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Offering a little encouragement

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. 
FAmily! 279 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 with you.  I think it will be very good for him.”  she told me. 
So we started inviting Andre, and he started coming with us regularly to Komarivka.  He is a favorite with the 4th and 5th grade boys.  But in general he is just a natural with the kids.  The kids loved playing soccer with him.  We always pick one class a week to do a craft and Bible story with and usually Andre was our security guard keeping out the kids from other classes.  I normally found him out in the hall, just sitting with his arm around a kid  like Sasha, who is typically bouncing off the walls.  He knows what they are going through. He grew up in the orphanage himself.  We were always grateful that he came with us.
Just before the new year, Andre moved up to a camp that is run by the lady who started Safe Haven.  He went up to be a helper/maintenance guy as well as help with the church they were trying to start.  But the camp runs a shelter for children that social services takes out of their homes.  The couple that was running the house moved out when Andre arrived, and so Andre has had to step in.  He’s taking care of 5-10 little kids everyday.  Making breakfast, sending them to school and everything else being a parent entails.  The responsibility took him by surprise, but we hear he is handling it quite well. 
I know 99% of the reason he is doing so well is that for 5 years he lived with Anya and Bogdon and was able to learn from them how to be a good parent, and how to deal with the chaos.  But I think about that night when he told us that he was afraid of little kids, and I’m glad that he went with us to Komarivka.  In the past six months, he’s had a lot of opportunities to interact with kids away from Anya and Bogdon.   I hope it helped improve his confidence.
We regularly take kids from Safe Haven with us to Komarivka.  When we were working on Smile House, I got some of the guys to come and do a lot of work with me, because we wanted them to get work experience.  That’s one of the little ways we get to help these guys.  This coming year, we have a lot more projects and we are going to need a lot more help.   I can’t wait. 
christmas card 145
Andre and Sergei in Komarivka.  Pray for Andre in his new role at the children’s home.
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