we graduate?” When we finished we had tea with the director and his deputy.
In that chat in the social network, we continue to discuss with the graduates different topics. When we prepared all the photos for the album, they sent us more than 30 photos from the farewell bell and asked to put them on the album and we did it because it was important for them. All the children are looking forward to having their albums and we are eager to see them because this is our first work. Although we are not professionals, we did it with all our heart and love and left a good testimony for the children and the administration”.
Vika Volkovich:
“I would like to tell more about Katya. She is a very unusual girl, cleverer than her peers. She reads the Bible but at the same time she prays for us not to come here. The teenagers very often attract our attention by speaking about suicides but generally, all the children are open and sociable, especially smaller ones, but all of them lack love”.
The meetings at the orphanage of 2017/2018 finished. This year was truly friendly, generous and joyful. Graduation assembly is coming. Our whole team are planning to organize a nice picnic for the teenagers. They are on the threshold of after orphanage life, so they need serious support and good friends. Thanks God for His help and influence!

April is truly a festive month. The most joyful spring holiday is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it was celebrated on April 8. We decided to organise a celebration for our friends from Vileyka boarding school. We prepared a programme, a little play, prizes and set off on the way to children.
Our Easter meeting happened to be on April 13. To make it more enjoyable we separated younger kids from older ones to keep them attentive and interested.
This kind of meeting is a great chance for us to tell the kids and their teachers about true meaning of Easter, to give them hope for eternal life wit God, to proclaim the victory over death.
All children followed along the play we put on – there was true angel and the good news from God. Older kids eagerly took part in an Easter quiz. Everyone got a handmade prize – a badge with fish shaped Christian sign. One of our leaders, who joined recently, Sasha Shvedov, told us about the meaning of this symbol and hand it out to everyone who came to this meeting.
On Saturday April 21, we had a long-awaited outing to the river Bank of Vileyka water reservoir with the whole school. Our leaders’ team had nearly 40 people. It was quite a while ago, I guess, since this “beach” had so much going on at this time of the year. Uncle Valera’s culinary school never lacks people who are helping : kids were cutting vegetables and making salad, older boys were proudly helping adults with BBQ. When table was all full and set up for us, one of the kids said : “Finally, we can start on food!”
We don’t have enough time to speak to everyone we want, when we come to the school on Fridays, and this Saturday outing was a great opportunity for us to catch up on it: just to talk, listen, hug and have pictures taken.
Seems like the most popular person that day was a 6 year old boy called Nazariy, whom parents brought with them to this celebration. Girls were kind of competing to hold him, some were saying that one day they will have a baby of their own.
Even though the day was windy and there was dust and sand flying around, and you could feel it in your mouth, nobody complained. Everyone was smiling, playing games, talking, admiring nature.
Another thing that made us even closer was singing songs with guitar while sitting on a river bank.
Children are usually not that eager on comments and saying thank you, but this time it was such a big number feedback and it wasn’t just “it was cool”, but rather “thank you very much for this day, it was great!”. I’m sure that “great” meant not only the food we had, but they will be dreaming about repeating it again and remember it forever.

