Visiting the Children

Looking down on Dobromel

The beautiful Carpathian Mountains

Nine years ago I began visiting the internat, (orphanage), in Marganets. Three years ago, I was introduced to the children of the internat in Dobromel about five hundred miles from Marganets. With no one in Dobromel to translate, I was very limited as to what I could do, or how I could interact with the children. This October 2011 would be different.

My organization approved a massage demonstration program for twenty days in October. Sveta, my fiancé, would be the demonstrating masseuse. Because she spoke enough English to help me with any of my needs, I had the opportunity to visit the children for two weeks and experience what life in the internat system as really like.

Upon my return from America on October 10, I called Sveta every evening. She was living in the internat, in a room located beside the exercise and massage rooms. During our calls, I would here a "knock, knock, knock", but she would continue to talk with me. She explained the children would knock on her door and run away. She was somewhat amused, but it did not remain as much fun for her as it was for the children.

I arrive on October 17th, almost ready to embrace the unknown. Dobromel is a small community, nestled in the Carpathian Mountains, seven kilometers from the boarder of Poland. The fall of the Soviet system left Dobromel very poor and somewhat helpless. I am seeing some improvements, but the horse and cart are still being used by some farmers or transporters. I see tractors in the fields, but they are from soviet times. People still farm the land with manual tools.

Two weeks in Dobromel has opened my eyes to many things. Of course, the lifestyles of the children are the most obvious; it can only be seen by living at the internat. A second matter of interest is the lifestyles of the people who work here. The cooks, for example, prepare food all day, from early morning until clean up is complete at 8 PM. They work every other day.

The living conditions have improve over the past three years, mostly bathroom, shower, and laundry facilities. It is great to see that institutional care has moved forward, but I believe that it is due to church donations and manual labor of visiting short-term missionaries. All of the beds, made in bunk-bed style,

were donated by the Pentecostal church of a local community.

Of the 119 children living at this orphanage, only 11 are true orphans. The rest of the children come from difficult homes where parents are not equipped to raise their own children who have special need. Many fathers reject their own children at birth because they were not born in a healthy state. This causes many single parent families to occur.

This gives you a bird’s eye view of life in Dobromel, Ukraine, but there is more to come. Sveta and I will share our individual stories of our adventures with the children in future articles.