Global Aid Network Mission Reports

Krasnoyarsk Winter 2008  

Sheree, Denis and I met with one of the directors prior to having our group come into the facility. This was a new site never prviously visited by GAiN. The director was somewhat upset. All of her icons on her laptop PC had vanished. She couldn’t find her “my documents” folder and was worried that everything was lost! I reassured her that it was a simple fix and that everything was still there. I looked briefly at the PC, but with all the menus being in Russian, I could not navigate to the correct location.  

As Sheree spoke with her regarding our program and presentation format, it became apparent that we would only be allowed four small groups instead of the normal six that already existed. When we broke into small groups, my team members offered to combine with another group. This gave me and my interpreter Irina the ability to look at the director’s laptop.  

We navigated to the appropriate screens with Irina’s help, made the setting changes and the icons were back on her desktop. She gave a loud hurray and thanked us. Irina and I then joined our small group.  

God continues to provide some amazing opportunities here in Krasnoyarsk. I never thought it would involve PC troubleshooting.  

Fred K.

I always enjoy watching the small children, each with his or her own smile and personality. Yesterday though was my first time in an elderly home. The elderly we met know for the most part that the end is near for some of  them. They also are alone, but with a lifetimes worth of wisdom and personal experiences. I wanted to go around and pray for each one individually, but became too emotional myself after the third person. They have so much to say and spoke as if I could understand them. One lady kissed my hands, as I did hers. She said through the interpreter that she would never forget me and neither will I forget her.

Rodnichok Children’s Home:

A little boy about 4 or 5 years old sitting in the second row caught my eye right away. He was cross-eyed and had cute little dimples in his cheeks. I was amazed when he ended up in my small group. My eyes kept going to him during our visit. The children were sitting in a circle on the floor playing. He got up and came over to me. I offered to hold him and he crawled up in my lap. I hugged him; then he got down and went back to playing. God is GREAT! God keeps bringing his face to my mind during my prayers. I think I will be praying for him for a long, long time!

Krasnoyasrk Feb 1 2008 as reported by Stuart Y. (Stuart is 11 and this is his 3rd GAiN trip):

Yesterday we met a girl that we met last summer in Krasnoyarsk. She lived in a different orphanage at that time. When my small group leader Mark and I saw her, we were very happy and we wanted her to be in our small group during our presentation.  

Mark did not want to trouble anyone about going to a specific small group room, but when we got to the room we saw the girl there that we wanted to see again. We played duck duck goose, sang songs and gave our gifts to the children. Mark and I were very happy! So we met a friend again in  a different place at a different time.

As reported by Mark Q.:

Every day here has it’s own story. This day was special to me because I had the opportunity to spend time with some of the children that we had met when we were here this past summer.  

We had been told that we would be visting some of the sites from the summer trip. So I brought along some pictures that I had taken from that trip. The first site that we visited was a new site, so I did not expect to see any familiar faces. But when the children came into the room, I immediately recognized one of the little girls from this past summer. Ann also recognized her. To my surprise and joy, I had a picture of her along.  

We sangs songs and Gerald peformed his magic tricks for the kids. They loved it. Sheree said it was time to break into our small groups and meet with the kids. I know that God directed the split of the groups because our group went to the room where the little girl was that I had recognized. I had thought of requesting that our group be in her room, but God worked it out anyway. God is Good!  

We had a wonderful time playing with the kids and I knew by the smiles on their faces that they did as well. We got lots of hugs and kisses, many without even asking. All of our kids were five years old, so they probably won’t remember our faces, but they will at least for a short time remember the fun that we had together.  

What a joy, such a wonderful joy it is to see our Lord’s  little ones smile. Thank you Lord.

Krasnoyarsk Replace site KR4 (original site cancelled due to chickpox quarentine):  

On Wednesday afternoon, we visited a children’s home. We were about to leave when one of the teachers approached our interpreter Leina and said that there was something different about our group. In the church she was familiar with, you were not allowed to smile and there was a certain way that you had to do things. She said we were “radiant’ and would like someday to visit the church that we were associated.

I have been looking forward to this day since I heard that we were going to visit an Elderly
& Invalid’s Home.  Now, I love going to all the sites but this one touches my heart since I am of the same age as some of them.  I know that they feel some of the same things I feel
as an older person.  Our team reached our destination and was taken to an auditorium where some of the patients were awaiting our arrival.  As we introduced ourselves, I told them my name was Peggy and I was seventy years old and single. 
 