This month we had several meetings with the kids from Vileyka. We were talking with them about how it is important to watch your thoughts and keep your heart clean. As an illustration to it, we used three hearts of different colors (black, red and white). Black heart symbolized sin slowly destroying person’s heart and making it dirty. Red heart symbolized God’s love to people, who showed it through Christ dying on the cross so that we could restore our relationships with God and receive salvation. White heart – symbol of purity and righteousness, which people can receive if they repent and let God into their hearts.
Next topic was “Habits and desires”. Here we talked about sinful desires that may be in our hearts. We talked about why sin attracts people and what to do with it. Apart from our program, the girls prepared a dance for us. After that dance, we congratulated those who had birthdays, this month there were 3 of them. After hugs, presents, taking pictures, we organized a little sweet treat.
As the world celebrates Valentine ’s Day, we decided to use this opportunity to talk with older kids about relationships between boys and girls, showing them God’s point of view for that. We talked about purity and chastity and about biblical picture of the family.
On Saturday 24 Feb, there was another culinary club in Vileyka together with Valeri Strigotski, who is well known to kids as uncle Valera. The team was small and that turned to be a good thing: the atmosphere was home like where kids could be open. It was great to see that this time the 10th grade girls were allowed to be with us, as in previous times teachers did not let them go. The girls joined in with passion as if they were trying to catch up on everything. It was an amazing experience as some of them are planning to be cooks and bakers in the future. Uncle Valera gave them some useful advice. They all had a chance to talk with him about their future profession.
Children themselves cooked a salad, stuffed rolls, they set the table, prayed together, ate it all, talked and cleaned after that. As usual, there were presents from uncle Valera. In addition, Yuliya Kashko prepared a few active games. We hugged a lot, took many pictures and somebody tried the role of the photographer. The most precious thing in meetings like these is fellowship. Every time you meet new kids, and those who we know reveal their new sides of their personalities, because they feel they can trust us. Every time you do not want to leave, the time flies so fast. You want to come again as soon as possible, especially when you get a feedback like this: “You were with me, I had fun, and you became dear and special to me”, – the girl called Liza wrote it, and she visited our culinary club the first time.

Culinary school took place in our church on 6 January.
Parents from our church with their kids and kids from Vileyka boarding school took part in it together.

In a warm and friendly atmosphere children of different ages tried to reveal their cooking skills under the command of experienced cooks. Everybody participated actively in making the atmosphere festive. We decorated tables with beautifully folded napkins, candles, handmade Christmas trees and unusually cut fruit. After that, children could enjoy lunch that they cooked themselves, drink tea and taste cookies. It all was accompanied by the guitar so we could sing along.
Different activities and games were prepared for children, and everyone got sweet prizes.
Later on the day children watched a play that reminded them about Christmas and what happened 2000 years ago: the birth of a child in Bethlehem – Jesus the Son of God, shepherds coming to see him, the angel who brought the good news and kings, who were making there way to Him according to the star. Due to beautiful and bright decorations we just immersed in the christmas atmosphere.
Any holiday includes good spirits, tasty food, music and presents. Most assuredly, I can say that our holiday celebration was not an acception.
Watching smiling faces and bright smiles, I want to believe that they will remember this day as a bright and happy memory.

There was another trip of our culinary school on Saturday 2 December to the orphanage in Vileyka. We deiced to make this day special for the children as it was the first day before Advent. We brought decorations for the table, pine tree branches, Santa clause hats, a big frame to take pictures with, decorated with snowflakes, as well as Christmas hymns to play at the background so it makes the atmosphere festive. Our chef Valery taught kids how to make a beautiful and delicious dessert out of simple cottage cheese in the shape of Christmas houses and some “kebabs” from fruit on little wooden spears. We sat up the table together. Valery pointed out that it is important to set the table beautifully not only on special occasions but on ordinary days as well, when they have their own families. It surprises me every time, how children are interested and immersed in the activities, nobody stays on the side gaping. The more we come the more we see how more open they become, eager to have pictures taken with them, share their worries. Those 3.5 hours in a cozy and informal atmosphere went by way too fast. We finished the meeting having tea and sharing little presents for everybody who was there. I would like to mention a boy called Iliya, who gave thanks for the food at the table. That was probably the best and most important moment of the whole meeting! Another special thing we had this month was a Christmas meeting with the kids. Every team member did his best to prepare for this meeting. Hearts were filled with joy and love which we were sharing with kids. Children replied with the same thing. Most kids love presents and they were so eager to get them. There were also kids who were silently sitting side by side with somebody from the team. Even those who seemed not paying attention were actually listening to the questions of the quiz and murmuring the answers to themselves. Piano music was playing during the meeting so it made the atmosphere even more festive. We also brought music bells and kids used them while singing. At the end of the meeting every child got a portion of vitamins – bags with mandarins. Kids started eating them straight away and they didn’t forget even to share some with us and other visitors. The main thing is that every child learnt that Christmas is the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and not just Santa, gifts, Christmas tree and decorations!