Bunk Beds!

With summer fast approaching we're prepping for having more kids over in our apartment more often. Typically during the school year we have kids come over on most weekends. During the summer months many of them have no where safe to be and so we have some stay with us for a good portion of the summer. With SP coming home in the next couple weeks, we're adding another body to the mix as well.

Beds in our apartment have kind of been a scarce commodity since we moved here... Melissa slept on a pool floaty on the floor for months. :) We finally purchased a bunk bed last year for Melissa and Anika's room and are currently working on adding a couple more good bed spaces. Annie's bed is essentially a padded table and the bed the kids use the most is a bit pathetic. Today we shopped around a bit for a bunk bed for the kids and a mattress for Annie's bed. We'd like to be able to accommodate as many kids as comfortably as we can and a bunk bed definitely help! We even looked at some standing closets to store clothes, towels, blankets and such [closets aren't built in here and our apartment didn't come very furnished].

We don't have much extra money in our budget to spend on bunk beds and mattresses or closets. The bunk beds in the picture will cost about $450 [including mattresses], a mattress for Annie's bed will be around $100, and a closet would be somewhere between $175-$250. Bunks and the mattress are our biggest needs right now and we would love your help in getting them! If you'd like to contribute to helping us buy some furniture you can donate through PayPal or by mail [all the info is to the right]. Just put in a note that you'd like to help with apartment furniture. Any amount is helpful! And if you also can't afford Ukrainian furniture, we'd appreciate your prayers! :)

Prayer Needed for Orphanage Ministry!

For the past year or so we've had some problems getting in to do ministry at the Pravdinska orphanage. Basically Ukraine changed the way you can be approved for visits to the orphanage and they are now requiring registration as the Ukrainian equivalent of a non-profit. In the past our American registered non-profit has been sufficient for us to work under but now we needed more. Some good friends of ours, Andrew and Jenny Kelly, run an organization called Jeremiah's Hope. They do similar work with orphans and graduates, own a camp outside of Kiev and run an amazing ministry there. At the end of last year they graciously offered to take us under their organization for the sake of saving time and money in registering Open Arms here in Sumy. We've been working since then to put together the necessary documents and meetings to get us back into the Pravdinska orphanage and hopefully other orphanages in the Sumy region.

Tomorrow morning we've got a scheduled phone call with the head of the department of education in Sumy. The phone call is to make sure this woman has time and will hopefully allow us a meeting tomorrow to go over our documents and begin the paperwork for allowing us back into the orphanages for visits. Please be in prayer for us as we prepare for the meeting, whether it turns out to be tomorrow or later. We're nervous as this meeting could define our future in ministry in the orphanages in Sumy! 10pm California time is when we'll be making the call to find out about the meeting. Watch the Twitter for updates and please keep us in prayer!

Korshachin

Last week I had an opportunity to take part in a program our friends from a local church carried at a village called Korshachin. It is a small village 40 minutes outside of Sumy. They had been attending to the children for a few years now, & I’d been very curious to join them for their next trip. All I knew - was that there are about 30 kids that are all attending one school in the village, & that the director of the school is very open.

First impression about the village – is its devastated infrastructure. Abandoned farms & crooked small houses are “complimented” by weeds on the sides of a very bad road… Seeing this picture you know what to expect from meeting the local kids – wrong size clothing & distanced behavior. & as soon as you’re out of the car – you see that you were absolutely right about the clothing, but just as absolutely wrong about the behavior. The material need there is huge. On a pretty chill day some kids wore slippers, some wore jackets that must had been worn by their parents... Their clothes are all ridiculous & old & torn... & at the same time - those were some of the most open & friendly children I’d ever met.

We carried our program, doing games, songs & a short movie. Later, as the children were watching the movie, some of us went outside & hid 55 small plastic bags all over the school territory. The kids had to break into two teams & find all the bags that contained some candy & small bit of the Easter story printed on a piece of paper. Later they all had to put together the story in the proper order & tell it as they know it. It was really amusing to watch.

I made friends with a new boy that nobody knew. He looks like he’s 4, but I was told he is 6. He had a torn & fixed, torn & fixed (repeat that ten more times) dirty jacket, & a fresh scratch on his face. It took me over half an hour to get a word out of him, but after that he told me that his name was Andrii, told me about his family & what he likes to do.

It was heartbreaking to think that our small few-hour long activity was such a bright & big gig in the eyes of these children. At the end we gave them each a bag with some fruit & they all went home. Having met some of the parents – it is even more heartbreaking to think what their homes are like. The scarcity the people of that village live in is pretty serious. & all of it - no jobs, no decent income & very poor cultural education of these families - is what these children are surrounded by.

But the greater need is still - the redemption that the Only Son of God can offer.