Good day! Christmas and New Year celebrations are over. We already visited Smilovichie orphanage. Since the beginning of the year, the number of children there decreased. It is a good sign, as it means that many children finally find their homes.
There always were at least 1-2 kids at our meetings. It’s a different communication compared to a big group. Here you can get a response from the kid straight away; you can communicate and have a real discussion on different topics.
At our first meeting after holidays we talked about God is love. You do not see the shadow of the light from the match on the wall because it is light already, same with God, He is the light and He sees us all from inside. Even though there was only one kid, we could talk about the meaning of our lives and about what God did for our salvation.
At the second meeting, we talked about God as the One who is present everywhere. There were two kids and we could share from our own lives about God, 
who keeps everything under His control. We shared our testimonies about God’s guidance and asked them if they would like to trust their lives into God’s hands. 
This month we talked about God again. We talked about God as Bread for our souls, that we could feed and nourish our souls from His unending love and mercy. We shared some stories, where we showed how God cares about us every day. At the end of the month, we did some crafts. Kids themselves could do beautiful notebooks. They used different decorations to make it what they wanted. They got great results. Thanks to everyone who remembers and cares about us. May God bless you!
The brightest and the most exciting event of this month for the children in Rudensk orphanage became Christmas performance! 
The program was very fascinating and spectacular but the best thing about it is that the children could hear and see the real sense of Christ’s birth through the characters on stage once again. 
At the end of the performance, every child got a long-awaited Christmas present. Every year we share how programs and performances went on in different orphanages and how the children enjoyed presents. At first sight, it may seem usual and habitual. However, in reality every year each child manages to give us new impressions in a special way! It is impossible to express how joyful children’s faces are when they get presents even if they take a small and simple toy out of the box
. Shining eyes, a big and sincere smile and words of gratitude from the children are the reasons for giving thanks to our Heavenly Father! We are grateful to God for this wonderful time!
All further meetings at the orphanage went through in a familiar way both for us and for the children.
In spite of this, these meetings were marked by friendly atmosphere, Christmas recollections and the children’s stories about their presents. The older ones managed to be acquainted with some biblical stories from the Old Testament: ‘The story of Samson’, ‘The story of Ruth’ and ‘The story of Hannah and Samuel’. When we spoke about Samson, 
we gave them possibility to compete and play tug-of-war as a vivid illustration of the story. When we introduced Ruth to them, everyone had an opportunity to take roles of some of the characters in the story. The example of Hannah and Samuel shows how God answers the prayers and how it is important to be faithful to the promise you give to God.
The younger ones began to learn the story of Jesus Christ this month. 
They have already known about Christ’s birth, the family He was brought up in and who his earthly father Joseph was. Besides, they could know about Jesus’ disciples.
One of the vivid moments of this month became the talk with one of the girls from the younger group. Her name is Alina. We spoke about friendship. 
Alina shared what she thought about qualities of a real friend and noticed that she wasn’t always a good and faithful friend herself. But I cheered most of all when she said that she wanted to have friendship as David and Jonathan’s. Such words surprised and encouraged me at one and the same moment because we had shared this story in October! It is surprising that a small girl with mental and physical problems learned this lesson so well and could even make practical conclusions. Praise the Lord!
Thanks to everyone who supports us and is not indifferent to the service to orphans of our country!
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 un
usually cut fruit. After that, children could enjoy lunch that they cooked themselves, dr
ink 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 th
e 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.
Winter camp “The secret inside” was held in Belynichie boarding school from the 24th December to 1st January.
I was one of the leaders in a younger group with Down syndrome children. There were 6 of them. Only two children were able to speak a little and understand a bit better than the rest of the kids what was going on.
Every child like that lives in his own world that we can’t understand.
Some people consider these kids just to be disabled who are unable to live normally, unable to understand anything, unable to do anything. Bud God sees these kids differently.
He sees them special and unique. And I know why. Everyone of them has his own personality, his own dreams, likes and hobbies.
You may wonder, what can they do? What do they understand? But every kid in my group was unique: somebody liked dogs,
somebody was good at constructing, somebody liked dolls, somebody enjoyed organizing things in the wardrobe, somebody just was looking through the window.
There are different ways to express love. When words can’t be understood, then just a touch or a sincere smile can make a difference for these kids.
