Help Wanted – The Team

Anatoliy and the children

Ira talks with Masseuse

Mikola, Mark, and Volodya

Anya, in gray, talks with mothers

  When you see these two very common words side by side, Help Wanted, what thoughts come to your mind? My first impression is that a job is available, that there is some work to do. Think about the word help. If I replace it with the word to assist, I immediately envision a very different concept. If I am asked to assist someone, it means that he or she is the captain. I am only the helper.

As a humanitarian aid missionary, I was called to assist God in His work here in Ukraine. Going one step further, I was called to assist the people of Ukraine to care for their children. How could that be accomplished? If I was called to come to Ukraine to do a job, and then leave, that is pretty easy to imagine. But that wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, I was not exactly sure what God was calling me to do.

My first outreach ministry opened up in Marganets when the father of a friend took me to visit an orphanage. It was his dream, his desire, possibly his calling, to help these children in some way. When I saw the children, the surroundings, and the emptiness in their eyes, I felt the deepest compassion in my heart that I ever had felt. But there was nothing that I personally could do to help them on a regular basis. I would be living in Illichevsk, 320 miles west of Marganets.

This was to be the beginning of my work to assist the people of Ukraine to make changes in their country. This retired 63-year-old father, Anatoliy, had the knowledge, energy, and the drive to make things happen. God had prepared him to be ready to do this work through a lifetime of experiences. He did not have the funding, but by the time that I met him, he had already begun to raise money for the children from the local merchants. The community was very poor, so he could barely raise enough money to help one child, much less 156 children.

Over the next nine years, Anatoliy started programs to help two other groups of children in his city. While that was going on, three more people in three different cities were introduced to me who had hearts to help the children of their country. Ira is my assistant in Illichevsk, Anya manages a massage clinic in Froonza Crimea, and we support a program in Dobromel that Volodya has been operating for 10 years.

Team is the key to any work that will continue successfully. Each one of us, more than I have mentioned, has a particular gift that makes our contribution special for the children. How can one person help more than 500 children in six different organizations, in three cities and a village? It can happen only with a team effort. God has blessed our team and we are seeing many wonderful results.

Hearts Committed to the Children

Four Men

Children help Volodya

Talking about massage

Such sweet children

Click on picture to enlarge

Saturday afternoon, four men gathered at the Dobromel orphanage to help the children. Each has a unique gift to share, making changes in the lives of the children in their own way. The director, Mikola, has many visions of how to improve the health and lives of these children with physical and mental disabilities. Pastor Volodya has been ministering to these children for more than ten years, bringing fresh fruit and drinks, exciting activities, and spiritual nourishment and direction. Anatoliy came to translate for Mark. Having three children of his own, he understands the needs of these children. Mark has been sponsoring Volodya’s work with the children, and is now focusing on their physical needs.

In 2009, Mark, Volodya, and Mikola began discussing the possibilities of massage for the children. Mikola did not wait, but to Mark’s surprise during this visit, he had a room filled with exercise equipment, has chosen an exercise specialist who has training in massage, and began a limited program with the focus on scoliosis. He had acquired an exam table, not the best for massage, but adequate for small children.

As Mark and Mikola discussed what was, and what they desired to be, they brought Natalya, the exercise specialist, into the conversation. This was the plan, now a work in progress. Mark’s fiancée, Svetlana, a qualified massage therapist, will live in Dobromel during the month of October 2011. She will provide massage for four children, a 20-day treatment designed for each. The massage will build upon the previous one, resulting in a deep-seated outcome. The goal is to show some progress, determining that massage therapy, in Mikola’s eyes, will help to change the physical conditions of the children.

When Mikola stated that October was a long time to wait, Mark suggested that Natalya come to Illichevsk and observe the two massage therapists, providing massage for children similar to those at the Dobromel Orphanage. This sparked a great interest in both Mikola and Natalya.

While Mark, Anatoliy, and Mikola where talking, ironing out many details, Volodya and his team, his son-in-law, Igor, and Tamara, a nurse by profession, brought physical and spiritual food to the children. Many of the older children were impatient with our late arrival, so they were involved in other activities. The younger children, hunger for attention, as you can see in their eyes.

This particular Saturday, April 9, was a cold and wet day. The two-hour travel home, maneuvering the treacherous potholes in the road, ended a long day, but not without even more adventure. At one point, a bridge was out, although there was an alternate route available, and there was a kilometer or two where a heavy snow with huge flakes fell. Overall, there was plenty of excitement for everyone.

Children in Transition

Mark and translator draw with children

Quilts from American quilting club

For the past three years and then some, when I go to Marganets, I visit the children at the transition home. These children are in a very difficult spot in their young lives. Most have been taken from their home because of a very poor environment. Whether it is because of parents who are alcoholic or drug users or the children are beat or just not cared for, the results leave the children in a new situation that is very challenging. I have met one or two whose parents died, leaving them as orphans.

The home is run with a very strict schedule, keeping the children busy to avoid time for them to dwell on their problems. This particular home is run by a Christian director. She sees the great need for the children to have more time to adjust to their loss of family. Their program focuses on helping the children modify their lives and build healthy character. Although she is asking the government to give her more time with the children, it seems that ninety day is all that they will allow. Their twenty-six beds stay filled throughout the year.

The director’s big venture three years ago was to find families to adopt the children before they would be placed in an orphanage. In the first six months of 2008, she was able to place 10 children in local Christian homes. She has contact with the different churches in Marganets and they work together to help the children while in the transition home and to find good families for them. Adoption for Ukrainian families is very inexpensive, so I hear, and they are working on implementing the foster care program. Of course, the challenge in this city of poverty is to find honest foster parents. The money is so needed; it lures many of the wrong parent types.

When I visit with the children, we talk about little things, but they are very hungry for attention. They are very hungry to show their value. They want to know about America. They have very interesting questions. When we have an opportunity for Bible study, I’m always surprised to hear how much they know. I have taken seashells. The children are very interested in seeing these homes of sea creatures. Some have been to the sea, but most have not.

When I look at these children, it breaks my heart to know why they are at the transition home. I know their future if they are not placed in a good home within ninety days. I have interacted with children at the local orphanage for eight years. Even with the best orphanage environment, it is not a good place for a child. A family of over one hundred children is not the kind of family that is needed. There are so many children in need of help in this country; helping the 500 or so that we help in three cities and one village is just a small effort for the big problem for the more than 100,000 Ukrainian children in poverty.