January 2013 Newsletter

Hello family and friends,

Happy New Year 2013! Our Christmas fundraiser this year fell short of our total goal, but we will be able to operate the computer classes for the complete goal of one and a half years. 

Learning will be eciting for us!

 

We (picture to the right) are very excited about that! The remainder of the funds raised will go toward the massage therapy programs at Dobromel and Froonza that will continue from last year. A second part-time massage therapist for the Dobromel orphanage may be possible in the future, if we can find more monthly sponsors.

MUCH had two surprises this Christmas. After reading our November Newsletter, friends from North Carolina offered to buy a sewing machine for the orphanage-school in Marganets. When the assistant director heard this news, she was very pleased. The children will be thrilled with all of the mechanized options that they will be able to use. They will even be able to sew in script to personalize their projects!

The second surprise involves a church, a mission organization, and a new sponsor. Between the three of them, money was contributed to buy two new washing machines for the Transition Home in Marganets. The director and the washwomen were very pleased to receive these machines because they had been washing clothes and bedding for 30 children by hand.

After our two month fundraising and holiday time, Sveta and I have returned to Ukraine exhausted, but we will begin this year with a new perspective on Ukraine. Sveta's first visit to America did yield culture shock for her. For me, I saw America through her eyes, which in turn, helped me to see Ukraine with new eyes. After ten years, the cultural differences and the visual effects have become very "normal" for me. When I would visit America in the past, my world, my perspective, was only bigger. Now, seeing through Sveta's eyes, I see two different worlds.

Our time in America was constant mental activity. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, my niece's wedding, and family visits kept us busy. Then, there were the many sponsors that we visited and the presentations that we gave. Sveta's one year of studying English proved to be very successful. She spoke in front of large groups without hesitation. Her Ukrainian perspective of MUCH gave them new understanding of our work with the children.

Additional stress visited us in the last few days of our journey. My passport was at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington DC, waiting for a Visa D to be attached. When I called, I learned that I had sent the wrong amount of money, too much, and they couldn't accept the postal money order. Mom sent another while Sveta and I were out of town, but the adventure heightened as we tracked the return express mail envelope. After great efforts by two gracious postal workers, (unbelievable in Sveta's eyes), the envelope was available to be picked up at 7AM the morning that we were to fly back to Ukraine.

My heart sank as I opened my passport to learn that I had only 45 days on my Visa D. I later learned that this is normal under the new law. The second step is to register with the government office for a one-year Visa D in the city where I live and work. After I get this, my next step will be to apply for full time residency, not citizenship, as the spouse of Sveta, a Ukrainian national. This will be available after we are married two years, January 10, 2014.

Our next adventure met us at the JFK International Airport. Our connecting flights to Odessa included two stops in European Union countries, Germany and Austria. This was not a problem for me, carrying an American passport. On the other hand, Sveta had a Ukrainian passport; therefore, she needed a Schengen Visa to fly into more than one EU airport. The clerk at the Austrian Air desk was able to give us two options for flights that would go directly from JFK to Vienna where we could connect with our final flight. We were blessed with the first option, standby tickets for a 6PM flight that would leave in two hours, and a $316 change fee, versus a $1016 change fee for a flight the next day. As we waited patiently, we were invited to the 6PM flight. On we went.

Our focus in 2013 will be to create videos of the work that we do with the children, particularly in the massage therapy programs. These videos will be available to view by way of the internet or a number of our sites, such as Flickr, YouTube, our blog, Facebook, and Twitter. The massage therapy video that I made for the presentations on our trip opened new eyes of understanding for many people.

Sveta's Journey

Our two-month trip to America is over, we returned to Ukraine, and of course, I am very glad to see my family and friends in Ukraine. I was a little sad that I had to leave my wonderful new family and friends in America; they gave us attention, love, and support. I enjoyed socializing with people; I saw a lot of care and a desire to give us their valuable time. I was bathed in love.

After talking to people and reviewing what they saw, I learned and saw many differences in their culture and way of life. First of all, I was very impressed with the people. They were very welcoming, friendly, discreet, ready to help, and to encourage. I did not feel lonely or outcast in this new culture; I felt the love and acceptance in a great family where there is love.

Today it is considered that the experience of a new culture is a shock, because it is unexpected and can lead to negative evaluation of one's own culture. I do not appreciate my Ukrainian culture in a negative manor. I love my country, and God has put love in my heart to help Ukrainian women and men of retiring age when Mark and I retire. We will help them find hope for the future, because it is usually the time when the Post-Soviet people retire to a meaningless life. Children are grown, the grandchildren are adults, and they have no work or hobbies. There is no further purpose in life, having completed all previous goals (attending university, having a good job, a family, a baby, raising grandchildren) the people are at a loss - how to live on?

