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We are taking multiple trips this year to Ukraine and we need people like you! This is a wonderful opportunity to help someone less fortunate than yourself. The children you will meet on these trips barely knew their families before they were brought to these cold orphanages, and you may be their only friend.
We Need People Who are Interested in:
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Being a friend and teaching a child
- Teaching or helping with Bible Lessons
- Leading or helping with small groups
- Playing games with children
- Diagnosing an orphan’s medical issue
- Teaching the orphans Life Lessons
- Proving to an orphan that they are loved
Ukraine has a very large population of orphans, mostly due to the former soviet union’s mentality that the government can raise a better child than a family ever could. Many parents have lost their rights to their children due to alcoholism or abuse. Some children are runaways, and some have just have bad luck and end up an orphan due to the death or misfortune of the parents. Ukraine has no such thing as “foster homes” so in most cities you will find orphanages filled with hundreds of children, with nobody to care for them, nobody to teach them, and nobody to guide them.
They do have “classes” in the orphanage, but after a life in a Ukrainian orphanage, a child will leave with the equivalent of a middle school education. They do have “food” in the orphanage, but if you ordered it in a restaurant, you’d send it back. They do have “clothes” in the orphanage, but none belong to any one child, they are all shared and constantly handed down. They do have “toys” in the orphanage, but there is always a bigger orphan just waiting for an excuse to beat up a little one and take his toys. Their is also fighting, smoking, drinking, hate, rape, theft, abortions, and way too many other things that the average 10 year old should never be a part of…
This is why we go.
We try to show the children that they are loved. We play games with them and help them make new friends. We talk with them like a parent, which they likely have never had. We show them that we love them, and that God loves them. We teach them about the dangers of smoking, and drinking. We explain the needs of education. We teach them about money, and saving, and budgeting. We teach them the difference between good and evil, and how to lead a good life. We teach them bible stories and make crafts with them to remind them that though their life may seem sad and difficult now, God has a plan for them. We help them focus on a plan for their life and show them the path they could take to get there. We help them… and we teach them… and we love them.