Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Fall at St. Luke's

Greetings from Kiev,

The summer is over and the fall program has started.

In the summer we had a lot of great day trips – we went to see a 3D movie, several trips to McDonalds, museum trips, and several other entertainments.



Some of the kids from our families have started in school this fall and Bill and I were so lucky that we were invited to be with one of them on his first day in school - a great day for both us and for the child.




This fall we have expended our program to include having a “Mother’s Day Out” program every Wednesday. Just behind our St. Luke’s Family Center, we have a play ground, where a lot of mothers and grandmothers take their preschool age children to the playground every day. It is starting getting cold here in Kiev and we want to invite them to the center for a cup of coffee, a talk and for the children to play.

Another new activity is introduction of English classes and an English Club for the students at the university we have close to our center.

In addition, once a month we want to reach out to our neighbors for a to a cup of coffee, help the kids who need help with homework, sharing humanitarian aid, invite them in to a positive and healthy environment.

Besides our new program we are continuing mother and child groups for families at risk, a life skill program for older street children and we are also starting up life skill groups for the younger kids coming to our center.

The city government is continuing to work with us to provide names of families at risk so that we can help the children to stay in the families, build good relationships within the families and build up the mother’s self esteem.


We continue to see good progress in the families we are working with – both for the mothers and the children and the relationships between the mother and children.

The work project for those over 17 is continuing and we are doing well. Our challenge is to sell over products, so we can be self supported and we want to start a small business. If some of you would like to come and help us with this project you are more than welcome!


Thanks to a gift by a Rotary Club in Norway for the purchase of computers, we are also going to start a computer class for the oldest children this fall.

Hope you enjoy our greetings, pictures and up date!

Greetings from

St. Luke Family Center

Dosvitok

Helen

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Back in Kiev!

After 9 weeks and 2 days of sick leave, Helen is back in Kiev! She will still need to take it easy for the next two months as the doctor said it would take 3 to 4 months for her to fully recover from her serious bout with pneumonia. But she is glad to be back and just in time for the blooming of the chestnut trees in Kiev.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Helen has been cleared by her doctor and will return to Kiev on May 11!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Back in Kiev

Bill is back in Kiev, while Helen still recovers in Norway from a bout of severe pneumonia (see previous posts). Helen will go to the doctor on Monday, May 3, to see if she is ready to return to Kiev or will need some more time before she travels. Please keep her in your prayers!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Wellness and Volcanoes.

It's a bright, sunshiny day in Kragerø, Norway (no volcanic ash in sight) and Helen went to the doctor to get the results of her tests last week. The xray showed her lungs are clear, but the doctor wants her to be on sick leave for two more weeks and this includes no traveling. Now, Bill must try to find a way back to Kiev which is complicated by the erupting Icelandic volcano. After discovering that to go by train/bus/ferry would take at least three days and no guarantee of having a seat on some of the legs of the trip, Bill decided to wait and see if the plane flight issue resolves itself. He hopes he can catch a plane back by the end of the week. We shall see!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Bill is back in Norway after being in Kiev for one week for Easter services. Here is a a video that has pictures from our after church Easter fellowship and a few clips of some members wishing Helen to get better!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Doing better.

Helen is feeling better now, almost a week out of the hospital, but still some problems with breathing and being tired. She will continue on antibiotics for 3 more days, then take an xray after 2 more weeks of rest to see if her lungs are okay. If so, then she will return to Ukraine. Bill leaves for Ukraine in a few days.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Home from the Hospital

Helen came home from the hospital in Kragerø, Norway today and requested pizza. She enjoyed it and now has to take medicine for another week and rest for 2 weeks before she can return to Ukraine. Thanks for your prayers and concern.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Helen in Hospital.

