Inspiration within the Internat

Life in the internat (orphanage) system in Ukraine is a tough road to walk. Living with 120 to 160 children, ages 6 to 18, eating and sleeping in large groups, void of some of the simplest chances for privacy, life is nothing less than a daily challenge. In these internats are for children with physical and mental disabilities, the challenges of self-image and social development are multiplied considerably.

The children of the Dobromel Internat are one example of these children. Not only are the children challenged, but also Dobromel is a poor community and receives little financial help from the national government in Kiev, Ukraine. The facility is old and worn out, recently receiving standard and cosmetic repair. Through many donations from other organizations in America and possibly other countries, the children have decent clothing to wear, and beds to sleep in, although, they need the most basic elements of life; those are love and attention.

Pastor Volodya and his team visit from two hours away whenever possible. They bringing love and attention in the form of the AWANA program, providing activity and food, both physical and spiritual. Tamara, a young woman working as a nurse, gives her free time to visit the children. It is clear in the picture above that the children are famished to experience something new. Crowding around Tamara, they want her attention, her friendship, and contact with someone from a world different from their own.

There are players and there are spectators. In the second picture above, look at the expressions on their faces. What do you see? Are some of them content to be spectators? May some be anxious to participate? Will some be challenged to stop watching life pass before them and get involved in the game? This is our task. Volodya and his team are there to encourage the children to realize that they are valuable players on the team.

I hope to be able to visit more often. I want to spend more time with the children, learning more about their education and social opportunities. Please follow our blog as my future wife, Svetlana, and I visit Dobromel, Marganets, Froonza, and more communities as the doors open. Our goal is to help disadvantaged children find a better piece of life, reaching for all that they can grasp.

Children of Hope 2

In a past article, Children of Hope, I wrote about the children of one orphanage in Marganets, Ukraine whom we serve through various programs. Either these children are, from difficult homes, or they have no parents or relatives. They are at this particular orphanage because they have some type of physical or mental disability; many have learning disabilities.

In the dim light that permeates the lives of these children, a few of the children are found to have extraordinary talent, in spite of their disability, shining a bright light of hope for their peers. Two of these children are Artom, in the sixth grade, and Julia, in the seventh grade.

I have known Artom and Julia for five years. Each has very natural gifts in music. Along with the dance team, Artom and Julia have taken part in local, regional, and national competitions and won. Julia won the national vocal competition last year.

The MUCH organization encourages this program with some small contributions, but it is Leonid Koobekol who leads the children into the winner’s circle. Leonid is the music master who gives his heart to the children, developing and promoting their talents. He has accepted the position as head master of the School of Music in Marganets, but he continues to work with his circle of children at the orphanage; he loves them very much.

As MUCH provides clothing, shoes, and other basic needs, we also support programs that will help them heal their self-images. Programs prepare them to enter society, a world much different from the orphanage, but it is the relationships that we hope will be the foundation for their future lives. Will you touch a life, build a relationship, and change the life of one of our children?

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 of Hope

A relationship of love!

"Suffer not the little children ..." 

Click on the picture to enlarge.
What do you see above? Look at them from a distance; look at them close-up. Look at their clothes, the expressions on their faces, and look into their eyes. What do you see?

I see children. Each one has a story unique to him or her, as do all children. What they are at this time in their lives can be summed up in a few words. They are children. What will they become; how will they change; where will they go?

The answers to many of these questions depend upon adults. How will we touch their lives? Will we be responsible toward them; will we care; will we reach out to them? Will we help them become the next generation who will run this world?

The children pictured above live in the orphanage in Marganets, Ukraine. They are special children, not to say that every child is not special. They have special needs. Each child that you see has some type of learning disability. Each child has either a dangerous family environment from which they have been removed, has been abandoned by their parents, or their parents have died, leaving them as orphans. They will grow up in this orphanage system with children similar to themselves, totaling an average of 156.

Statistics tell a very sad reality of what happens to children after they leave the orphanage system in Ukraine. Prostitution, suicide, prison, and a life of crime wait for the majority of them. What can be done?

I don’t have many answers, but I have a few. MUCH has been gradually changing the lives of these children in small ways. Can you see the change in these pictures that span four years?

Four big needs based programs are touching the personal futures of some of the children. Massage therapy is changing the children from the inside out. The neurology of massage is habilitating them. Computer class is opening new avenues for the children, preparing them for a world of graphic art and word processing. The new music and dance opportunities will enrich the quality of the arts in their education. Finally, the drug and alcohol program is molding the children in areas of morality, self-image, and self-respect.

We have stepped up to the bat. MUCH is helping these children in these ways. We believe in them. We believe they are the future of Ukraine. What will you do? Will you help our children through MUCH? Will you help any children? What will you do to change the future of societies on this planet?