The Voices of Ukrainians

(I’m going to write more on our experience at camp, but this is just about my relationship with kids who were in my room. ) Vlad was sitting on my left.  His head resting on my chest.  “You’re my new uncle.  You’re a good uncle.”  Man, that made me feel great. Valerie who was sitting on my right, head also on my chest, said, “You’re my new papa. You’re a good papa.”  That brought up more complicated feelings for me.  I felt great because it was only the second night of camp and Valerie already trusted me, but I felt terrible because I knew the only reason Valerie was saying that was because he wanted and needed someone to be his papa.  I squeezed both of the boys as I held back tears.  I hate what these kids have to live through. Me with Vlad and Valerie ******** This past week, Janna and I were at camp with Safe Haven.  We were told we couldn’t visit the orphanage in Komarivka so we took advantage of the opportunity to see how Safe H...

When I was a kid, every summer we traveled the eight hours to Memaw and Pepaw’s house and spent a week.  We would hang out with all of our cousins.  We would stay up late, go hiking in the woods, go play putt-putt, go to the lake or the zoo and eat Memaw’s candy.  We did all the great things you do when you visit Memaw and the cousins.  Next door to Memaw and Pepaw, our second cousins, two brothers,  were usually visiting their grandma at the same time we were visiting ours.  They were younger than all of my first cousins, so naturally they wanted to hang out with us all the time.  We were older.  We were always doing something, and we could go lots of places they couldn't go … unless they went with us.  They were always knocking at the door, “Um… can Daniel, … or Shae … or Brandon come out and play.”  It started to get out of hand.  So eventually, their grandma told them that they weren't allowed to knock on Me...

We haven’t written about Anya in a while, so I thought it was time to catch you up on what’s been happening to her.  You can read about her and the surgery she went through last year here .  Us with Anya at the beginning of school year Anya, was born with a deformed hip and one leg shorter than the other, so she’s always walked with a pronounced limp.  A year and a half ago, we learned that if she didn’t have surgery to repair some of these defects, then soon, her condition would start to degenerate and eventually she would be unable to walk.  So Doug, our team leader, started working on getting her that operation.  After months and months of hounding the doctors and trying to get the cooperation of the orphanage staff and Anya’s alcoholic mom, Doug got her into the hospital.  Then Anya sat in the hospital for a month before surgery happened. After all was said and done, the hospital didn’t do any physical therapy, so Anya’s recovery was only a fraction ...

So we haven’t been able to go into the orphanage in over a month.  It started out as a quarantine, which was planned a week in advance (I wish I could understand how that works).  Then, apparently, some group brought some food into another orphanage and kids got sick.  So every orphanage in the region was closed to visitors apparently.  I think part of it is the director, he wants to flex his muscle.  He’s also afraid of his superiors finding out so many people visit his orphanage (I’ve heard that is a very soviet thing, don’t draw attention to yourself).  And so on. But we haven’t seen most of the kids for over a month.  We’ve seen some of the kids when they come out and talk to us on the street just outside of the orphanage.  We’ve seen some in the hospitals, which is always a great time.  But I haven’t seen Sasha, Misha, and so many other kids in a long time. Me and Nadia, hanging out just outside the orphanage I miss them.  T...

Our team in Ukraine is doing something new.  We are using Doug’s Ukrainian organization, Children’s Hope and the Stoddards, the Ross's, and Meisha Dean are going to work on providing resources for Christians in Ukraine who want to provide homes for orphans.  And so we are starting to raise money through Children’s Hope Ukraine (check out our new website , but note that you can’t donate there yet). We know couples who want to or have already started transition homes. Couples like Slavic and Tanya. Our team met them last summer when we were looking for a couple to be house parents at Smile House. We unanimously agreed that they would be the ideal couple for the ministry. But someone in social services threatened to take their children away if they moved from Western Ukraine to Smile House. For a while, we were very disappointed by this turn of events. But slowly we came to realize that maybe it was for the best.  No matter what we wanted to help them in their ministry The...

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...

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...

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...

*** I’ve changed the names of the people in this story.  They have been through enough. I’m sitting in the hospital trying to put down my thoughts on all that happened today. And my feet are freezing. It’s strange that after all that’s gone on, that should cross my mind. But since this is where we end up, it’s kinda relevant. After all shouldn’t a hospital be warm? Even in Ukraine? ****** Jane moved to Komarivka last fall. Her husband had just been sent to prison for murder. She had a 6 year old daughter, Lucy, a 3 year old son, Evan. And a one month old baby, Matt. The girls heard about them one day when we were visiting the orphanage. Meisha and Janna went to visit them. They were staying in an apartment on the orphanage campus. And they had nothing. The clothing they were wearing was in rags.  They couldn’t afford to buy food so the baby was sick and constantly crying because he was starving. Immediately the girls got them some food. The next week we found cloth...

So this was the main focus of our last newsletter, but there is only so much you can say in one page, so Janna wrote that article and I wanted to kick off my return to writing for our blog by writing a great Christmas article … after Christmas in the States and Ukraine. Let just say I’m really early for next Christmas.  ********* I want to give you a little perspective before I go off telling these stories.  Two weeks ago Janna and I were at Safe Haven visiting with Anya and Bogdon.   We were getting ready to leave and they were headed to the store, and offered to give us a lift.  As we were putting on our shoes in the mudroom, Bogdon looked at some of the house shoes that were in the shoe rack, and noticed that about half of them were falling apart.  He told me that he wished he could buy everyone new house shoes for Christmas, but they were 40 griven each ($5).  I was thinking even in a house of 18 people $5 a piece isn’t that bad, but you could t...