Christmas is the time, when things just begin ...
Dear brothers and sisters,
Thank you for being such a blessing to our children and to us, for your continued support of our ministry to orphans through participating in their lives. Thank you very much for providing all finances, so that we could have time and devote ourselves entirely on serving the orphans and literally endure together with them all the joys and difficulties of their hard and sometimes very bitter life!
My heart overflows with gratitude for everything that you have already done over the years! Thousands of children and hundreds of adults heard about the Lord, about His love and mercy. Many of the children pray to Jesus! I believe that God will definitely hear sincere children’s prayers. The children look forward to our weekly meetings, just as we do. Sure enough, all the kids are especially looking forward to Christmas and the Christmas performance. They say that it brings them joy and warmth in their hearts. They start believing in miracles that God performs on Christmas. It is about these miracles that I want to share now!
Christmas in orphanages
In fact, in our country Christmas was replaced with the New Year holiday. It turns out that in the Christian country, children and adults know nearly nothing about Christmas, about Who was born, and most importantly – why! This is too sad and even counterintuitive, but it is what it is, and we have to work with it. God has entrusted us to work not only with our families, but with hundreds of children that have no parents who could tell them about the One Who for their sake left heaven, and covered the longest distance in the universe – the distance from God to man. We know that only those who love you, will go that far for you. There are no distances for love, it overcomes everything and nothing can stop it.
These are many good and right words, but how we can convey them to the hearts of children who have lost the most important thing in life. This world is loud with so many words, which no one believes or listens to anymore.
Therefore, every year our team, with your help, prepares a new play about Christmas. This year, the Christmas performance, was supposed to come to life right before the eyes of the children and adults, as I am sure that Christmas is for everyone. This year we based our performance on a famous cartoon “Chip and Dale”. A rescue team tried to save Christmas from the clutches of the villains. However, in reality, neither the rescuers nor the villains knew what Christmas was all about. The rescuers thought they were “white and fluffy”, but in reality, they had many character issues and were arguing all the time. When they seemingly failed the Christmas rescue mission, they found a huge book that spoke about Who came into this world and why. Then the team finally realized that Christmas did not need to be rescued; on the contrary, it rather rushes to the rescue of everyone who opens his or her heart to it.
Our successes and victories
In total, we showed 25 performances – this is a certain record-breaking number! Thank God that every year we are able to reach more children and expand the ministry to orphans. Out of 25 performances, we showed 14 in orphanages, 5 in the churches, and 6 in various institutions and children’s clubs. Never before have we staged so many performances at distant orphanages. Some of them are located 500 kilometers from our city. During the long trips, we managed to arrange a meeting and seminar for volunteers from the Republic of Khakassia, who are going to visit us in February to gain experience in working with orphans. And, we hope, they will begin such ministry in their region.
During our performances, we gave about 700 gifts to the orphans. Thank you, dear brothers and sisters, for your participation in collecting gifts. Our churches also actively participated in this good cause.
This year we made a video for social networks with the purpose of telling people about orphans, about the children’s dreams that we, adults, can make come true. Through this video, we wanted to tell the children that they were very dear to us. The short movie called An Extraordinary Dream attached to this report was about two boys who swapped places. One went to live in an orphanage, and the other went to live in a family. We also placed Christmas banners in several cafes in the city so that people could take part in collecting gifts for orphans, and visit the foundation’s website and see what we do, and participate in the charity.
Our Christmas tour lasted for 15 days, December 15 through December 30.
Preparing a performance with rehearsals, gifts collection normally takes more than a month.
Thanks to your support, we can do this and fulfill a good quality Christmas project!
Apart of orphanages, we visited different villages with our Christmas performance. You may not believe what we experienced there– we saw the children who were hungry for communication and attention from adults. When they watched the performance, they fully enjoyed it and did not want to leave. The visit to one village in particular was special for my heart. About a hundred children live there, having nothing to do. I would really want to find someone there to work with them: play, ski, skate, and, most importantly, show them Christ.
Our team family
When we do any work together as a team, we always think about each other. I have long noticed that children behave not the way we teach them, but the way we show them as adults how we treat each other. The orphaned children see the way we communicate as a team, helping, thanking, accepting and forgiving each other. Our team is growing stronger because it is the work of our God! More and more volunteers want to participate, and it is especially great when these volunteers are those who grew up in orphanages, and were taken into Christian families of our brothers and sisters. It is also very gratifying that our wives and children are also involved in the ministry.
I am grateful to God to be a part of such a wonderful team. They are great people because each of them has a big and loving heart. I am amazed with their talents, faith and humbleness. We learn from each other, and like spending time together, feeling not passage of time. First love the one who is next to you, then you will be able love the one who is far!
Nikita gave his most expensive Christmas gift
Nikita has been in an orphanage for about two years. He has a skin-related illness that gives him pain and discomfort. Due this, the boy feels insecure. We met him at the Champion camp, where Nikita accepted Christ into his heart. He has changed a lot over these two years and grew into an open and confident young man. At Christmas, he was waiting to see all of us, and not at all because of the gift.
