This morning the GAiN El Salvador 09 team travelled 2 hours by bus to visit a public school in San Jose El Naranjo. In this school we split into groups and shared our testimonies and the Gospel using the Gospel Bead Bracelets. We also did skits, magic and balloon animals and face painting for the kids. Numerous children raised their hands indicating they had invited Jesus Christ into their lives. The team travelled 45 minutes to reach our afternoon assignment, Quebracho school. The school staff graciously provided lunch for us. We repeated our program for the students, grades K-9.
Many of the roads we travelled we’re unpaved and the going was slow. But after a hard, hot day’s work we had some r & r time down a scenic route to our dinner on the coast. After dinner the team invested time in concerted prayer for the students and school staff we have visited so far, the those we will visit tomorrow. We also prayed for the team to work at the Holy Sprit’s direction and by His guidance, and for God’s work in the hearts of the children preparing them to hear the Gospel.
Kaluga, Russia
We all seemed to awake this morning refreshed and ready to start, meeting first in the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast and then in one of the room’s for a time of fellowship and orientation.
David Ford, an American who lives and ministers here in Kaluga, came to visit with us and shared about his work with the youths in this area who are old enough to leave the orphanages and is preparing them for life outside the walls of the homes they have known, while attempting to prevent them from joining the statistical numbers who turn to drugs, alcohol, suicide, crime, and prostitution.
We had lunch with our interpreters - Sasha, Olga, Irina, and Svetlana - before boarding the bus and making our way to our host church. The Grace Church is centered in Kaluga and has approximately 400 people in attendance. They provide ministries such as free haircuts and shaves and free bread donated to them once a week and also has outreach programs to more than 30 organizations around Kaluga such as the “Kindness” Center for Social Rehabilitation of Physically Disabled Kids. Pastor Gregori and a few members of his staff greeted us at the church before we began the work of assembling the CarePacks that we will be using for the duration of this trip. These CarePacks contain items such as toothbrushes, toothpastes, combs, notebooks, pens, pencils, chocolates, beanie babies, and more depending on whether the pack is for a child, an adult, or a senior. Though we ran out of a few supplies and had to improvise a little, we thank the Lord we were able to finish the task in six hours and had enough to meet the need of all the individuals we will be meeting.
Pastor Gregori and the same staff members we met earlier joined us for dinner at the hotel where much appreciation was expressed from the pastor for the continued support of Global Aid Network, the sacrifice of the team members, and our willingness to help them with their community outreach. We were also able to demonstrate our appreciation of their hospitality and assistance with this trip by presenting them with a new laptop for the church.
Truly, it was a good day, full of fellowship and laughter. We look forward to more such days and seeing firsthand the work God is doing in Russia.
June 16
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
“Every year they put on a hot air balloon show and my son was so disappointed when he found out that the show had been cancelled that year. One night as he prayed before bed, he asked the Lord, ‘Please send a hot air balloon to my house… you will?… O.K.’ A few days later, he came to me and said a hot air balloon was flying out the house so we went outside to see it, but no matter where we looked, we couldn’t find it. Still we could hear, so we thought to check the front of the house. Upon opening the front door, I was amazed. There in front of my house sat a hot air balloon. My son was overjoyed because he knew God would answer his prayer.”
As adults, we feel we are to set a good example for children, but so often I have found that we learn from their example as well. This testimony really struck home for me because so often the cares of the world take away my joy and “realism” creeps in to steal my child-like faith.
We started our ministry work in Kaluga by visiting the “Kindness” Center for Social Rehabilitation of Physically Disabled Kids. The center is not a place where children stay permanently because they firmly believe in keeping the family unit intact, but rather the kids come to the center for no more than three hours a day for support, whether it is physically, mentally, or emotionally. The children who attend the center suffer from a wide variety of handicaps and disabilities and yet I didn’t see one of them without a smile. As we toured the center and learned about the different therapies they have available for the kids, there was evidence of the talent each of these children possessed around every corner and on every wall, though some of them couldn’t even attend regular school because of their disability.
As the afternoon progressed, we split into groups of two with an interpreter and a social worker from the center and travelled to the homes of some of the children who couldn’t make it to the center. My heart broke for each of the children we met and for the others I heard of through members of our team - a boy who suffered from a spinal disease and could not even sit up because of the pain, but had to lie flat on his back, a little girl with a very rare heart condition requiring multiple operations that her parents could not afford - but with each of these stories there was no demonstration of bitterness of complaint.
What an example these children set! Too many times in my very blessed life I find myself griping because life seems so difficult and unfair and yet a nineteen year old boy suffering from cerebral palsy who will never walk or live independently of others was able to sit at the head of his families table and loudly praise God and rejoice to see his visitors!