Our small group, Chris, Lise’ and I, were one of the mobile teams that went from room to room to visit the immobile.  Our first visit was with one gentlemen who was lying on his bed with his eyes closed.  I knelt by his bed and took his hand and said, “My name is Peggy, I am the angel you prayed for.”  He opened his eyes and looked around laughing.  We told him we came to tell him how much God loved him.  We asked permission to pray with him and we knelt and took his hands and Chris prayed.   He was appreciative as we hugged him and left gifts.   We visited room after room of hurting, lonely people, some more than others.  I was touched as I watched my teammates tenderly touch and love each one. One of the younger men we visited sat silently crying as Chris prayed.  I held him and told him in Russian, “Jesus loves you.”

I felt compelled to take their faces in my hands and look into their eyes and tell them in Russian, “Jesus loves you.”  It didn’t matter whether it was a man or woman, today, I saw only someone that needed to be loved.  I embraced and kissed each one.  Jesus loves you.

Today January 29th, I had a very interesting and productive conversation at our second site. We had four girls in our group, ages ranging from 15-16 years old. I shared a little of my testimony with them. I told them about hearing God speak to me. When I was done, and after the other presentations, they had some questions about prayer.  Showing them how it’s possible to pray directly to Jesus, I gave them a word picture.

I asked Gayleen (a fellow member in our small group) to be ‘God’ and I then stood a distance away from her. I was sinful man. (When doing the gospel bead presentation, we had talked a lot about sin.) I showed them the gap between God and man. Then I asked Kaylin (another member of our small group) to be ‘Jesus’ and stand between us. Kaylin placed one hand on my shoulder and the other on Gayleen’s shoulder. I explained that Jesus filled the gap between us and God, so that now we could go directly to Him.

My translator old me that they really liked that way of explaining and that they were thinking about it all.

They wanted to hear testimonies from Gayleen and Kaylin. Their testimonies like mine involved hearing God speak to them. After that they asked if they could hear God, too. They wanted to know if that was the only way to hear God speak. I think we tend to talk about God speaking to us and not realize how that might sound to others. I used the opportunity to talk about the ways God can talk to you. I especially talked about the Bible and then gave them the “More Than a Carpenter / Gospel of John” books.

Our interpreter said it was all very good and that they were really interested and they were excited to learn this new information.

Every trip is different and every site is unique, but this was a great opportunity to be salt and light; to plant and water and see it grow. I was really encouraged by this visit and really felt the presence of God and pray that He used us in a might way.  - Scotta M.

Today on 1/31 we visited the Rodinochok children’s home in the morning. The children were ages 3 to 7 years old. We had a great time just enjoying the kids. We played games and sang some fun songs and gave them gifts. Our small group consisting of Caleb, Kailyn, Kenny, Scotta, Gayleen and Gerald were with a group of about 12 children. The kids were really interested in our pictures and we were able to share about Jesus with them.

We are so thankful for the interpreters God has provided for this trip. They do such a great job! One of the little girls became frightened when we were playing a game with them, but our interpreter Leina sat with here and comforted her. In a few minutes she was laughing and smiling again.  

What I will always remember is that we were able tohold and hug these kids and in a clear way demonstrate God’s love for them.  You could just see that they were having a great time by their smiles.

In the afternoon we went to another children’s home (KR6). Our small group of Scotta, Gayleen, and Gerald, along with our interpreter Leina had six boys that were about 10 years old. These boys were very interested in what we had to say and we had a lot of fun playing with them and taking their pictures. When we explained how to them to ask Jesus to be their Lord and Savior and then led them in prayer, one of the boys Tola, indicated that he had prayed the prayer along with us.

We arrived safely Monday morning after leaving JFK airport on Saturday evening greeted by -12F degree weather in Krasnoyarsk. After arriving at the hotel, we had 1 1/2 hours sleep and spent the afternoon making close to 1000 carepacks in various configurations. After dinner we met our translators. We were happy to get our translator from the summer Irina again. We had two of the summer translators and 4 new ones. After a long and well deserved night’s sleep we headed to our first site in Divnogorsk, about 1 hour from Krasnoyarsk. Sunrise is at about 9:30 and it’s dark by 4:00 every day. The first site we went to was a repeat site from the summer. There we were reunited with 3 teenage girls that we visited in the summer. One of those was Dasha who shared her life story with us this past summer. The girls were excited and amazed to see us again, especially in the dead of winter. The second site (also in Divnogorsk ) which we never visited before, had orphan kids of all ages. We had younger boys and girls in our group. They gave us so many hugs and kisses that I lost count. A wonderful start to our two week adventure of sharing love, hope, gifts and the good news of Jesus Christ! Keep us in your prayers as our time here continues.