Mark and I are thinking about the time when we will retire. We want to help these people regain confidence that life can be rich and fruitful, even after the person has retired. We already have a plan to do it. While in America, I saw a perfect example of people in the retirement age having an active and productive life.

All the people we met in America were eager to know about the children in the orphanage. I know many stories because I know many of the children. Each child has their own unique story; they have experience with big blows of fate for their young age.

I finished school, now it's on to trade school

R. (to my right) is a boy from the Dobromel orphanage. He looks older than his years. Maybe it is because he was found on the street many years ago when he was a little boy. He could not say his name, age, or give any information on who his parents were. R. was given his name by the boarding school, along with some created identity where they recorded the year of his birth. Police were looking for a long time to find his family, but did not find anything. The boy is an orphan only in words. Because of the lack of true documents, he cannot have the financial help benefits of being an orphan, as there is no proof of the death of his parents, or their rejection of this child.

Please pray about my future

Last autumn, R. (to my right) finished boarding school and now attends trade school as a builder. He lives in a dorm and gets a very small $30 monthly stipend. Since the law does not considered him for an orphan pension pensioner, after he finishes all of his education, he will no longer be entitled to the stipend, much less any other government aid. The director asked us to help him. We know a Christian family that has experience working with children and helping them adapt to life after the orphanage. We think that they will help R.

Visual stimulation and massage are changing my life

K., (left) 7 years old, has cerebral palsy. He can say only one word "mama". K. has respectable parents, but they are very busy and very seldom visited the child, and of course, the boy misses them and has become very closed. When the massage therapist gave massage for him, the first few days he was very stressed and did not want to be touched. Now K. is gradually beginning to open up and blossom like a flower that was drooping for a long time without water.

Computers will help us with our language skills.

Two brothers, I. and P. (right) are special. I love them very much. When Mark and I come to the orphanage, the elder brother is always beside us; the youngest brother is shy and follows us at a distance of several meters. They cannot speak well. Their parents are alcoholics. When it is vacation time, parents take these boys home, but it is really better for them to stay at the boarding school. The boys told me they do not like their mom, and they do not like to be at home.

Every adult has a destiny that he can change. Children are dependent on their parents or other adults who are involved in their lives, whether positive or negative. Particularly dependent are the children with physical and mental limitations. These children have little ability to change their own destiny, but their parents or other adults in their lives may have big influence on their future.

Thank you very much for your financial support of the computer program that will operate for a minimum of one and a half years at the Dobromel Orphanage-Boarding School. After having more than 20 computers sit idle for more than a year, the children will now embark on a new adventure in learning. It is all because of your generous contributions that this has become a reality.

Your love, prayers, and financials support, our friends and partners, help us perform many projects to help children. Thank you very much!

Living my dream,

Sveta

As we enter 2013, we see change happening in Ukraine that will affect the children. The government is closing many of the orphanages, mainstreaming the children into regular schools. Our focus on health care, education, and clothing will remain our objective. Our ability to reach out to more children this year and next will depend upon people with hearts for the children. 

If God is nudging you to make a monthly commitment to help our children, please understand that $5 or more dollars a month will make a difference in the lives of our children.

As we work together to build a stronger Ukraine through caring for its children, we work together to build a stronger world! Thank you for taking an interest in our children who look to us for help.
 

Blessings of love and healing,

Mark and Sveta

December 2012 Newsletter

 Hello family and friends,

Christmas draws nigh and children dream their dreams! Let's rally our support to make this Christmas Fundraiser a success to provide a computer teacher and additional massage therapy services at Dobromel Orphanage. We are short of our goal, but with your help, their dreams can come true.

The MUCH team in America, the MUCH team in Ukraine, the MUCH Board of Directors, and Sveta and I wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Holidays. This season of joy and giving inspires the heart and brings joy to family and community. We send you the spirit of love to share with each other during this season and into the new year.

In Ukraine, New Years is celebrated as a national holiday, whereas Christmas is celebrated only in the church. The New Year Season is a time of anticipation for the children with disabilities in Illichevsk. Each year the mayor provides funds for a celebration for these children. There is dancing, a magic show, and toys for the children to take home. This is a very big event for the children. Many spend most of their time in their homes, hidden from the general public. Others spend very much time visiting doctors and therapists.

At one end of the main street, there is a Christmas tree and life-size figures of Father Frost (similar to Santa), and some of the traditional characters of the New Year story. The moral to the story is that good children will receive many gifts, whereas bad children will receive nothing.You may ask, "Why is it different than the spiritual American experience?" In Soviet times, the goal of the Soviet system was to enforce atheism and to crush all spiritual beliefs and practices. Christmas was down-played and the New Year's celebration replaced everything spiritual about the Christmas Season.