Many of these children do not come from families with the resources to give them all that they may need, and even the “Kindness” center is currently under financial strain. We all wish that there was something more we could do for them, more we could give them, but we have to put our faith in the One who loves and hurts for them more than we ever could. No one but Him can provide for all of their needs. So let our continuing mission be to pray for the provision of each child and families’ needs, whether it is through us or some other means, and watch Him take care of it.
June 17
Isaiah 61:1-3
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me… He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to give them beauty for ashes… that He may be glorified.
Today we celebrate with the angels for the three children who openly gave their hearts and lives to our Lord and Savior!
Along with those children who we will certainly see again in our heavenly home, the faces and smiles of so many children of Russia will forever be imprinted in our hearts and minds.
We first visited the baby house here in Kaluga where they care for roughly a hundred children aging from a few months to four years old. A lot of these children suffer from birth defects or disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, blindness, or paralysis. The director told us that it is not common for these children to be adopted. If they are not adopted by the age of four, they are sent to an orphanage or into foster homes. We were blessed with plenty of time to play with these children, to pass out toys to them, and to simply hold them in our arms. And while they could not understand our language, the smiles on their faces said they understood our love. But the real blessing here is that Grace Church has been trying and trying to start a ministry in the baby house for the children and the staff, but the director continuously turned them away. Yet because of the awesome power of the Lord through the prayers here in Russia and those back home, our visit opened the way for the Grace Church to begin their ministry!
Our second visit was to a shelter for physically and mentally abused children who had been taken from their homes because of drug addictions, alcohol abuse, or a number of other unsafe environments for them to be in. This is not a place where the children stay permanently but only until it is safe to return to their homes or other family members can take them in. If it becomes evident that they will not be able to return to their families then the paperwork is started to make adoption an option for their future.
When we arrived, the children put on a performance of songs and dances for us and then invited us to play a game that was something similar to square dancing and then we danced with them to a Russian folk song. There was so much laughter and smiles and even if we had said nothing to them, I know our visit did much to lift their spirits. At one point during the dancing and games I was able to sit down, but instead of being allowed to return my seat, I was pulled into the row with the children and settled down between two girls. They linked their arms with mine and though I understood nothing of what they were saying to me, a bond was formed between us. We broke into our small groups then and it is the story one particular group that stands out.
There were four boys and four girls between the ages of 10 and 12 and two teachers in this group. The kids were very interested in the pictures and stories that the group members were sharing about their life in America and listened intently while one of the members presented the gospel bracelet and read along as each color bead was explained. The group made sure to emphasis that by accepting Jesus, one became a part of His family and for children who do not come from stable home lives, this appealed to them and they all gave huge smiles. The children were invited to pray the salvation prayer along with the group and three children raised their hand when asked if they had accepted Jesus as their Father and Savior! And even the teachers said that they would encourage the children to know the Lord better and would read to them from the Bibles that we gave them!
All we can say is PRAISE THE LORD!!
June 18
James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…
Our ministry so far this week has been geared towards children, but today we went to the home for elderly people. The home is broken into two buildings, one holding only 37 residents and the other with roughly 220. When we arrived we were welcomed with open arms.
We arrived in the middle of their three day “holiday” as they had just received their pension checks and there was much singing and dancing! It was a great time of encouragement for the elderly residents and a few members of the staff as some of our group members joined in with the dancing. And it was very amusing for us as we watched the 70 and 80 plus year old ladies wear us out.
At the large home we did not have a lot of time with the individuals to visit and share with them because there were so many of them and the staff enforced a strict schedule. However, we had more time at the second home to sit and visit. The majority of the people were very excited to see “the Americans” and to tell us about their lives.
The Grace Church representative who has been with us to all of our sites shared with us at the end of the day about how she had been unsure of our visit and what we were supposed to accomplish with such a hurried visit. But as she watched the presentation of the gospel bracelet to three men in second house and how the words and the pray affected them she said, “I saw that they had accepted Christ and I knew that this was why we had been sent there.”
So today not only do we have three more members in heaven, but another Christian was encouraged and her faith built upon, AND Grace Church has been invited to return to the elderly home whenever they wish!
As a bonus for the day, we had a visit from David Ford once again and he invited us to join him at one of his youth meetings for the older orphans and those who have already left the orphanages. Wanting to take in every part of the Russian ministry, I volunteered to go, along with three other members of our team. And while I didn’t understand most of the lesson because it was in Russian and my interpreter was a young girl who was very curious about myself and America, I could sense God working in that place through the people who were visible on fire for Him and had such a passion for the youth they were ministering to.
