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!

Update from Helen

Greetings from Ukraine!

God is good and God loves Street Children are two phrases I believe in and have experienced especially the last ten years and I want to share with you all.

Two years ago we were so happy and blessed that we were able to buy a part of a building in Kiev for our street children ministry and in January 2008 we moved in to our new building. Since that, we have felt God’s presence in a special way.

Let me share for you some of our experiences:

Our main focus is on the street children, we have more and more children coming to us and we have seen the need of giving our older kids some work experience along with lot of other things.
In Fall 2008, we were asked by the local government in our area to also open our center to families at risk. We said yes to their request and we have now contact with about 10 new families in our area. The mothers are sending their children to after school activities and participating themselves in mother and children workshops we are providing.
During the Wednesday morning workshop, we have mothers and children coming to our center involved in doing activities together. We also provide a separate group for the mothers where we are discussing different topics to help them in their daily family life, talking about how to be a mother and what it means to more effectively raise their children.
The kids love to come to the center, they like to play with each other, listen to stories, do activities and have the possibility to play with all the toys we have at the center.

Afterwards, we eat lunch together, drink coffee and have time to fellowship with each other.

Our “After school group” starts when school is over. First, we eat dinner together before we help them with their homework or tutor them with subjects they find difficult. We have different activities such as a cooking class, model building and life skill groups. We also take trips to get to know our city play the card game UNO, table tennis and table football (foosball).

We have a lot of fun together.

We still continue working with street children and also homeless young adults. Now we have two main groups: those over 17 who have been in our program for several years and those 17 and younger. In the coming days we are going to start a work project for the young adults, teaching them to get and hold a job. We are going to introduce for them three possibilities of work options – creating and selling handicrafts, maintenance and babysitting. We will set up a “company”, and a part of the new project will be to help them to learn what it means to work responsibly. We will have contracts with each person, helping them to spend their money and how to save money. We are excited about this new opportunity for ministry.
For the street children, we continue to be a bridge between life on the street and a healthy home environment. We have Life Skill programs, cooking classes and individual counseling sessions. We help them to gather essential documents, provide a place where they can wash their clothes, buy new clothes for them when the seasons change, take them to hospitals when necessary, among a lot of other things. And always we are attempting to locate a stable family environment for them, whether back at home, with relatives or a good institution.
Every Sunday we invite all of our kids and families to our worship service and today we have 40 people coming to church.
We want to be an oasis for the people coming to our center and a place where we challenge each other to grow as people. 

Thank you for your support and you are always welcome to come see us in Kiev!

Happy Old New Year

In Ukraine, you celebrate all the holidays you can get, especially in the middle of not just the Worldwide Financial Crisis, but a Gas Crisis!

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.

Update coming soon!

I know, I know, I need to update this blog!   A major update is coming next week.  Lots of changes in the Street Children Ministry, exciting ones!  Stay tune.

Summer Update (part 2)

The girls we referred to in the last post (see below) - their stepfather who had lived with them also has died of complications from alcoholism just this past Friday.   Please pray for the girls, they have had quite a lot of loss and upheaval in their lives. 

We visited them at their new home at the Ark and they were very pleased with their new home as all three girls live in the same room with a separate shower and toilet.   They miss their mother, home and friends of course, but the environment for them is much better.

Those of you who have visited Kiev know Sasha, who along with her brother Sergei, has been a regular of our center for several years.   Her mother is also very sick in the hospital, with not a good prospect of survival.   Sasha is very upset and would appreciate the prayers of her friends abroad.

Summer Update!!

Helen and I are back from vacation in Norway and it is time to update this neglected blog.  The above picture is from Skåtøy, one of the little islands (7.4km long) in the fjord near Helen's hometown of Kragerø, where we had a nice relaxing summer vacation, riding bicycles, swimming and seeing friends.  There was even a fence painting project as well.

The Summer before vacation was busy and tragic for three of our youngest children-at-risk, regulars at our center.  The mother of these three girls, ages 8, 10, and 13 died of complications of alcoholism.   These three girls, along with their 1.5 year old brother, grandmother and uncle lived in a one room apartment.   After the mother died, Ukrainian social services took the girls as neither the grandmother, nor the uncle, nor any of three adult sisters wanted to take responsibility for them.   The 1.5 year old brother went straight into a toddler's orphanage. The father(s) of the girls whereabouts are unknown,  so there was no-one to take them.  Social services were thinking they had no choice but to split the girls up into different state orphanages with no one to assume guardianship. But there is a good side to this story!  

Many of you know the Ark, a Christian Rehabilitation Center run by two Americans, Jane Hyatt and Barbara Klaiber, with whom we have a close relationship.  We got in touch with them and after negotiations with Social Services, the girls are now residing at the Ark.   The guardianship question still has to be resolved, but for now, the girls are living together, in a great environment.  Please pray for them and for the guardianship question.  Also, pray for the younger brother and that the girls can keep in touch with him.

Partners in Mission

From May 9-19 we were privileged to have a mission team from Peachtree City United Methodist Church with us, interacting with our youth, helping us with repairs on two apartments that two of our young men have been given and participation in worship with St. Luke's UMC.  These folks hail from Peachtree City, Georgia and brought with them a wide range of mission experience.   Below is a picture of some of the group worshipping with us on Sunday at St. Luke's UMC.

Led by missions pastor Stephen Soulen and member Ted Reissing, one of the big helps of the group was to do some repairs on the apartments two of our street children, now young men, have received from the city government after we helped them to file the documents necessary to prove their being without family.   Athough the apartments are in a new building, the construction quality is not the best and some needed repairs were made on one of the apartments.  A broken door was repaired, a new sink and tub faucet installed and a good cleaning job was done in the apartment.  

While the apartment was being repaired, the rest of the group interacted with the children at the St. Luke's center, involving them with crafts, games and other fun.   One member of the team, Debra Shoaf, helped complete sewing a worship banner which is a cross with hands on it.  The hands are outlines of the children who attend the St. Luke's center's activities.

At the end of the time they had with us, the group took the kids to the Kiev Botanical Gardens where the lilacs were in bloom.  All had a wonderful time and we all deeply appreciated the time Peachtree City spent with us.