During the past ten years, I have been watching the economy change and commercialism develop and grow. More and more stores now carry Christmas items for decoration, wearing apparel, toys and gadgets. Ukraine is becoming more like America every day. Cash is still the most common currency in the market place, but large company debit cards and local bank credit and debit cards are becoming more common. Ukraine appears to be growing as a consumer society. This is most interesting for a country whose people are about eighty per cent poor.

The Children love Sveta

Sveta's Journey

At this time, Mark and I are in America. Here, I take a closer look with my new wonderful family and wonderful people. We feel an atmosphere of goodwill, love and acceptance from all of them. We thanked these people for their prayers and for their financial support for the ministry, and, it was amazing! They thanked us for our work. I felt uncomfortable when I heard the words of gratitude. It is my duty and calling of God to be an assistant to my husband in working with children with disabilities. I thank you very much for your heart filled with love!

The children need hands-on methods of learning

Our last visit to the orphanage of Dobromel identified the need for sponsors for a teacher for a computer class. The government bought computers for the orphanage, but did not provide a teacher position and payment for his labor for this class. Therefore, these children have computers but can not use them. I am sometimes surprised by the education system, but this is one more reason to pray for the government.

I decided to explore the topic of "computer and children with mental disabilities." I found a lot of information on the internet about the computer's role in the life of a child with developmental delays. I want to share with you a little bit of information.

This is not yesterday's telephone

"Nowadays, modern technology plays a huge role in the development of children who are unable to learn. Use of computers will help these children to read and write. Also, the use of computer games, tasks, and slide demonstrations will help teachers bring learning material to children more effectively. It will become much easier to manage and care for unstable children by increasing interest and increasing the activity of children in the classroom.

The use of computer technology encourages creativity and contributes to the development of mental processes in children with mental disabilities. Personality development of the whole child improves the quality of his or her learning. Computers can become a means of communication, a means of play, and a means of providing educational activities for children. During the computer activity, the child develops positive emotional reaction. Moreover, the immediate correction of the child's work contributes to development of his or her mental processes. "

For me it was amazing how educational software can reveal a child's capabilities and even help them catch up with their peers.

I recall an example. I was giving therapeutic massage to children while I was living at the Dobromel orphanage/boarding school for a month. The children passed my room every day on the way to their meals. Each evening children came to my room. For them, a favorite toy was my phone, even for the few who have one. They enthusiastically pressed the buttons.The children who did not understand the functions of my phone asked a lot of questions about how it all works. Modern technology fascinates the children: they are hungry for knowledge.

iPad touch screen tablet

Then Mark came to visit the children with a new "toy". He brought an iPad. For the next two weeks, the children admired the program which he showed them. I saw surprise in the children's eyes and a thirst to know new things. Each time that we visited after that, they remembered the many programs and games in this little computer.

Teachers of the boarding school in Dobromel treat children with love and patience.They believe that through education, the deviation in the development of these children is no longer a frustrating circumstance for the child, his or her family, and for society.

Non-verbal boys need computers for communication

Thank you, dear friends for reading our letters and responding to the needs of children with whom we meet and then tell you. Your support will be a great help for the children!

Living my dream,

Sveta

We have demonstrated success of massage in improving speech last October at the Dobromel orphanage. Here, there are five mid-teenage children who are non-verbal. They never received massage or experienced the computer world, which may have facilitated their language skills during their early development. Sveta and I would like very much to work with them using massage and the computer to develop their communication skills.

Can you imagine the potential that computer and massage will offer for the younger children who have communication disabilities? With your help this Christmas Season, MUCH can open a whole new avenue of communication possibilities for them.

If God is guiding your heart to help our children this Christmas Season, send a check to the address below or make an on-line contribution at our website,
www.muchhope.org
Please write Christmas in the memo.


Blessings of love and healing,

Mark and Sveta

July 2012 Newsletter

Hello family and friends,

July is the hottest month in the summer. A few days ago, it was in the mid 90s, but today it is back in the mid 80s. Mornings and evening are wonderful times of day to walk, strolling through the park, or walking by the sea in the cool breeze. This pleasant weather will slip away before we know it, but that is the life we live here in Ukraine, by the Black Sea.

Each month, Sveta and I share stories and pictures about the children in our newsletter. A week or so ago, I started two new ways to tell our story, using the internet. Flickr is a site that allows people to share pictures. We decided that we needed to have a system to share pictures with all people who are interested. At this point, we have 200 pictures organized in 15 sets, starting with the Marganets Orphanage in 2002. We also have sets of pictures from the Illichevsk Massage Program, the Dobromel Orphanage, and the Froonza Massage Program. You are welcome to visit our sets at http://www.flickr.com/photos/muchhope/. When you look at our pictures, if one moves you to write, please leave a comment. Tell us what you think. If you don’t have a computer, there are computers at the library and one of the clerks will be happy to help you.

