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.

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?

Survival for the Elderly

Men playing domino to pass the time

Man struggles to transport used materials

In Ukraine, the pension does not provide much money, so many of the elderly who are able, create some type of work that may help with their income. Some sell flowers that they grow at home; others sell sunflower seeds and nuts. Many will collect the things in their home that they no long use and try to sell them. They will choose a well-traveled path, put a sheet down on the ground, and lay out their goods to sell. Many will set-up their little entrepreneurship on the sidewalk of the main streets.

I have been living in the same apartment here in Illichevsk, Ukraine for eight years. Some people in my building have died, other have sold their apartment and moved away. There are babushkas (grandmothers/great grandmothers) that I see as I go in and out of my building who are pleasant in conversation with me. Not a lot of words, but we have communication. In good weather, their main activity is sitting on the benches, talking about life as it passes them by.

There is one woman on a pension who lives on the fifth floor that I interact with from time to time. It is difficult to know the ages of people here; many look much older than they are. This particular woman caught my attention one day when she was returning from her work. She had a small hand truck with three nylon bags stacked and strapped to it that she was dragging up the stairs, one backbreaking step at a time. Immediately, I grabbed hold of the bottom of the truck and helped her carry it all of the way to the fifth floor.

Over the years, I have helped her up the steps numerous times. Each time, as I hear her wheezing with every breath that she takes, I realize the reality of the cost of freedom for the people of this country. This woman, like many others, gets up early in the morning, takes her goods to a place in the city, spreads them out on display, and she sits and waits for her potential customers. She may sit in that same spot all day. I have seen her with her item set out and clothes hung from a line between two trees.

I don’t know much about this woman, but I see that she has a life, she has purpose, and she moves forward every day. I have seen her apartment that she shares with another woman, or maybe they each own only one room. It is dismal, dark, and very depressing for me to experience, but I wonder what it looks like through her eyes.

Another woman in another part of my building suffers from schizophrenia. She lived with her son, a young man, struggling through every day of her life. Recently, it was learned that her son died of pneumonia. The woman, helpless to know what to do, lived with her dead son in the apartment for four days. Finally, she went the corner market and explained her dilemma to one of the clerks. The woman, after years of torment, finally found help in a hospital for treatment of her disease.

I wonder how these women see their lives. Most of all, I wonder what their lives were like prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Blessings From Above

 During the Woman’s Day celebration, March 8^th, I had the opportunity to meet my future grandson, 7-day-old Daniel. Such a little creation; he is formed and shaped, every part completely developed. This little miracle is so amazing. I thought, “How fortunate Olya and Kolya are to have brought a second beautiful child into the world.”

It is a challenge, of course, to nurture and raise any child from that first moment of birth. For some, though, the challenge is multiplied. It is for these children that I have been called to Ukraine; it is for these children that God has a plan. I have often wondered why God allows some children to be born with disabilities; why others are created with perfection in form and ability. Does He think of the special children? He has not forgotten them. No, they are carved in the palm of His hand.

For the past nine years, I have been trying to see things, as well as people, including myself, with God’s eyes. After running away from people with disabilities, running away from my own disability, running away from who I am, God brought me to a place in time, a place in this world, a place in my life where I could begin to see myself through His eyes. It was at this point that He showed me why He created me, why He allowed my life to follow the path that it did. He showed me   what the work was that He had for me to invest in, for the rest of my life.

Children are blessings from above! We don’t always see them as such, but they are, never the less, blessings for us to cherish, to nurture, to love, and from whom we should receive love. I always wanted a child of my own. My vision was small for my life, but God had a plan of a few more children than was my dream. After eight years of serving the children of Ukraine, I now touch the lives of more than 500. Each one requires me to see them with God’s eyes, as creations of His that He sees as beautiful. It is often a challenge for me, but I am reminded to see them with God’s eyes, not my own, which have been corrupted by the values of this world.

My challenge, my work for the children with whom God has blessed me, is to provide something, to improve their opportunities to have better lives, to have a chance to change the outcome of their lives. Each child has a different physical or mental challenge. I can relate to many of them, but some are so far removed from anything that I have experienced, I haven’t a clue. Even so, God has a plan. He prepared all of the people with the special knowledge and gifts needed to help the children; He continues to introduce me to them. They are my team here in Ukraine.

Who are the children who are your blessings from above?

An Object Lesson from the Creator

     This is not my story. It was written by another of those who work for the Creator. After reading this story, having felt the same connection, I realized how powerful a message it sends. So I will share it with you.

     "In the summer, tons of tomato seeds were planted in pots on my balcony. I have never grown tomato plants by myself and wasn't really sure what to do besides water them and keep them in the sun. By the end of the summer, 12 plants had grown to their expected height. Each one had beautiful yellow blooms but no tomatoes!

      In the Fall, I decided to let 10 of them die because I was tired of watering them not seeing even one tomato. I didn't want to have worthless plants to care for during the winter in my apartment. However, two were saved because their pot could easily be relocated to the windowsill. I continued to water them and made sure they were in direct sunlight every day, but still nothing.

     Then, it snowed. Winter brought shorter days, more clouds and less sunlight. I started thinking it might be time to throw out these last two plants. After all, who wants things that aren't producing? I gave them two weeks just because of their green leaves since everything else green was gone. It snowed again.

     One morning I noticed some round things growing out of the yellow blooms! Amazing! Talking to God, I said, 'I don't understand why You waited until after it snowed before You made them grow. Who would have thought there would be tomatoes growing HERE in winter?' I was silenced when He reminded me,

     'Think about the people here? How you don't see anything happening when you think it is the peak time for things to happen? Remember, harvesting is done in My time not yours. Trust Me. I'm working and like those tomatoes, there WILL be a harvest, but in My time!'

      How many more tomatoes would I have if I hadn't thrown away the other 10 plants? This thought challenged me! When I don't see what God is doing, my faith must be strong because He works when conditions are favorable and when they are not. I must be careful not to throw away relationships with people because they are much more valuable than tomato plants and only the Father knows if and when they will produce fruit.

     I was filled with even more amazement for my Creator after this object lesson! He's still working here and this brings me encouragement. Lately God has given me unbelievable and unexpected opportunities. I'm a little slow learning and applying the lessons He teaches me. However, I am thankful for His faithfulness to keep His promises and His never-ending patience to endure slow learners."