While making a quick trip to Norway to get Russian visas and to speak to a Rotary Club in Oslo which is supporting the St. Luke's Family Center, Helen fell ill with pneumonia. She has been in the hospital for almost a week now in her home town of Kragerø. It was a very serious case, indicated by the bacteria count in her blood. Normal is 5 or less. When she entered the hospital, it was over 500. Over 100 is considered serious. The doctors immediately put her on intravenous antibiotics which she took until Saturday morning. She should be released from the hospital tomorrow, Monday, March 22. She will still take antibiotics in tablet form for 5- 10 days and then have rest at home for 2 weeks. After the rest period, they will check her lungs again to clear her for travel to Ukraine. The doctors said it could be 3-4 months before she feels 100%. Please keep her in your prayers and thoughts. Thanks for all the well-wishing on Facebook as well. Please click here for some pictures of her in the hospital, mostly after she was feeling better.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Winter creeping to a close.

Finally it looks as if winter may be starting to come to an end. Here are some pictures why we can hardly wait until Spring.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Blog Restart!

After a long break, this blog is being restarted!

First, a little update. The officially registered name of our ministry to homeless children and families at risk is known as “Dosvitok”. This is a Ukrainian word meaning Daybreak, but it is rarely used in modern speech and so is not widely recognized by the majority of the public. The church we started 2 years ago when we opened our new building is named St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, so we then informally called the ministry, the St. Luke’s Children’s Center.

The sign says St. Luke’s United Methodist Church and Family Center.

On the bottom is Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors, the official motto of the United Methodist Church.

In making our new sign, we decided to change the name to St. Luke’s Family Center because it reflects the shift of focus of our work. In large part due to the many active church groups and non-profit humanitarian organizations in Ukraine working with homeless children, orphans and other children at risk, the government in Ukraine in the past several years began to seriously look into the problem and start to work with these non-governmental agencies residing in Ukraine, including us. As stated earlier, the city’s Department of Juvenile Affairs gives us names of families whose children could be at risk of becoming homeless or semi-homeless.

Our daily schedule at the family center continues as before with two days a week devoted to our work project, where we simulate a small business of handicraft making. The project teaches such basic work skills such as being on time, not skipping work days, respect for others at the work place, working responsibly and doing quality work. The products made are now sold either in Norway or America in a restrictive market such as a missions festival, but in the future we hope we can compete in the Ukrainian market as a real business. The participants, our older homeless youth and mothers of the families we work with are becoming very creative in the products that are made, necklaces, bracelets and decorative candles, by looking at what people are wearing and what seems to sell in Ukraine and adjusting their designs accordingly. Some of the participants have never worked before and are now taking great pride in having a place to work.

Also the Mother and Child day has been expanded to 2 days a week, with Life Skill training for older youth, help with schoolwork for younger teens and elementary school age children, child care for preschoolers continuing on a daily basis.

The church is also doing well, with most of the members being participants in the family center. The church offers a midweek bible study now along with Sunday worship.

Bill now has more time to spend at the center and at St. Luke’s UMC as he is no longer District Superintendent of Ukraine. His term expired and at the 2009 Annual Conference a Ukrainian pastor, Sergei Bogomozyuk, is the new DS. He is pastor of one of our largest churches in Ukraine and is doing a great job in his new role as DS. Bill is now enjoying the extra time to concentrate on the St. Luke’s church.

Christmas was a special time this year as we had Christmas craft workshop on St. Nicholas’s day, Dec. 19 where we decorated candles, made Christmas ornaments, decorated gingerbread houses and indulged in a Norwegian Christmas tradition, having rice and cream porridge where 3 almonds has been placed in the big pot before all were served. Whoever found an almond got a special present! The adults enjoyed this as much as the children.

Christmas itself, celebrated on January 7, started with a worship service, continued with lunch and ended with a puppet theatre which was Leo Tolstoy’s story about the shoe maker who got a visit from Jesus. Changing the sanctuary into a dining room for 60 people proved to be a little challenge in our small room, but we managed to fit everyone in. Woody Wolfe, Beth Valentine and 4 others from Pennsylvania helped us celebrate and make this a day we would not soon forget. One of the mothers who goes to our Family Center said this was the best Christmas she had ever had.

It’s good to be back blogging and check back for future entries!