Heartbreaking truth

Honestly I don't know from what to start... Because I feel sad and heartbreaking. It hurts and disappoints. I simply can not find words.

A while ago we raised funds for Sudarik family. They had a great need with housing. They had no where to go with their sweet newborn Artem!

We were super excited that so many people generously donated! Also we were able to find an apartment very soon and we could to renovate a little to prepare the lovely nest. Very soon precious Artem arrived to lovely, warm and safe home. It was such amazing and such a wonderful blessing!!! Our hearts were full with pure joy for this sweet family! We were so very happy they were safe, saved from hunger, terrible cold, had lovely nest and all together with their newborn son. We saw God`s hand in many small details! Our joy was no end!!!

But Ruslan and Marina suffered. Like a lot of young families, they were not ready to live together... They suffered emotionally very much. Quarrels, fights, tears, disagreement, etc. We helped as best we could. Gave consultation, advised, prayed, fasted. But one day Marina just left the home... Since then, we have not seen her any more. We tried to find her to drive to other cities, call, trying to find any connection. But all this is to no avail. :( All that we know. Marina is alive and her son Artyom with his mother. Both Ruslan and Marina live separately.

It breaks my heart... I`m sad that we could not save this family. I know we can not save all. We can not help all around. But knowing both young people in person, it is heartbreaking... Their wounded hearts only Jesus Christ can heal. Only through Him they will be able to forgive each other. Only in Him they can find rest in the souls and hearts.Please, remember them both in your prayers!

But the apartment is not empty. :) Today there live two wonderful young people, who have nowhere to go. Vova and Sasha are very pleased that the Lord has given them housing. Also often other young men stay for a night, few days or weeks, who need a temporary help to stay somewhere.

 Recently we were approached by a young man, who asked to stay temporarily. Because the dormitory of trade school, where he studies is closed for the summer and he has nowhere to go. 

Cause of God does not stop! This house became a refuge and safety for many young people already. :)

We are so very grateful, who helped before and today still helps that not only Sasha and Vova, but other young guys have a place, where to lay their heads! A sweet and lovely place where they feel safe and warm in cold seasons!

Huge enormous thank you for your kindness and generosity! Many thanks for your kindness and loving heart for these young men! Many young people simply have nowhere to go! Many of them are simply homeless. Thank you! Thank you very much that you are such a great blessing to them!

They called him Yaroslav

This precious little boy, Nadya`s son is called Yaroslav. He was born 2 weeks ago. The little boy is at home a week already. He is absolutely healthy and growing fast. Nadya feels great also. Praise God!

Isn`t he precious and cute?

We are amazed by the goodness and mercy of God!

Nadya, the first person in the local clinic, who is having a big hernia on her back could have absolutely healthy baby and give birth safely. Wow!The very next day after the surgery, she had a caesarean section. She were able to stand up and take the baby in her arms.

Several months ago, it was a serious test for her family. Nadia had terrible pain and she could not move at all. An one and a half months she lay in bed and could not get up. Nothing helped her. It was so terrible condition she was crying and screaming in pain sometimes. Nadia said, it would be easier to give birth 3 times again, although it was a difficult first birth, rather than endure the pain in her back. :( The doctors could not and did not know how to help. They thought that after giving birth, she will become disabled and the rest of her life to hold in a wheelchair.

But God is so very good and merciful! Through many prayers He made a real miracle! Now Nadya helps mothers, who have a same problem. Who knows. Whether not for this purpose God made this miracle?

 "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 

(2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

We thank and praise God! Only He could make wonders where people are helpless!

Retreat for moms

I`m so very excited to share with you what an amazing retreat we had with moms 2 weeks ago!

Our goal was to show the beauty of Ukrainian mountains, Karpaty, show the culture of west of Ukraine, to live together as a Christian family, pray and read the Bible together, to show the importance of spiritual growth in Christ and to have the Bible's teaching about the behaviour of children and just have a great time. We have seen that moms have difficulties in raising children. Not surprising. After all, they grew up in orphanages and do not know what a family should be and how to bring up children in the light of the Bible.

So, after years of praying our dream came true!
Since it was the first of their journey. Moms did not know what to take with you. We explained what things they must take for themself and the kids that do not need to take as well, teach how many things could have been taken and how to have more space in suitcase, if necessary, etc. Everyone was very excited!
We all packed up and hit the road!Our van was full!

On the way, often was visible fields of red poppies. Indescribable beauty!

Finally, after a long road we started to see mountains and beautiful mountain rivers. Yay!

Usually they are not deep. 20 centimeters(7,8 inches).  But after the long  downpours, the water in the rivers can go up and up to a meter(393,7 inches) or more. Often in the spring when the snow melts, the rivers are so full-flowing and out from the banks that the wash away houses.

Finally, we  started to climb to the house where we were supposed to stop. Since the girls were delighted with the beauty of the mountains and photographed every "corner and a tree". We arrived 1.5 hours later than planned. Ha -ha! But that is fine. We enjoyed to see happy moms :)

Visible the beauty from our house.

All are tired and rather get hungry.The hostess was waiting for us and cooked a delicious supper.

