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MOSCOW TRIP NOTES FOR JANUARY OF 2004 Déjà vu !! Same airport, same flight to New York, same date, same time, same weather delay, same gate; everything the same except for the year. The only differences I feel for this trip are a much different vision of my purpose in life and in Russia. Last year I had no spiritual confidence - this year confidence. The Lord told me last week that this trip would signal the beginning of my new life. Eager to find out what that means …. This trip is an effort for me to learn more about the current situation in orphanages and what the Lord us to do for Him and for His kids in Russia. I have taken hold of His promise to increase my vision on this trip and clarify what our specific purpose is going to be. We missed the flight to Moscow on the third of January, due to weather in the Midwest. So our first day in Russia was going to be a day later than planned, which would change the whole schedule for the first four days. We were going to miss a lot of planned events that looked to be a lot of fun. I met a little girl on the flight to New York and we began to have a great time together. She was sitting at the window just behind my seat and she waved to me as I stood in the aisle stretching. When I sat down again, she tossed her stuffed animal "Eeyor" from "Winnie the Pooh" over the top of the seat. I started playing hide and seek with her and she giggled and laughed, often squealing in delight, as we played. I tried asking her name but she seemed to not understand my question. Her Mother, who was resting her head on the food tray, sat up and told me she did not speak English, only French and that they were on their way back home to Belgium. I then pointed to myself and said "I am John". She giggled and said "Eloise" and we went on playing. She got so excited at times, that she would literally leap across the top of the seats and tackle my head. It was so much fun. We continued to play until we landed in New York. We exited the aircraft and I saw Eloise at the back of the bus and she excitedly jumped and waved in her seat when she saw me get on the bus. We drove to the terminal and got off the bus to go in and Eloise and her Mother were not too far behind me. As I entered the terminal, I felt this little hand taking mine and holding it. Being startled at this, I didn't know how her Mother would react, so I turned to her and asked her if this was okay, she said, "Yes, of course". So we walked hand in hand up stairs and into the terminal building itself. In the terminal, Eloise's Mother called her and so Eloise dropped my hand and started to walk away. She suddenly turned and held out her arms for a hug and puckered her lips for a kiss. So, I picked her up gave her a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek and let her go. She skipped off down the terminal after her Mother, waving as she went. One of the guys said that I needed to get her picture, but I didn't have my camera. So the guys volunteered to take one. I went over to Eloise's Mother and asked for her permission, which she gave and I picked up Eloise and Eeyor for our picture. I put her down and watched her skip off again after her Mother and realized I would never see Eloise again. I suddenly felt lonely. We were scheduled to arrive in Moscow on the 3rd, but we actually arrived on the 4th. On the 5th of January, we went to the Russian Baptist church and met with many Pastors who talked about their outreach efforts to open churches and grow congregations. I have outlined the Pastors who I felt were of particular interest to my focus on children. Pastor Vladimir of the village of Orzheetsoo, Russia Pastor Vladimir is in his early 30's and is involved in Prison Ministry as there is a children's and men's prison near Orzheetsoo. This prison houses people convicted for serious crimes, murder and other serious offenses, including children. There are over a thousand children residing at this prison. Pastor Vladimir relayed to us how he had been in prison himself early in life, and had been involved in an uprising where he had been injured by a bullet and mildly crippled in one leg as a result. Since that time, he has become a Christian Pastor and is looking to start a Rehabilitation Center for prisoners in or near Orzheetsoo. Pastor Vladimir showed us a big heart for the
kids and for all prisoners and needs about $5,000.00 dollars for
opening a rehabilitation Center here. We went to visit the home of Aleks' sister-in-law and met his sister there, who lives in Ivanteevka, just outside of Moscow. I met Enna, and her children, Nastia, Ulya and Ilya. We also met Tatiana, Aleks' sister and her son, Zhenia. We had dinner in their home and I met a Pastor named Veniamin. Pastor Veniamin Komisarenko runs a ministry to the local street children of Ivanteevka, of which he estimates there are more than 20 kids that the ministry works with. Pastor Veniamin is looking for a facility where he can invite the kids to visit as a day center that may become a place for these kids to go for shelter during the night. He is looking for donations towards this facility starting at $7,000.00 Russian Baptist Church in Nizhniye - Novgorod, Russia Nizhniye-Novgorod is a very slow train ride of eight hours from Moscow. We rode the