Here is a story. As we were collecting Christmas presents, we came to know that one person donated 150 expensive wireless headphones. We needed to understand what to do, as this quantity would not suffice for all the children, and we can make someone offended. Besides, there was a possibility that some children could sell them and buy alcohol and cigarettes. Finally, we agreed that we would give the headphones in the end of the school year to children who actively participated in Bible lessons.
It provoked me to think about what I do with the gift of salvation that the Lord gave me. He did it for me, and no one can take it away, yet, it is my responsibility how I deal with it. I remembered how often I exchanged fellowship with Jesus for sin. I remembered how I betrayed the One, who is always faithful; I remembered how I would sell my blessings and salvation. Nevertheless, God did not take away what He gave, and continued to give mercy and another chance to me, although He knew that I would fail again.
So, I came up with a thought, who was I to decide that these boys and girls did deserve those expensive headphones, which were bought by a person unknown to me. Thus, we decided to donate these headphones to several orphanages, where children will be especially happy with them.
Nikita lives in one of the orphanages where all the teenagers received headphones as a gift. We always take the number of gifts according to the number of the children and some spare ones. But it so happened that we missed one for a boy. It might be that one of children of the staff teachers was there, when we gave them away.
The boy was very upset. And our Nikita gave him his gift.
We told Nikita that he acted like Jesus, like a true man and promised to bring him another gift. Nikita said that for him the main thing was not the gift itself, but our friendship and love that we gave to all children.
Only some two hours later Nikita wrote to me, saying that he was upset to know that the boy to whom he gave his gift, sold, and sold it for nothing. Ha was very ashamed of the boy treating our gift like that and did not appreciate it at all.
This gave us a chance to talk with Nikita about the most expensive gift God gave us for Christmas. I asked Nikita to talk to that boy about what Christmas is about and that the gifts that we brought were from our hearts and someone paid a high price for them. Nikita promised to talk to him.
God works in the lives of Nikita and other children, changing their character and values, and it is delightful to see. Of course, we did bring Nikita another gift, but the very story of his beneficence and care for his neighbour touched our hearts!
Miracle always has a name!
Every year, at Christmas, the Lord performs something especially interesting and incredible in our ministry! It is like His Christmas gift to our team. This happens unpredictably and, in each such story, God reveals Himself to us in a new way, saying that He is always there.
Before each performance, I talked with the audience in order to prepare the children for the show and to feel their mood. I asked if they have true friends, and as they answered positively, I asked another question, how far they or their friends have traveled for the sake of their friendship. Many went silent and then I told them about the One who was born 2024 ago, Who has covered the greatest distance for each of them, having come all that way!
While we were holding performances and traveling long distances, our Lord, went even further, acting through of a large family from Krasnodar…
There is an orphaned girl. Her name is Dasha, and she is 18 now. I have known Dasha for about seven years. She is very lowly and not talkative. Not many people communicate or want to befriend with her. She seems to be mundane, as for her appearance or intellect, and the girl has some developmental delay issues. I noticed that she was often alone. It is no secret that the world prefers beautiful, smart and talented. I was seriously interested to know about the nearest future waiting for Dasha, since she has already turned 18. We met with the head of the orphanage and I found out that the girl had concerns about her further life. She asked to search and pray for a family that could want to take Dasha; otherwise, the girl would be placed in a nursing home for good. This conversation took place just before Christmas, a couple of days before our tour started. I thought that after we finish with our Christmas trips, I needed to write a post in the social media about Dasha, so that brothers and sisters could see into this need. However, one girl from a secular charitable foundation turned to be first, having filmed a video at the orphanage and wrote a post about Dasha on her social network page. I was not aware of that, until I got a phone call from Alyona, the wife of my friend Vadim Barsukov. They both used to minister to orphans in our mission for many years. They minister now in Crimea. Alyona told me about this post and that one sister from the church wants to come for Dasha and take her.
This sister’s name is Tanya, she lives in Krasnodar with her husband and ten children. Tatyana herself grew up in an orphanage, in one of those places that we visit today with your support. Tanya attended Bible classes and the church, and most importantly, one Christian family would take Tanya on school breaks and weekends. They became like a family to her. She learnt from them how to love each other and put God first in your home. Following the example of this family, Tanya and her husband were adopting children, and some children with serious health issues. Having learned about Dasha, Tanya and her two children went across the country to take her to Krasnodar. Tanya called me. She talked about their desire to take Dasha and said that she would come in two weeks. I should have called the director of the orphanage back then to say that a family was found for Dasha, however…
I decided to call a little later, but in the business with Christmas events, I forgot to do it. To be completely honest, I thought that they would not be able to find anyone for Dasha anyway. When I finally remembered that I needed to call, it was already too late! Tanya and the children were already on their way to Krasnoyarsk; they had one and a half thousand kilometers left, riding through Siberia, near Omsk. I started calling the director, thinking that we would manage to do it, but they told me that they had already found a family for Dasha and my friends should not bother to come. I was speechless. I hung up and called Tanya, saying that Dasha was not available, and asked everyone to pray and invited Tanya to come over, especially since they were not far from us.