People living in the West of Ukraine are very hospitable, industrious, and pious. The culture in each region is different and it is interesting to study and know the culture of each region. Looking ahead I would like to say, our hostess was very fond of our children and mothers. We agreed for one price. But she decided to drop us some $ 0.5. So we paid $ 4.00 for two times meals a day per person, and $ 2.80 per stay, per day and night per person. Great!

We have many times witnessed her about the love of the Lord. She loves to listen. And of course, she was present with us, when we prayed and read the Bible together every morning. What a blessing!

In the first part of the day we watched and enjoyed the beauty of God's creation.

The sisters were delighted and amazed with the beauty! Wow! Wow! How beautiful! This is amazing!We always could hear. It was such a blessing to see them happy! :)

We went up on a not high mountain with kids.

I love the mountains very much! Their greatness and beauty is mesmerizing and makes you speechless. You admire their majesty and power.

Edick was like in the Heaven! Ha ha! It was so much fun and the space to run around!

Everywhere you go, you can see such a fence and bridge or crossing for the people. Fence is for cows, sheep and horses have not gone into the woods. A the crossing for people. What is interesting is that in this area people do not grow veggies because the soil is rocky. So many products have to buy. Therefore, instead of the gardens near the houses everywhere are visible lush green grass. So, you can safely go through someone's yard without worrying that they will yell at you. What is not in other parts of Ukraine. When will you go into someone's yard without permission, you will have problems. :)

But in the other half of the day we had the Bible's teaching about parenting and behaviour of kids in the light of the Bible.

During Bible teachings, we(I and Oksana) nursed and played with children that mommies could quietly listen, without draw attention away from little ones.

Edick, why are you gathering daisies?

 This is for Sofia, he replied smiling. And he given these lovely wildflowers to this little beauty.

She smelled the flowers and smiled sweetly. 

I love it, when the kids are in the nature and flowers. When they are introduced to the work of God and more learn about the world around them. It's so wonderful when they fall into the grass, breathe in aromatic flowers, breathe fresh air, jump, run and just frolic.

One day we got on a lifter to see the beauty of the mountains. All adored and admired this indescribable beauty!
- Zhenya, turn your face so that I could take a picture of you.
- No! No! I can not! Do not move, please! We are going to fall down! How I will jump off? Maybe they stop and I will jump out?  
Oh, my! She was scared to death! Honestly, it was so funny to hear what she was saying. We were side by side and helped her to sit down on lifter and jump out. All was good. :)

But when we were returning. Zhenya was overjoyed! She rejoiced and was so excited!!! 
- Oh, this is so beautiful! Wow! I`m amazed! :) Such a funny sweet girl. 

Precious young ladies

All the girls were so excited and amazed! They thanked many times a day. They jumped, they delighted and were overjoyed!
I love this picture! Smile of Anya and her joy. So priceless.

Moms were so happy that jumped even with the children! :) And kids loved it! Ha-ha!

We also saw several waterfalls.

Zhenya was afraid to cross the river on the little bridge. In spite of the terribly cold water she anyway decided to go barefoot to the other side. Funny, funny girl.

We also had the opportunity to feed the animals in the small zoo. Joy was not the end! All loved to feed of the deer from hands! It was such a pure joy. :)
Look at this precious smile of Yana. She was so excited!

Everyone wanted to take a picture in a national Hutsul costumes. It was funny. Edick is so funny in a big shirt. As the hostess could not find clothes for the little ones. Nevertheless, the photo turned out cute. :)

Moms were so, so, so very happy about this trip!!! We all had a great time!!! 

We were able to breathe clean air. I said, clean our lungs. Because in our city the air is not clean and it influence on health. The air in Karpaty is so clean and full of oxygen, the first day when we arrived I was terribly attracted to sleep! It felt like I had not slept for several days! :) Oh. It was difficult to "fight" for me with my body. All slept very soundly, and despite the fact that we got up early, everyone felt great. Even the kids behaved like something different. :) The young ladies learned a lot of information, what the Bible says about the education of children, etc. Some had to rethink their Christian life and start all over from scratch. It was such a great blessing to hear they want to live the right life before Christ!

The Lord has blessed us with wonderful weather and everything arranged. The young ladies could see a lot of beautiful God`s creations. "This is the most amazing trip of our lives! We will never forget, it will remain in our hearts and memories forever and we are so grateful to those, who made this possible!" all girls  repeated often. No one wanted to leave... All of them asked, can we stay a few more days, please? :)

We are so very thankful to a family in U.S., who made it possible and blessed mothers to have this amazing retreat!!!

But this is not all.

When we went there the brother Misha noticed that something was wrong with the car. He thought that the clutch broke but was not sure. So he was driving with caution.When we got home and the car was put into repair. We learned that the clutch broke. Oh. A man at car service told us that we needed almost $500 for repair. Wow! "Lord, we have no such money for remount, help please!"On the same day the Lord has sent $ 250 for the van! Awesome! And do you know what? It was enough to repair the clutch! Yes, we have more damages, but we can drive safely. :)  

But the most surprising is that a man, who works in the service many years, was greatly shocked and we also. When he took apart our van, he asked. "Tell me, how did you drive here? This disk is broken completely?! You did not have to drive at all!" Brother Misha said, "See, but I came to you" The man asked again, "how many kilometers did you drive, when you have noticed that clutch is broken?" Misha said, about 1200 kilometers(745 miles) more. The man did not belive him and replied. "No, no! It is impossible! I`m working here 20 years already and it is first time ever I see such a broken disk and you could to drive?!"