June 19
Isaiah 57:15 & 18
For this is what the high and lofty One says - he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him…”
Revival Rehabilitation Center for alcohol and drug addicts was started in 2001 to minister to the 200,000 addicts in the Kaluga region. The center is home to 30 residents at a time, 10 individuals who have completed the rehabilitation program, which lasts for one year, and work as leaders and mentors for the other 20 recovering addicts. The program consists of spiritual learning and guidance and also of building a sense of accomplishment through work to encourage the individuals involved. Because of the work that the participants do while at the center, they are completely self-sufficient: growing their own crops, milking and butchering cows, and a newly started window building business. They also have a bakery (that I can personally say bakes wonderful bread and delicious pizzas) that bakes bread and then donates it to Grace Church for weekly distribution at no charge to the people who receive the bread.
Fifty percent of all participants do not finish the program because they believe that after a couple of weeks that they are cured, but of those that do finish out the year ninety percent are successful in breaking their addictions. We were blessed to hear a few of their testimonies.
Genia has been at the rehabilitation center for 11 months. He came from a good family and his mother was a doctor, but when he was a teenager he became addicted to drugs. As time passed, Genia realized that if he was going to make something of his life, he was going to need help so he went to the center. He says, “Only his faith in Jesus Christ freed him from addiction”.
Alexi was a homeless man living in Kaluga. His parents had died of alcoholism and he started drinking when he was 12. Because of his drinking, he was sent to a boarding school, but still he drank and when he left at age 17 he was sent to prison. This made him very angry and cruel. When he got out he did not stop drinking because he still had “emptiness in his soul.” Twenty-one months later, he was sentenced again. And again, but he was accustomed to prison so it was O.K. He had lost his flat, his job, and his friends because of his love of alcohol. He was nearly blind and was having problems with his legs, but a woman told him there was a way out. He completed the program at the center and now he has a beautiful wife and daughter, and has no problem with his eyes or legs. He and his family now live at the center as house parents to the recovering addicts. He said, “God made me free.”
Natalia was addicted to both drugs and alcohol and four years ago she went through a divorce. Her children turned their back on her and she lost her family and her job. She tried to quit, tried to take medicine to take away the addictions, but nothing worked. An aunt knew the director of the center and asked him to take her in. They knew that this was her last hope in breaking the addiction. Today, she says, “I lost everything, now my life is changed”.
June 20
Galatians 2:10
All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
Today is our last day in Kaluga before we travel back to Moscow for a few days before our departure home. I have to say that I have fallen in love with this country and these people and I am sad to say good-bye, but I know that if it is the Lord’s will, I will be back to see them again.
Grace Church with the help of the local government put on a holiday for the families with more than three children who do not attend their church. We were invited to join in and were able to minister to many unbelieving families, sharing Bibles and Christian books with them, and also giving them food packs and care packs to each of them. Later in the evening members of the church with many children also joined us for a time of fellowship, ministry, and gifts.
The work the Lord is doing in this place is awesome and we have all been blessed to be a part of it for this short time and will continue to keep this church, its members, and the people of Kaluga in our thoughts and prayers.
We have come to our Sunday morning when we will have a chance to interact with a local church congregation. Today we will be worshiping in Ukrainian, enjoying the music that may be different from what we are used to. The ladies of the church have been preparing lunch for us, and we look forward to more good Ukrainian food. Not that we haven’t had good food so far, but rather that we are thoroughly enjoying new things!
Yesterday we traveled by bus to the center of the city where numerous high rise apartments were built in the early 1950’s. We were introduced to social workers who had selected 15 particularly needy families with children for us to minister to. We took clothes, shoes, slippers, school supplies, combs, toothbrushes and the like, as well as large bags of food staples like rice, buckwheat, flour, oil, pasta. These social workers knew in advance what each family needed and in one case, she stopped by a small open air market where those with gardens had brought their fresh produce. She carefully selected fruit and vegetables for one elderly lady who had difficulty getting down from her 18th floor apartment to do the shopping! In each home we entered, we prayed with the adults and provided for the desires of the children of these poorest of the poor. We also distributed gospel bracelets, explanations, tracts and Bibles as it was appropriate. One family visited by Hannah had nine children, and she felt led to pray specifically for the needs of that family before we left. We were greeted graciously in all of these homes. Eventually all five of our small groups reassembled on the bus and were taken to the Chernobyl Museum where we learned of the 1986 disaster. Besides the city of Chernobyl, there were some twenty other smaller cities and villages that were contaminated. Several days after the explosion, the residents were told to get on numerous army trucks to be evacuated for a “short time” while the clean up was being done. When many began to die shortly thereafter, the government decided to quickly build hundreds of high rise apartments before the winter snows began to house those who had been evacuated. We felt privileged to have been able to meet some of the needs of those who now live in these same apartment buildings, and to have been allowed to minister openly to the children in the villages that have sprung up just outside of the heavy radiation zone. Continue to pray for those who heard the gospel, that their hearts might be receptive to repent and come to know our Lord.
