The Voices of Ukrainians

For the last several weeks, the director has prevented us from visiting the orphanage. Its a frustrating time for us (read previous blog), but it does give us different ministry opportunities. One of these opportunities is hospital visits. There is a small town near Komarivka where all the kids go when they get sick. It being flu season and all that, we have been able to see several kids from the orphanage. They are always so excited when we come. For one, hospitals are generally very boring, and this particular hospital is no exception. The kids can be there for several days to several weeks; they have nothing to do and rarely have visitors. Another reason the kids are glad to see us is because Daniel has one of those faces that generates excitement (and giggles among the girls). The hospital visit I would like to share with you occurred several weeks ago. Our team that day consisted of Meisha (our fearless driver), Galya and Oksana (two friends from Safe Haven), Victor (stuck in the...

Corruption is stupid.  I read this week that every year corruption costs Russia $300-500 billion.  Ukraine is a smaller country but its rated more corrupt than Russia by Transparency International , and last year Ernst and Young rated Ukraine as the 3rd most corrupt nation in the world.  Chernobyl is located a little over 70 miles from where I write this.  There is an international project to build a giant sarcophagus to help shield the radiation that still leaks from nuclear power plant No. 4.  Doug knows one of the head engineers on the project.   Doug’s friend once said that the project will never be finished.  Countries all over the world have given billions of dollars to Ukraine so that they can finish that project, but the money constantly vanishes into the pockets of contractors and officials involved in the project.  Corruption always runs uphill, creating a greater gap between the rich and the poor.  It drives inflation....

When I first started researching what happens to the kids who are brought up in the orphanages in Ukraine, one of the most depressing facts I learned was that the problem becomes generational.  A young girl who was raised in the orphanage, gets out of the orphanage around age 16, gets pregnant, and sooner or later gives up on trying to be a mom, so her children end up in the orphanage as well.  Most of them can’t handle being parents because they have no example to follow and have no experience themselves. Halya and Masha when we visited the hospital not long ago. But in the transition homes, it’s a different story. At Safe Haven, all the kids who come live in the home are Anya and Bogdon’s kids.  But Anya and Bogdon have their own biological boys.  Danya is seven and Pasha just turn 4 two weeks ago.  Anya told us once that she regularly teaches the older boys, especially about things like hygiene, by teaching Pasha how to keep himself clean.  All the ki...

Janna and I go to church at Safe Haven.  Its just a home church with several families from Kyiv and the family at Safe Haven.  Often in Ukraine kids who come from the orphanage aren’t accepted into most churches.   So they’ve built a church there in the home that is completely accepting of the kids.  We love it.  Normally on Sunday, Janna and I leave once church is over.  After 30 minutes to an hour of small talk (in Russian) and then about 3 hours of Church (in fast Russian and Ukrainian) we are pretty tired and ready to head home.  But this Sunday I stayed a little late, I had a meeting with one of the young couples and then I was getting some pictures from Bogdon.  And there were just a bunch of things that happened that I wanted to share.  I think they speak to what Safe Haven is and the job that Anya and Bodgon have done at creating a wonderful home for these kids.  Pasha, Anya and Bogdon’s youngest It was Pasha’s birthda...

We took Andre with us to the orphanage in Komarivka for the first time in September.  My family was coming to town, we decided to fix up the playground at the orphanage and I knew we would need help.  I got Andre to weld us some post bases for the playground and then he came and spent four days working with bunch of Americans.  The first night, when we were having dinner at the church, Janna asked everyone in our group what they learned that day.  When we came around to Andre, he said that he had always been afraid of little children but after spending the day around the kids, he decided that maybe he didn’t have to be afraid of them.  Maybe this is why Andre was afraid of kids.  That’s him in the middle. The next week in church, Anya came up to me.  She told me that Andre really enjoyed his time with us.  “It is good for him to work with the children.  But he is shy.  He will not ask if he can go with.  You must ask him to go ...