overnight sleeper train and as usual, I slept very little due to the "bed" being too short for me. This city is quite large with a population approaching 2 million people. Nizhniye is east of Moscow on the Volga River and is a large industrial town. The church congregation here has a very large population of deaf people. Approximately 40% of the congregation is deaf and the church does a good job of reaching out to them with a sign language translator for the services. The deaf people that we met were so open and friendly that I was amazed and felt privileged to experience this ministry. I also met a Russian Pastor who ran a ministry to the Russian Military. Pastor Pavel Golovchenko was an officer in the Russian Military and now runs an outreach program to the military personnel and their families in the Nizhniye-Novgorod area. Pastor Golovchenko is looking for ongoing financial support for this ministry. Orphanage in downtown Obninsk, Russia We visited an orphanage in downtown Obninsk with The Russian Ministries Pastor Alexei Nozdrachev. Obninsk is a fairly large town of 110,000 people and is a very young city. It was started in the early 50's as a science center and has several Institutes of learning and research centers here. This orphanage had 55 kids living here and was very well funded compared to other orphanages that I have seen. It receives not only some state funding and private funds but the city itself subsidizes their operation. It includes a dry sauna or banya, a weight room, a swimming pool, a computer for training the kids and for computer games, dayrooms for several different age groups with books, televisions and stereos. The facility has it's own hospital and social work staff. It opens the doors to the local population once a week for six hours for people to come in and receive services of the social workers here. They have the funding to invite the graduates of the orphanage back during their off times from college, as well. Child Evangelism Fellowship Office in Moscow, Russia CEF's main office is in the Nametkinaskaya office where many mission organizations share offices. CEF has a focus on evangelism of children through materials geared to kids of differing ages, through videos, songs, visual aids, booklets, coloring books, cartoon books and Bibles. All of these books are available in Russian from the office in Moscow. The staff in the main office I met with was Sergei, the President of CEF Russia and Raisa Andreeva, as the central region representative for CEF and she is based out of the Moscow office while covering her region. Neither Sergei nor Raisa speak enough English to have a conversation with them, so we required the services of a translator for our meeting. Nadya was our translator for the meeting today and she is a college age girl who spoke very good English [ most translators tend to apologize for their level of English, which they assume to be not very good ]. During our hour long meeting, we talked about myself and my work with the kids in the orphanages and what I was looking for from CEF. They, in turn, explained what CEF efforts looked like in Russia. CEF has only six representatives that cover this huge country. There are only six regions in Russia but some of these regions are as large as the American Midwest states. The representatives receive letters from children in orphanages that are looking for help in understanding who Christ is and wanting a representative to visit them and teach them about God. Some of these orphanages are too far away for the representatives to make a special trip just to one orphanage so they end up sending material to the children for them to read and corresponding by mail with them. To expand their ability to reach out to children, CEF holds special classes for people interested in working with children to teach them how to reach out, using CEF materials, to the kids. They hold classes in the Moscow office regularly. Our discussion turned to the situation with orphanages and the orphans in them and Raisa was very informative about what the reality of the situation with the kids was. It turns out there is some significant differences from my previous notions. The number of children in orphanages that have no parents is quite a bit smaller than I had been led to believe. Only about 20 to 25% of the kids are without any parent whatsoever. Another 10 to 15% have parents, but the parents have lost their rights as parents to the child or children. The rest of the children have at least one parent that is normally involved with the child. A small percentage of those children that have parents, have parents that want to have no involvement with the child. Due usually to acute social problems in the home [ and sometimes due to economic or medical hardship in the home ] the children are removed from the home and the organization that the children are staying with is tasked with the rehabilitation and restoration of the family through counseling and teaching. These social problems can be from alcohol, drug, sexual and physical abuse and to lack of knowledge or training on the part of the parents on how to raise children. Other related problems stem from criminal acts leading to incarceration in prison, prostitution, and abandonment of the child by the parents. We gravitated to a discussion of the conditions in the region of Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad is one of the smallest regions of Russia and it is a region that is completely separated from the rest of the country. It lies on the Baltic Sea, east of Poland, west of the countries of Lithuainia, Latvia and Estonia. As a region of Russia, it is largely detested and ignored by it's neighboring countries. Kaliningrad has the distinction of having the highest crime and AIDS rate in the former Soviet Union. It also has the largest population of street children and orphans of all the regions in Russia. Many Russians have used Kaliningrad as a jumping-off point to move to Western Europe. The parents many times leave children behind to fend for themselves. This adds to the population of homeless children. Children living here have little or no hope of ever having a normal life. Rainbows of Hope Day Center for the street children of Saint Peterburg This facility is managed by Vera Zhuravlova as the Director of the facility and her husband Sasha. Mikhail Marchenko is another staff member working with Vera and Sasha. The staff of the facility is dedicated to bringing the love of Christ to the children of Saint Peterburg. ROH moved out of their old facility last year due to the rise in cost of the rent in the facility. They are negotiating a larger facility in Saint Peterburg that will have significantly more space for expansion of the services they offer to the children. It will include medical facilities, social services and counseling, showers and clothes washing capabilities, also a kitchen and teaching rooms for the children. ROH is the only Christian facility in downtown Saint Peterburg that ministers to this large population of street children. They do outreach to the kids on the streets by meeting them on the streets, ministering to them and doing what they can to help them to cope with their situations. They work with the parents of the children to attempt to re-establish the children into the homes and help them off the streets. ROH's operating budget meets just the needs of everyday operation. It does not have the budget in place to fund the work they need to do on the new facility to complete it and get it open to the children. We need to support this ministry in creative ways. They do a lot of good work for the children of Saint Peterburg. Russia Inland Mission of Moscow and SOAR International Ministries of Alaska I met Vlad and Enna from Russia Inland Mission at a Christian event in Moscow. We made a commitment to meet after the mission trip was over and so I called them later to set up a meeting in their facility. At the meeting, I met with Vlad, Enna, Masha and Leanna of RIM and Dick Page of SOAR International Ministries. I learned that RIM and SOAR have teamed together to find ways of working in orphanages that focuses on creative ways of getting things done. Richard recommended the RIM personnel very highly in the work that is done within the partnership. SOAR's focus is on the Eastern rim of Russia near the Alaska border. They focus on orphanages and improving the lives of the orphans and the staff that serve them. RIM's focus is the same and the partnership has worked well towards getting work done in the orphanages, not just on the Pacific coast, but in Western Russia as well. SOAR is based in Soldotna, Alaska, near Seward and Anchorage. One of the partnership projects of RIM and SOAR is the "Stuff-a-Stocking" project. This project takes a stocking made in Russia and people in the United States pay $35.00 to SOAR to fill the stocking with Russian candies, fruit, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrush, along with hats and mittens and a Russian Bible. This effort bypasses the need to import much of the goods that go into the stocking and avoids the problem of getting the items through Customs. It also contributes to the Russian economy, which is pleasing to people in Russia. I was invited to attend a 3-day trip to the city of Tula to visit orphanages and hand out gifts to kids. The mission trip turned out to be much fun, well organized and timed for the different visits. We went to several orphanages and had several meals in different restaurants, we even had an opportunity to go bowling - I did not do very good, but it was fun. I feel like I made good contacts with the personnel at RIM and look forward to working with them more. RIM and SOAR have also teamed to modernize their partner orphanages. They have remodeled bathrooms, kitchens and laundry facilities for orphanages and have added outdoor recreation facilities for the children to play on, as well. The Shkola-Internat orphanage in the
city of Obninsk, Russia This facility is the first orphanage where I was able to make a connection with a number of kids. It is near the downtown area of Obninsk and is a rather large facility that is well run by the staff. This is where my orphan friends Vika, Oksana, Svetlana and Mary live, along with many other kids that I have met and made a commitment to visit and be a big brother to. The local Pastor and Russian Ministries representative is Alexei Nozdrachov. I had asked Alexei to help me with a second visit to this orphanage and he committed to having an interpreter available to help me with the children. Alexei was able to get permission for me to have another visit with the kids. In the first visit I met with Vika, Svetlana and Mary and found out that Oksana was with her Father, Tolia for the holiday so I would not be able to see her. I also found out that Vika has several brothers, Svetlana has a sister, Katje, who is one year older than Sveta and Mary has 5 older siblings, but her parents have lost their rights to Mary, for some reason. I knew there was a lot about these kids that I was not aware of and I was eager to learn more from them. I was looking forward to being able to spend more time with them while having an interpreter to help me with the translations. Meeting #2 Alexei had been able to set-up another meeting at the orphanage. I arrived in Obninsk via a driver that I hired to get me there as opposed to taking the train. Alexei made us lunch before the visit then we went to the orphanage with the interpreter. Sergei was the interpreter for me and he is the Youth Pastor for the Russian Baptist Church in Kaluga, Russia. His translation abilities are some of the best that I have run into in Russia, so far. Initially, we met with the Director of the facility, Vera Alekseevna. She is a very caring, well-organized and highly disciplined director of the facility. She talked to us about the facility and the kids. There are about 126 kids of varying ages from about ten years old to 17 at this orphanage. They are well disciplined and each room group has a day of chores where they work around the facility doing housekeeping chores. Other groups have kitchen duties and do other work around the facility that keeps them fairly busy. The orphanage receives little support from the government. Most of their funding is from private organizations and individuals. They are not nearly as well equipped as the other orphanage in Obninsk, which can be seen throughout the facility in places such as a broken mirror that has not been replaced due to lack of funds. But, they do their best to take care of their kids. The Director showed us a warm heart for the children under her care. From the Directors office, she walked us to the
third floor classrooms and she introduced us to several teachers
and their classrooms of kids. As we entered the rooms, I saw kids
that I recognized and waved to them, getting smiles, at times
embarrassed smiles but they liked the recognition. In the 4th
classroom, I saw Vika, Oksana and Mary along with Vika's brother
Kosta and many other kids that I did not have names for. This
class was on ethics and behavior. After the teacher was introduced
to us, the Director spoke to the teacher about canceling her class
for the day so the kids could visit with me. It was a rather stunning
event for both Sergei and I, neither of us had the expectation
that she would do this for our visit. First, a group of kids went
to the meeting room with Sergei and I and I showed pictures of
Chicago and talked to them about the city and showed pictures
of the various areas of the city, the lake and the skyline. Then,
I took them to the airport and showed them pictures of jets and
talked also about where I lived. It was fun and informative for
them. There were a lot of questions asked about the city and the
United States and then we went on a tour of the facility with
the kids. After the meal, the Director approached us about arrangements for us to sit with the kids in one of the dayrooms and talk to them about themselves and their situations. We would have a little over an hour with them. Sergei and I were again a little surprised, as they had to cancel more of their classes for the kids to accommodate us in this way. In this dayroom, we were introduced to the resident counselor. Sergei explained that they have a system here that ensures some oversight by the counselor. The kids are assigned a dayroom with a TV and a locker for each of the kids. That dayroom comes equipped with a counselor who has an office in the room and she is responsible to talk to the kids daily as a friend and a counselor. You could see that she had a good relationship with the kids during our interaction with them in her room. A large group of kids came into the room and included Vika, Mary, Oksana, Svetlana and her sister Katje. Many other boys and girls came in and sat down to listen to me talk to them. I started out by talking to them about my immediate family and our situations in the United States. We then moved on to talking about the kids and their family situations. I heard from a boy named Vadim and his family. Vika told about her brothers and their ages and names, then Mary and Oksana. Svetlana and her sister got up and left the room before we got to her so I never did hear from them. It was the single regret that I still have no information about her and her family. The one thing I did take away from this meeting was the openness of the kids to talking about themselves. It was nice to be able to hear more about them and begin to get to know them better. This is what the ministry is all about ! One amusing thing happened during this time. I had brought in some sour candies as a kind of gag and I handed them out around the room. It was fun to watch their faces as they grimaced at how sour these candies were. The expressions on their faces were funny and I wish I could have recorded some of them. It was hard not to laugh watching them. When our time with the kids was up, I said my goodbyes and reluctantly left the room. I had so much I wanted to talk with them about and wanted just to spend more time there with them, but they had additional things to do, so this fun time came to an end and we ended up back in the Directors office, getting ready to leave. I gave the Director 20 envelopes with stamps and another $25.00 and told her to buy more when those run out. I also gave her a hundred dollars for buying birthday presents for the kids. Her reaction to these things was curious. She was strangely nonchalant about them. Then I remembered a book about airplanes that I had purchased the night before that I wanted to give to the orphanage and I had left it in my briefcase, almost forgetting about it. I pulled it out and handed it to her almost as a second thought. Her reaction here was just as curious as the first. She handed me the book and asked us to follow her to their library. She introduced us to the Librarian and I gave the Librarian the book. Between the two of them, you would have gotten the impression that I had just given them a priceless item. They were so thankful and appreciative. Two boys came over to see the book and they literally yanked it from the Librarians hands in their excitement. They flipped the book open on one of the tables and I went over to show them some of the planes that I had seen and worked on. They were just fascinated. It was gratifying to see them enjoying it so much. I learned a lesson that day. I had assumed that my stamps and monetary gifts would be viewed as important as the book, if not more. The lesson is that what I viewed as something they needed was not what they necessarily wanted. I needed to remember that for the next time. We went back to Vera's office and she was very nice about offering me to come back anytime I was near. She literally opened the doors for me to come in anytime and visit the kids as much as I wanted to. It was a refreshing change of attitude from earlier visits. Even Sergei was surprised at the level of opening she had offered to me. I was thankful to the Lord beyond words and I am so eager and excited about going back there to see them again that I would be there again next week if possible. Orphanage visit to Naberezhny Chelny Earlier in the planning of the trip to Russia, I had planned a trip to Krasnodar and to Naberezhny Chelny to visit orphanages there. Due to a sore throat that would not go away, I had to cancel the trip for the weekend we were going to go. The following weekend, an opportunity to fly to Naberezhny Chelny came about and so I went there with my friends. We tried to go to two orphanages but were refused entry into one of them. The one that allowed us in had several different age groups, but we visited the 3 to 6 age group. There were 12 kids here and we played games with the kids, Russian games. We stayed for about 2 hours and had to leave to let the kids settle down for sleep. These children appeared to be well cared for and attended. As in most orphanages, most of the children had a parent or parents to assist in caring for them. Internet "Kafé' Matrix" at the Orphanage in Uglich, Russia My last night in the R-M hotel room was spent with a man named Dave. Dave had retired from Microsoft Corporation in Seattle, Washington. Through a series of events, Dave ended up in Uglich teaching the kids at this orphanage to use computers and the internet. Dave has been in Russia for over 6 years and speaks good Russian [ he took a cram course at a college in Washington State before leaving for Russia ]. Dave told me that when he started working in Uglich there was nobody in Uglich that had a computer nor knew anything about them. Plus, the kids in the orphanage had very little contact with the surrounding community as orphans are generally viewed as second-hand citizens here. Dave had an idea for starting an Internet Cafe' that was attached to the orphanage and run by the orphans themselves. He invested his own cash into remodeling a small building that was attached to the orphanage into a clean, modern café' called "Kafe' Matrix" that serves non-alcoholic drinks and pizza to the patrons as they come in to work and learn computer and internet skills. It has been open for 4 years and the revenues have been steadily improving, but has not yet turned a profit for the orphanage, but Dave anticipates that it will return a profit soon. Dave relayed to me how the café has had a tremendous affect on the orphans and the community as a whole. The status of the orphans has been elevated in the community because they are the only ones there with any computer skills and they are teaching the community kids to use them. The local community has been telling Dave that they are very grateful for the café' as they can take their kids somewhere that they don't have to deal with the local drunks making a scene in front of their kids. Another benefit to the orphans is that they are paid for working the Café', thus having there own money to buy personal items for themselves. This is a model that I would like to see repeated in other locations. It can be costly, but it has such a benefit for the kids that it outweighs the cost. Go to Top of the Page |
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