We visited two small villages that have sprung up in the fringe area of radiation during the past ten years. This area is beautiful with large elm, cottonwood, willow, red barked pine, and birch trees as well as all of the green vegetation of grass and vines which all together produce a real luxuriance. The people in these areas are again as poor or poorer than those we visited yesterday. Everyone has a garden of potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and peppers.
The whole village turned out in both the morning site and the afternoon location; they all heard the gospel and most repeated the prayer of repentance aloud in the assemblies. It was a heart warming event. Adele R. talked with one lady who was wearing a fifteen year old bracelet, just like we were giving out today to explain the plan of salvation with colors. She had been given the bracelet by someone who had heard a presentation way back then! I always encourage the children to show off their bracelet and tell others about Jesus’ love. Thank you for your prayers on our behalf and for Sergey (from last March ministry) who continues to improve. One of our team will be visiting with him in person after we finish here.
Tomorrow we know about the first place we will visit:
Friday, June 19 - Baby Home
The Ukrainian government assists these orphanages for babies up to age 3 or 4, and loving care givers try to supply the attention that these little ones need, but in truth there is seldom an abundance of food and milk. The food supplies we deliver to these places is greatly appreciated. This particular Baby Home has 76 children under age 4 who are cared for by a huge staff of 253 men and women who need to know Jesus! Pray for our sensitivity to the needs of these adults.
Saturday, Jun 20 – Church Action with a Kiev Church and delivery of food bags to poor families. Pray that the “flour and oil” we bring these families will see them through and physically demonstrate the love of Jesus.
Today our group had an early (7:15 am) departure to make the long drive to the town of Tashtagol, located in the southern part of the Kemerovo Region. In spite of constant rain, it was a beautiful drive through rolling hills that climbed into mountains reaching an elevation of about 6,000 feet.
The mission team visited the children’s department of a hospital high up on hill. We learned that children come for treatment and typically stay for 3 to 6 months. Some of the parents visit them on a regular basis throughout the time that their children are there but we also learned that some of the children are simply dropped off and never visited until their treatment ends. We were the first American or foreign group of any kind to visit this facility and we were received with usual warm Siberian hospitality. The children performed several favorite songs and we reciprocated by introducing our group, singing several songs and other activities before dividing into small groups to meet with the children.
One of the American participants had a meeting with all the staff workers at the hospital. They all were eager to hear about Christ and to receive the Gospel of John and More Than a Carpenter books printed in Russian.
Afterward we visited the church in Tashtagol that hosted our visit in the town. Another great day!
10 pm: Finally found an internet “cafe” in Novokuznetsk to send out some news from Siberia. Everything is going GREAT! Tuesday, as expected, we went to a huge summer camp for 500 orphans. As soon as we got our of our bus at the camp a 12 year-old girl ran up to Charles D. and introduced herself as Kristina. She was a small girl with big blue eyes and blonde hair. Throughout the day she approached Charles and gave him big hugs. At the end of the group’s visit she shared that her father is in prison and she didn’t know the wherabouts of her mother. She and her brother, Maxim have been in the orphanage since September and it was completely evident that she needed someone to show love to her. In the faces of so many children one could see the pain of broken families, disappointment and heartache, but what a privilege it was for our group, along with members of a local church that regularly visits the orphanages, to bring joy and the free gift of life in Christ. We left the camp with hearts full of emotion and prayer for the children.
Today we drove 2 hours to Mezhdurechensk and went to a Veterans’ Center and later to a social center for invalids and poor families. Our group had the opportunity to share Christ with everyone in both places, gave Bibles and CarePacks. Erin, one of the members of our group shared a beautiful ballet dance as a part of the “icebreaker” with the veterans who had earlier sung old Russian folk songs for our group. Pastor Andrey H. accompanied our group and actively shared the Gospel of Christ with workers in the social services center. From the questions the workers asked Andrey, they were eager to know and understand how to know Christ as Savior and Lord.
Our team has an early departure from Novokuznetsk on Thursday to travel to the town of Tashtagol where we will work alongside another church in a children’s department in a hospital. Everyone on the team is healthy but somewhat tired. We covet your undergirding prayer support.