Do you follow Facebook? We recently created a page for MUCH. We have pictures, not as many as Flikr, but we have them on a timeline, beginning with the creation of MUCH in 2004. If you have a FB account, you may comment on the pictures, click the Like button if you like our page, and you may write something on the status entry, Facebook's "What do You think?" If you don't have a FB account, which is free, you may still browse through the page, clicking on the pictures and reading the comments. You may find our MUCH Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/smMUCH. We hope to hear from you soon!

Big plans are in the works for the coming year, beginning in the fall. With our three main focus points -- healthcare, education, and clothing --we want to increase the number of children that we are helping in education and healthcare. Our Transportation Scholarship Program is the heart of our dream to break the cycle of poverty in Illichevsk. Our different massage programs are showing great results. My personal vision is to add three masseuses to the massage programs, one in each city, and four children to the Transportation Scholarship Program in Illichevsk. Success of my vision will depend upon our current sponsors and new sponsors that we hope to find via the internet social media network. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Flikr, to see how we do. I will tell you more in the August newsletter.

Sveta has some interesting insights about life in the day of a child in the Dobromel orphanage!

Sveta's Journey

In this letter, I will talk about the lives of children in the Dobromel Orphanage. Each morning, except Sundays, begins with exercise. All children, young and old, begin exercise at 7:00 AM. It's very interesting to see how they repeat all the commands from the teacher: sit down, stand up, leaning forward, tilting back, squat. Despite the fact that the exercises are simple, many children cannot quickly figure out what is necessary to do, and therefore lag in movement and don't all turn in unison, although they do try.

Ten tables fill the dining hall.

Then they wash and get ready for breakfast. Since the dining room is small and there is not enough room for all of the 120 children, the meal takes place in three stages: first, the small children eat; then the middle group eats; and finally, the older children. The teachers supervise the young children while they eat, and control that they eat carefully, and that they eat the entire portion.

After breakfast, all the children and the teacher go to the building that is located across the street. The whole orphanage complex consists of two parts: the kitchen and dining room, bedrooms, game rooms, and showers are located on one side of the street, while the educational building is on the other side of the street, about a block away. Without the supervision

The green building is the school.

of a teacher or educator, only some of the older children are allowed to cross the street. Although this town is small, the movement of vehicles, bicycles, and horses pulling wooden carts is intense near the school. There are no pedestrian crossings, and the road is not asphalted.

 This school for children with special needs does not offer all of the advanced courses found in most secondary schools. Some of the children have difficulty with numbers and letters, so science in not even a possibility for them to learn. For the higher functioning children, mathematics, history, the Ukrainian language, biology, geography, art, and physical training are the limit to their education. In the spring, the children who have families are called home to plant the crop that will be the family food for the following year. Also, they may care for the cows or babysit the younger children in their family.

Talking between classes.

Between classes, the children go out in the yard near the school. It is equipped with a playground where they have fun, running around or just sitting on the bench and talking.

 When the lessons end, the teachers and caregivers process the children back across the street where they will have lunch. While the children eat, the older children have time to pose for pictures, and they happily will ask, "Will you take our pictures?" They love to be photographed! After lunch, everyone will return to the school to do homework with a tutor who specializes in helping the children learn how to do homework.

Chit-chat after supper.

Then supper, and after supper, the children have free time to watch TV in the playroom, or play with games. Older children can spend time outside of the orphanage where they play football or sit on a bench and talk to each other. At 9:00 PM, children go to wash, brush teeth, and sleep.

Every Saturday is bath day. All are bathed in a shower. Young children are washed by a woman caretaker. These evenings are very lively; the children love to wash and are very excited and joyful, before and after their bath. The children told me about this wonderful event the day before.

In the spring, children are also involved in cleaning their rooms on Saturdays. In addition, they clean the grounds outside, learning to take
 pride in their environment. In this orphanage, almost all children are under

The brooms are made out of branches.

 pride in their environment. In this orphanage, almost all children are under the supervision of trainers and teachers all day - for these special children need constant supervision and control.
 

A piece of history in Dobromel.

We had a meeting with the Director one day during our last visit. We met outside in one of the little gazebos that is on the property. As we spoke, he pointed to a stone wall that Mark and I have often wondered about. The stone wall that the children and Mark are posing in front of in this last picture is 400 years old. He explained that this is the remains of the wall that encompassed the city of Dobromel in the 1600s. What a treasure to have this historical artifact right there in the territory of the orphanage. What an educational tool.

 Living my dream,
 Sveta

Speaking of great tools, the internet has given us marvelous opportunities in gathering information and communicating from the mission field through my monthly newsletter and in Emails with sponsors. Social media will give Sveta and me the tools to tell our story in words, pictures, and video. As we move through the second half of 2012, please visit our sites and tell us what you think.                                      

Blessings of love and healing,

Mark and Sveta