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!!!

Before and After

I know. I know many of you waited those pictures so long. I couldn't to do this blog post for a some reason. So, finally!

Here are pictures of renovated Zhenya`s house! Yay!

There are done so much!We have done some renovation of the house Here and Here. Zhenya and Kolya so happy they are safe, stay warm and their kiddies with loving parents. Amazing blessing!

We are so thrilled! Looked, what you have done for this sweet souls, saving them from cold! I hope it will encourage you how God is good and mighty!So, enjoy pictures of renovated Zhenya`s house now! :) 

God bless you, Friends!!!! ♥

Before and

After

Before and

 After

Before and

After

Package with school supplies

What a blessing we have got today!We have recieved a package with school supplies!There are a lot of of different stuff, pens, beautiful colorful pencils, 15 boxes of crayons, colorful construction paper, puzzles, foam reward stickers and many more.Look how is beautiful everything! I`m sure, children will love all these things.They love everything colorful!We are so exciting God provides needs of orphans!
We are so glad by this blessing!What a great and gracious our Lord Jesus!Thank you to being blessings for orphans in Ukraine!
Thank you everyone for prayers and donations! Thank you soooo much Alexia! :)
God bless you all!

The sunny and sweet ones

Children came back to study to schools in Ukraine.Schools and any universities begins their work the first of September, it does not matter which a day of the week(except of Sunday).So, orphans came back from their homes to orphanages, continue their education too.Some of them graduated from orphanages already.Some of them got to the orphanage first time ever and they do not know the life there, everything is new for them.The new orphanage skills they need to learn.
It is new beginning in this year for us too.We do not know what will bring it for us, what will happen in future.But we are happy we can continue to visit these kids and bring Gospel to them, bring hope and joy!

So, these sweet kids we did not see during summer time because of holidays.We missed them soooo much!
Last Friday we were able to visit them.A teacher let us know, when they just came back from holidays they asked when we will come to them?or will we visit them again?
Teacher called to us and asked us to come, because children did not give her calm. :)))Anyway we were going to visit them.But when the teacher let us know, it have inflamed our hearts more!
But yes!Can we wait? Is not amazing when someone wait to hear and know more about Jesus?Is not amazing to see and hug them?Is not a blessing to be with them, these sweet and sunny kids? Isn`t a joy to see them smile and happy?

When they saw us.They began to scream "Look at who came!!!" They all began to run to us like bees to honey.We huged one other.They took our bags and helped to carry it.Children pulled our clothes or hands and said:" let`s go, let`s go to a class". It was so sweet!
So,we continue our travelling over Bible histories.Last Bible history they heard about conquering of Jericho.So, we continued the next story about Joshua, of the day when the Sun stood still.

In the beginning we congratulated children who had birthdays in summer.Yes, we know it has gone a lot of time.But is it a problem for an orphan who waits for a gift? Is it a problem for those who never celebrate their birthdays(even at homes) and not recieve gifts?

When we just came into a class, they already began to say who had birthdays in summer!We knew it will happened. :) We took few more gifts than we usually take with ourselves.They already waited for gifts!

Here our sweet ones who had birthdays.They were so glad to recieve a gift!Thank you Sabrina, who blessed orphans with many toys!

When we told to them a Bible history, we used a flannel visualisation.

Also we took several kids, who acted of characters, warriors.And the girl was Sun, who stood still one moment.

They did good job!

After Bible story we learned a Bible verse.When we learned the verse ample well.Children needed to play a ball and say verse in one time.It was real fun for them!They liked to play it!

A craft was very simple at this time.The sun on wooden stick and Bible verse on back of sun.But glitter makes this crafts shining and nice.When children saw it, they said, WOW! You know how children LOVE something shining.

The job of this craft we divided by two parts.
Children colored suns by paint in the beginning.Suns already were pictured on papers.

Until our suns were drying, we could to play a game.We called it,  "Help the sun to shine!"

The sun was pictured on big sheet, without sunbeams.The all sunbeams were numbered.

Children chose a sunbeam they wanted and  answered on question by number was written there.The questions were about history of Joshua.

After that they placed a sunbeam on the sun.

They LOVED so much this game! Especial, placed sunbeams. Sunbeams have sticky tape.It is easy to place on sheet.But the sheet we have covered by usual scotch tape that easy to separate sunbeams and that we will use this game in other orphanages too.And we do not need to make it again and again and again to waste time and material.

Our finished sun.We placed a glitter a little on sunbeams.When is the sun, it shine nice.Children love it!

After this game, children could continue their craft, as it dry up already well.They placed glitter, wooden stick there and pictured eyes and smile of their sun.

Here our sunny ones.Are not they sweet?

We tired a little bit but happy we came back to our homes.We had amazing time with kids and we thankful to Jesus for it and for these wonderful, precious and sunny kids!