I remember hearing the story of Zacchaeus as a kid.  Jesus was in the middle of a crowd and Zacchaeus was trying to just see him.  So, Jesus turns around and calls Zacchaeus by name and says, “I’m gonna spend today with you.”  There is more to the story, but I always remember thinking how cool it would be if Jesus singled me out of a crowd.  This is Zhenya, and he’s been my buddy ever since I singled him out one day. We work with an orphanage with 100 kids. We always try and reach out to the individual, but its not always easy.  For instance, one of the questions we’ve wrestled with is: What can you give 100 kids for Christmas that will make all of them feel special? Yeah, we have a tough time coming up with good answers too. But we think we came up with a really good answer this past Christmas. Over Fall Break we put on a camp for the kids who stayed at the orphanage.  Before our afternoon gathering we would show pictures of the kids that we had take...

Last week, we learned some bad news at Safe Haven.  Bogdon’s Dad, Petya, was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  As usual, the doctors didn’t say very much to them at the time.  He just gave them some medicine and told them to come back next week for some more tests.  Anya looked the medicine up online and told me that it was for cancer that is in stage 3 or 4. Anya asked for our prayers, so now I’m passing the request along to all of our friends.  Petya is in good health, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong.  As cancer always does, this caught them by surprise. The first time I met Petya, Anya and Bogdon had taken the weekend off, and Bogdon’s parents came in to watch the house and the kids.  They do this pretty regularly and the kids interact with them so well, you would think they have been family for their whole lives.  During church that day, Petya sat with Viktor, and had his arm around him the whole time.  I’ve sat with my grandparen...

Tevye is the main character from Fiddler on the Roof and he’s based on a guy who lived not far from Kiev. For a while Doug has been trying to put together a group of people to visit a little museum that is dedicated to him near Boyarka (and when I say "a while," I mean for about 9 years). We heard it wasn't really a museum, just a room set up with some displays and so we weren't expecting much, but we thought, “Hey, when in Ukraine…” So, about 15 Americans, mostly missionaries and teachers, hopped in a few vans on Saturday and took a little trip out of the city. After getting lost a few times, we finally arrived at the public school where the museum is located.  Imagine our surprise when we walked into the building to find about 30 kids dressed up in traditional Ukrainian clothing! Once all the Americans were inside, the group started singing us a welcome song! You can watch it below; sorry it’s a little shaky, I was just trying to get the...

Every once in awhile, it's a good idea to count your blessings. Not only count them, but focus on one or two and really think about how they have impacted your life. And its good idea to thank the Lord for providing those blessings. A lot of the time, my blessings come in the form of people. Yes, brown sugar shipped from America is wonderful and I really love eating pie, but I must admit that relationships are a bit more lasting and meaningful. I wanted to share one of those relationships with you, and yes, this blog is long overdue. Almost two years ago, a lovely young lady by the name of Lexi was selected for a fellowship scholarship from Dartmouth College, and committed to a year of living in Ukraine to work with orphans. During that short year (from August 2011 through August 2012), she became a valuable member of our team, and an even more valuable friend. To put it simply, that first year in Ukraine was worlds better because of Lexi. There's something about having a fri...

Two weeks ago Sunday, church was a little different for us.  Bogdon dragged the projector and screen into the main room. They hooked it up to the computer and we all got to see a blog made by Sergei and a few of the other guys from Safe Haven. Its titled, Jesus , and has different videos, sermons, Bible Verses, posters, and other stuff.  (Click on the link here to check it out.  Most of it is in Russian, though.) We watched some of the videos, different people would read some of the verses.  I guess all told it was kinda like a normal church service.  The kids who live in Safe Haven have Bible studies in Safe Haven throughout the week, and they are a little more interactive there.  But at church, when older people come in and the families are around, most of the kids sit on the outside of the group and almost never speak up.  They are a little intimidated.  Most of them are young Christians, and most of them don’t have a whole lot of self conf...