Quite a lot of time we spent just playing different games and talking to their school mentors (the last one was as important as just spending time with kids).
Children in my group were not able to do all activities that were prepared for the whole camp due to the health issues, 
but if they happened to do something, they were so eager to do that.
Every day started with morning exercises which were fun and older kids with Down Syndrome enjoyed it a lot. We had team time after breakfast and then, closer to lunch time, everybody would go to a different activity of the day: craft class, sport club or a movie. 
My little team enjoyed the craft class most of all.
We had a new activity in the camp that is called – team building time. It included games and tasks aiming to build up the team’s spirit, to develop trust and respect among kids. It was organized for every age group.
We do use these activities in our camps, but it was the first time we used them for kids who have mental and physical disabilities. To our surprise, kids enjoyed it a lot, and to be honest,
they showed more patience in some activities where even adults gave up.
Our evening meetings in a hall were a special time for children and us. We sang songs, watched photo presentations of each past day of the camp, leaders showed different little plays, and the most important thing was the theme of the day. All topics were understandable for children: love towards people, mercy, good deeds, humility,
gratitude. Sometimes it was difficult to keep children’s attention during the meeting, however, it was great to see that there were kids who were really interested and were listening attentively.
I had a very special conversation with a girl, who’s graduating this year. Her name is Alina. At first, she seemed a very closed and shy girl, but I was wrong. 
She’s a good soul, always looking forward to us coming, always ready to give the last she has and she’s a very creative girl as well. I’ve known her for several years already, but it was the first time we had a conversation like that. Alina has a mother, a grannie and 2 sisters, who live in another town not too far away. Alina is not angry at them that she lives in this orphanage. 
She call her relatives to check on her grandma because she’s an old lady who needs help.It was great to hear Alina’s thoughts about her future family, her education and maturing, about relationships with boys. A very special topic was her relationship with God. She tries to pray every day. She prays for teachers, for her family, friends. 
She believes that everything happens for a reason, that God is changing people, that one day she will be changed completely.
Every day of our camp was filled with God’s presence. We didn’t have any accidents or emergency, no problems with kids. 
Administration and teachers were quite open and helped us a lot.
Personally, this camp was a blessing! Our leaders team, opened
hearts of kids and teachers, the weather and other moments which we usually do not notice or take for granted, it all made special Christmas atmosphere.
I believe that God’s word made its work! Even if it’s only one child who accepted the Lord as his personal Savior. I rejoice and thank our Heavenly Father for it!
Hi everyone, who is following our updates!
Christmas is coming, and we are saying goodbye to the last month of the year.
During this month, the Lord helped us to visit Belynichie boarding school every week. The atmosphere around is filled with love and holiday hustle as Christmas approaching.
This month we taught kids to look at circumstances they are in a different way! For example looking at Esther’s life we learnt that God might put you in the circumstances that seem unbearable but many victories could be behind it all. Esther was an orphan, but she became the queen who saved the nation. 
We do not know what we will face in the future and why kids get to the orphanages, but we are sure, that God knows what victories this or that child was born for.
This month is special as well as relationships we have. It is so great to see kids and the changes in their relationships between each other. We see that no matter what diagnoses these kids have they have big loving hearts!
They are looking for and waiting for this love from us when we come to see them and everyone wants us to spend time with him. At first, it was so hard for me to look at those kids. Deformed faces and the speech that is hard to understand – it is not what you would like to see. Only coming here regularly and getting to know them, I started to understand what they say and those strange sounds are their joy, and that is the way they try to express it!
How can I describe these kids? These are the kids with a massive hole in their souls and they try to fill it in with anything they can. They are very open and kind, dreaming about love.
Only yesterday, we were talking about Christmas – the birth of Jesus Christ. 
Children could apply to themselves the fact that Joseph adopted Jesus. The main idea though is that Jesus came so that every boy and girl could have Heavenly Father, who will love them as they are. Jesus came to become the son of man so that we would become the children of God. 
During the talk we put a little show about Joseph and Mary when they were knocking on the doors to find a shelter but they kept getting “No room”. Children themselves took part in this play. After the performance we tried to explain that it is really important to walk with God everyday of our lives and there always should be room for Him in our hearts!
Changes are also seen in the children’s behavior. We are grateful to everyone who serves together with us through prayers, finances and personal time! Merry Christmas!
LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN 