Help Wanted

When you see these two very common words side by side, what thoughts come to your mind? My first impression is that a job is available, that there is some work to do. Think about the word help. If I replace it with the word to assist, I immediately envision a very different concept. If I am asked to assist someone, it means that he or she is the captain. I am only the helper.

As a humanitarian aid missionary, I was called to assist God in His work here in Ukraine. Going one step further, I was called to assist the people of Ukraine to care for their children. How could that be accomplished? If I was called to come to Ukraine to do a job, and then leave, that is pretty easy to imagine. But that wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t exactly sure what God was calling me to do.

My first outreach ministry opened up in Marganets when the father of a friend took me to visit an orphanage. It was his dream, his desire, possibly his calling, to help these children in some way. When I saw the children, the surroundings, and the emptiness in their eyes, I felt the deepest compassion in my heart that I ever had felt. But there was nothing that I personally could do help them on a regular basis. I would be living in Illichevsk, 320 miles west of Marganets.

This was to be the beginning of my work to assist the people of Ukraine to make changes in their country. This retired father, Anatoliy, had the knowledge, energy, and the drive to make things happen. He didn’t have the funding. By the time that I met him, he had already begun to raise money for the children from the local merchants. The community was very poor, so he could barely raise enough money to help one child, much less 156 children.

Given a small pledge of monthly contributions from me, he went to work. After about three years of making great changes in the appearance of the children and their environment, Anatoliy confessed to me, “Mark, in the beginning there were so many needs and there was only so much money. I didn’t know what to do first.” God had prepared him to be ready to do this work through a lifetime of experiences. At age 63, he stepped up to the plate and answered the call. Now, seven years later, my assistance to this Ukrainian man has helped him to do a great service for the children of orphanage number three. It has been my privilege to assist this man in this great humanitarian effort for the children.

Children of Hope

What do you see above? Look at them from a distance; look at them close-up. Look at their clothes. Look at the expressions on their faces. Look into their eyes. What do you see?

I see children. Each one has a story unique to him or her, as do all children. What they are at this time in their lives can be summed up in a few words. They are children. What will they be? How will they change? Where will they go?

The answers to many of these questions depend upon adults. How will we touch their lives? How responsible will we be toward them? Will we care? Will we reach out to them? Will we help them become the next generation who will run this world?

These particular 10 children will grow up in a Ukrainian orphanage/school. They are special children, not to say that every child is not special. They have special needs. One was born a crack-cocaine baby. Each child that you see has some type of learning disability. Each child either has a dangerous family environment from which they have been removed, has been abandoned by their parents, or their parents have died, leaving them as orphans. So they will grow up in the orphanage system with 146 other children similar to themselves.

Statistics tell a very sad reality of what happens to children after they leave the orphanage system in Ukraine. Prostitution, suicide, prison, and a life of crime waits for many of them. What can be done?

I don’t have many answers, but I have a few. MUCH has been gradually changing the lives of these children in small ways. Our biggest efforts are supported by our yearly Christmas fund raiser. Four big needs-based programs are touching the personal futures of some of the children. Massage therapy is changing the children from the inside out. The neurology of massage is habilitating and expressing love toward the children in a way never experienced by them before. Computer class is opening new avenues for the children, preparing them for a world of graphic art and word processing. The new music and dance opportunities will enrich the quality of the music arts in their education. Finally, the drug and alcohol program is molding the children in areas of morality, self image, and self respect.

I have stepped up to bat. I am helping these children in these ways. I believe in them. What will you do? Will you help our children through MUCH? Will you help any children? What will you do?

Children in Transition

(I have not entered pictures of our children to protect their identities at this fragile time in their lives.)

For the past year and then some, when I go to Marganets, I visit the children at the transition home. These children are in a very difficult spot in their young lives. Most have been taken from their home because of a very poor environment. Whether it is because of parents who are alcoholic or drug users or the children are beat or just not cared for, the results leave the children in a new situation that is very challenging. I have met one or two whose parents died, leaving them as orphans.

The home is run with a very strict schedule, keeping the children busy to avoid time for them to dwell on their problems. This particular home is run by a Christian director. She sees the great need for the children to have more time to adjust to their loss of family. Their program focuses on helping the children modify their lives and build healthy character. Although she is asking the government to give her more time with the children, it seems that ninety day is all that they will allow. Their twenty-six beds stay filled throughout the year.

The director’s big venture last year was to find families to adopt the children before they would be placed in an orphanage. In the first six months of 2008, she was able to place 10 children in local Christian homes. She has contact with the different churches in Marganets and they work together to help the children while in the transition home and to find good families for them. Adoption for Ukrainian families is very inexpensive, so I hear, and they are working on implementing the foster care program. Of course, the challenge in this city of poverty is to find honest foster parents. The money is so needed; it lures many of the wrong parent types.

When I visit with the children, we talk about little things, but they are very hungry for attention. They are very hungry to show their value. They want to know about America. They have very interesting questions. When we have an opportunity for Bible study, I’m always surprised to hear how much they know. I try to take seashells each time that I go. The children are very interested in seeing these homes of sea creatures. Some have been to the sea, but most have not.

When I look at these children, it breaks my heart to know why they are at the transition home. I know their future if they are not placed in a good home within ninety days. I have interacted with children at the local orphanage for six plus years. Even with the best orphanage environment, it is not a good place for a child. A family of over one hundred children is not the kind of family that is needed. There are so many children in need of help in this country; helping the 400 or so that we help is just a small effort for the big problem for the more than 100,000 Ukrainian children in poverty.

Country in Crisis, Family in Crisis

Because I have no TV, by choice, I don’t follow the news often. When I am hungry to know what is going on in the rest of Ukraine or the world, I go online and read the news. I have heard that the economic crisis has hit Ukraine pretty hard, but had not seen too much in Illichevsk. I heard that some stores had closed their doors, waiting for the crisis to pass.

In my opinion, the economy in Ukraine has been moving forward too fast in the past four years. Two generations who never saw what the rest of the world was experiencing were now experiencing the same or similar. In the past 18 years, the people of Ukraine have been flooded with so many “things” that were never a part of their lives before. Some have taken out loans on houses or cars, and are now in very tight finances. Even the banks went overboard in lending money.

One family that I know in another city decided to become a supplier for clothing and material shops. When the crisis hit, their venders could not pay for the goods because customers were few and far between. They were in a serious predicament.

In Ukraine, if you have a private house, there is usually a nice bit of yard that goes with it. But there are no yards like what we call a yard in America. Rather, all of the land is used to produce food or animals for food. This family had a large garden, a pig house, a chicken coop, and a summer kitchen. They had about 20 or so chickens when the crisis hit them.

True to Ukrainian mentality, they took what they had, what they knew, and made it work for them. Determining the most productive item that they had, they mass produced chickens. They turned a family supply of chickens into a business of growing and selling chickens. Now they have more than 200 chickens. The summer kitchen is now a staging room for chickens: peeps to mid life. The pig house is now a staging room for chickens: growth bulk feeding to harvest. This family is surviving the current crisis.