The Old New Year is celebrated in Ukraine as the Orthodox churches follow the Julian Calendar, which has New Year's Day on Jan 14 and Christmas Day on Jan 7. The Protestant, Catholic and Greek Catholic churches, however, celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25. Since New Year's and Old New Year's Days are celebrated by everyone, in essence Ukraine has 2 Christmas's and 2 New Year's. Very nice arrangement, actually.
Today, Helen was attending the Mother and Child group we have for famil at risk, a new program at our center. Since it was the Old New Year, she asked the mother's how they celebrated New Year's Day. The mothers were enthusiastic about replying, hoping to help educate the foreigner and explained how a Ukrainian New Year should be celebrated with a big New Year's day tree, lots of presents under the tree, relatives in attendance, plenty of good food and then at midnight, opening the presents. (Ukrainians celebrate New Year's similarly to the way Christmas is celebrated in many western countries). The mothers agreed, yes, that was the way to celebrate New Years.
But then Helen asked, how did you celebrate New Years this year at your house? The mothers fell silent and then one offered,
"Well, we really didn't have much money for food and presents. Plus, my brother who lives with us in the two room apartment along with my mother and 4 children, uses New Years as an excuse to get drunk. Actually, he uses any holiday as an excuse to get drunk. As usual, he gets angry, hits me, tries to hit the children. I try to stand in the door to prevent him from coming into our room. This year, he also threw up on the floor and the two youngest slipped and fell in his vomit."
Another mother then said, "yes, my husband does the same thing. Uses the holidays as an excuse to get drunk. But I told him he better not hit me again or I would leave. That scared him a bit. Usually, we just leave the house when he gets this way. He ruins every holiday."
It's families-at-risk like these that have a likelihood of the children running to the streets to escape the chaos at home. Please pray for this new ministry in order to give families the spiritual support and coping skills to so that the families can remain intact.