I hoped for the miracle and realized that it was my fault. But God provided, proving once again that He has everything under control, even my forgetfulness. We were all praying, when suddenly Tanya received a call from the deputy director of the orphanage and said that it turned out that Dasha had a twin sister, whom no one, except for Dasha, had ever seen. When Dasha was taken to an orphanage, she and her sister were separated. Her sister’s name was Masha. The girl’s health condition is much worse, as she is physically handicapped. She used to live in a special facility for orphans with mental issues, and a month ago Masha was transferred to a neuropsychiatric facility for adults, where she was destined spend the rest of her life. Tanya, having learned about Masha, asked me to go with her to that facility, located in a village about a hundred kilometers from Krasnoyarsk. Tanya and her husband, to our mutual surprise, were not afraid that Masha had a life-long diagnosis, and they wanted to take Masha into their family.
We went to meet with Masha, Tanya and her two boys, Pavel and Gavriil (in the photo with an ice sword – the biggest icicle I could find for them)
Pavel seemed quite a restless boy, but when Tanya went to see Masha, he was the first to start praying for Masha to be allowed to go with them in Krasnodar, and that the Lord would help her learn the ABC. It was clear that the boys were worried about their mother and about this first meeting.
Only yesterday, no one knew about Masha, but today dozens of people are praying for her, thinking about her and worrying about her. And yet, the Lord is true to His words that He is the God of fatherless and widows, and that “Though she [mother] may forget,
I will not forget you!”
I am sure that it was no accident that Masha was transferred to that facility for adults just a couple of days before our arrival. The Lord wanted us to know that it was His hand, and nothing is impossible for He encouraged Tanya and her family to cover that long road. No one will go that far unless they love!
When Tanya went to talk to the director of the facility about her desire to take Masha, we were waiting in the corridor. Then suddenly Masha came out. Not understanding anything, she was smiling, and her eyes were glowing. She turned out to be very beautiful, certainly not what we all imagined her to be. She smiled at all people, smiled at this world so sincerely, so widely that no words can describe it. Meanwhile, I understood that Masha was no longer a stranger to us, no matter what happened. There is no mistake with what The Lord does. At that moment, I was delighted with the God, in Whom you and I believe. Our Jesus will never abandon us; He will always be there for us, despite the distance. I was thinking, if only Masha could know how much God loved her, how dear she was to Him! And Masha was standing there, smiling, squinted her eyes, completely unaware that behind the glass there stood the people who had traveled halfway across the country, not even knowing that it was all for her sake. Just ten meters away from her there were standing those who wanted to call her daughter and sister, even if she could not understand that. Probably, no one would ever come for Masha, and she would have to be enjoying what she had in her life, but Jesus has prepared a home for her. A home, where the Lord will hug her through the arms of her new mom and dad, play with her and her brothers and sisters and laugh with her in the evenings, in the circle of her new big family!
When we do good deeds wholeheartedly, we always want things to go uncomplicated and all doors to open for us… Unfortunately, or fortunately, this is not always the case. The director of the facility did not believe in Tanya’s sincere motives. Yes, this is incomprehensible for people, when someone would travel five thousand kilometers for the sake of an unknown girl who will never be healthy, especially if they already have ten children. After being refused, when we were driving back, it suddenly dawned on me that it was God’s plan. He knew that I would not have time to write a post about Dasha and that a volunteer of the secular foundation would write a story about her. He knew that Alyona Barsukova would be touched by her story and that she would send information to Tanya. God knew that Tanya would immediately call me and go after Dasha thousands of kilometers away. He knew that I would forget to call and inform the director of the orphanage and that a family would be found for Dasha in such a seemingly short time. Our Lord knew that there would be a family for Dasha, but unlikely for Masha. That is why He has chosen that particular family and something is telling me that this is not the end of the story! Because the Lord Himself is fighting for the happiness of this girl, and by His mercy, has entrusted us to be involved in this Miracle!
For two days I doubted, whether I should call the director of that facility and tell him about what I do, how long I have known Dasha and how incredible Masha’s story was. I was thinking, who I am anyway to call that person. However, I prayed and called him. I told him about what I had been doing for the last seven years; he listened attentively and with great interest. We talked for 20 minutes. He said that my call was very important for him and many circumstances became clearer. He said that he was worried for Masha and that it was very important for him into whose hands she would eventually get. In the end of our conversation, the director said that he would wait for further steps from our end, some deeds and not just words! Probably, the Lord is working with his heart, too, as well as with everyone else who is a part of this story.
Christmas is the time, when things just begin, as with this story, and we are all waiting for the more to come…