The angel of God held a broken disk, clutch, while we were all days there, the full van 14 souls, including a baby in belly of Olga. 

 Our Lord is sooooo very good and great, who loves and keeps safe His children! Can you imagine what would happened with all passengers in van including kids??? Wow! The Lord is always near! He knows all our needs and wants us always, always trust ONLY HIM alone! He is great! He is AMAZING! He is ALONE almighty God!!! Praise Him!!!

Gifts to Graduates

A month ago I was so very busy that had no time to make a blog post to raise funds for graduates. It was left few days before our last meetings with graduates and Last Bell ceremony.

I began to count days and we still did not have money. We began to pray asking our loving Father for a miracle. We needed around $1200. Honestly, I began to nervous a little as we had only few days! Do you know what?! Just in few days God provided funds through at one sweet family! Wow! Wow! Amazing!!!
So, we were able to buy Bibles,  kitchen utensils, blankets for 60 graduates! This was awesome blessing! We were super excited and praised God!

So, we were able to hold last meetings sharing with teens about God`s love.Brother Kevin(who spent several weeks with BOM), could share his testimony as well.

And in the end BOM could to bless graduates with beautiful gifts.

I love how this guy cherish his gift :)

So priceless! ♥

In one of orphanages we were at Last Bell ceremony, where brother Misha could give last guidance and encouragement from the Bible to graduates. It was sad to see that from 17 graduates of this orphanage only 5 relatives came to congratulate the kids. Can you imagine the sadness in their hearts? But we were blessed to encourage them. They were so glad to see us at this ceremony! :)

The most wonderful blessing about 10 young people in different orphanages, asked Jesus Christ to saved them and change their lives!It was so wonderful to see how they did not hesitate and shy of the classmates to become  on their knees before God! How great!

 It was wonderful to meet teachers, who taught me when I got to this orphanage at age 9 years old. And meet my classmate as well. It was sweet time of fellowship. It was such a wonderful opportunity to share about Jesus Christ what he did in my life!

Praying for these sweet kids that God`s seeds planted in their hearts will bring fruit of Spirit some day.Hoping to meet them someday...

We are so grateful to a sweet family, who blessed these precious teens with such a beautiful gifts! We are amazed and humble with goodness and mercy of God, who takes care of our needs. He is always faithful, even when we are not faithful. He is great!!! He is worthy of praise!!! Jesus Christ is only alone alive God!!!

Fun for girls

Several weeks ago we took one more group of girls out of the orphanage to have fun and eat in McDonald`s. They were so excited to come and could not await this very special day! :)And finally it happened. Yay! 

Most of the girls are 33 years old and they have never been in the city! It is hard to believe...The orphanage is located in a village, where  is absolutely nothing for entertainment. All the more so girls can not go beyond the orphanage. Their whole life is a small walled territory. Therefore, they were a little scared hum and noise of cars, tall buildings and wide streets. They were afraid to go and held hands.

When they turn 35, they will be sent to a asylum for adults, where they will spend the rest of their life. These places nobody to visit and the elderly die of distress and loneliness. :( The young ladies know about it... What they will be sent to the asylum and stay there forever. 

Therefore it is one of our goals bring joy to their lives when it is possible.

So, we had such an awesome day!We went to a big store to buy some fruit and sweets. At the same time they learn how to use the weights.

They looked curiously different animals in a zoological store. And they were delighted and long laughed when they saw clothing for pets, in particular for dogs. Why do people dress up the dogs, they asked? :)

Here, as always, we had a problem. Girls terribly afraid to take the step of moving escalator. We had to help them :)

We had so, so much fun! They screamed, they laughed,they jumped from a joy and excitement at this day.
It was super impressive to drive on cars! ;)

They loved it!

The young ladies learned how to play bowling

It was super joy, when they got the target! Yay!

They loved to go down on a trampoline!

 The faces are simply radiant!

So, so much fun!

They liked so much a carousel as cars up and down! So they rode twice! Ha ha!

Finally McDonalds! Awesome! The first McDonald's in life! We taught them how to use a straw to drink. Since they first ever drank Coca Cola, the girls were asked what it was. :)  We showed how to eat french fries, mcchicken, chicken mcnuggets, how to use napkins. The orphanage do not have them there and nobody uses. They were overjoyed to eat in McDonald`s!

Here is the video of their delight :)

The young ladies hugged, kissed and thanked hundreds times for this special day in their lives! They said, it was most amazing day in their lives!!! Wow! What a great impact in their lives! It is such a great joy to see happy these sweet young ladies. It is such a great blessing to make them happy through little kind of kindness, make their faces alight with happiness and see asparkle eyes. How wonderful and awesome!!!!