News

When Evening Comes

When the day approaches its end, in our house everything gradually quiets down. The children complete their chores, put away their belongings and toys, wash up, and spread out their bedding. Together we conduct evening devotionals, pray for parents, and give thanks to God for protecting us and helping us live through the day. The first to be sent to bed are the youngest children. All is well and the children are cheerful and smile, but something happens when they lie down in their beds and try to fall asleep—they are left alone with their thoughts. And this is a difficult ordeal. One night I heard a cry coming from the boys’ room. Little Andrusha was crying. I was surprised because during the evening everything had been fine. “Andrusha, what happened?” and for an answer I received a simple phrase “I missed mama…” And also little Tanusha asks the question, “Do you know where my mama is now? Why doesn’t she come to see me, huh?” You see, the children still believe that adults are truly smart people, that they know everything and can answer any question. And I gaze into the dark and think how on earth to answer such an easy and endlessly difficult, unanswerable question. And I understand all the pain and worry of a little heart. Where is mama? Is everything ok with her? Is she sick? Was she afraid last night during the thunderstorm and scary lightning? Mama, where are you?
 
And we adults can think, what here is surprising, that at a children’s home young children cry for mama? It happens often...but what is priceless in this is to find the person who will come and take part of this loneliness on themselves, and will further say, “Don’t cry, I’m here and you don’t need to fear. I love you.”
 
The Good Shepherd Shelter thanks all our friends and partners who take part of the children’s hardship upon themself and provide financial and prayer support in order to serve abandoned children. Glory to God that together we can help children and give them our love and care. Thanks to each one of you for your part in the lives of these children, they are thankful to you.

Our summer

It’s difficult to describe how much our children love summer! Why? Because, first of all of the children have a long summer break and therefore each has enough time to ride bicycles and swing, to stay up late talking with friends. There is no need to do homework or to get up early in the morning and hurry to school. It’s possible to play soccer for hours on end, to learn how to cook something tasty with one of the cooks, to go on hikes with the staff, to discover where our nurse keeps the tasty vitamins, and to figure out with other kids why our dog Malish barked so loudly during the previous night. Summer vacation is the happy time when you are free!
 
And also one very important part of summer vacation is summer camps! This year our children were at two health-promoting camps. At the end of June the youngest and middle groups of children were at the seaside, and in July the oldest and middle groups of children relaxed at a tent camp in the forest. The children’s impressions and memories are too numerous to recount. For our youngest children, the trip to the seashore is always an enormous event--to see the sea. They not only enjoy its beauty, but try to understand how so much water could be in one place.
 
If our youngest and middle children go to camp to relax, then our older children go to camp to serve. This year our oldest kids helped with maintenance at camp, helped conduct the sports program, and worked in the kitchen. For us it is always a source of special parental pride when other people comment about how our children work, that they take their responsibilities seriously and carry their work through to completion. Glory to God!

Renovation work

While the children relaxed at camp, our staff worked. It is important to use the time while the children are away from home to do all the interior renovation work. A new classroom was made for the children and a playroom was renovated for the middle group of children. The floor surface in the hallway and rooms was replaced and the walls in the hallway and stairway were painted. And also a special joy and blessing for the children—a comfortable new couch was purchased for the playroom! The children say—“Oh, ho! It is so long that we can all fit on it together!”

A special thanks to the Lord is that we continue to move along with the external work on the building. Through support from the Schmidt Family Foundation of Canada, we began work on the installation of a new facade for our building. By the end of August, the left part of the building will be complete. We thank God that He is helping us reconstruct our building so that a larger number of children will be able to call it their home.

English intensive

We thank God that our oldest children had the opportunity to study English. The Christian university conducts a Summer English Intensive and thanks to Rene Maleski our children are able to learn there. It is a blessing that the children are able to study and acquire new knowledge that will be useful to them in the future.

Good Shepherd Shelter Staff

My name is Alla Nikolaevna Simonova. I work in the laundry room of the Shelter. I am responsible for distribution and cleaning of the children’s clothing and bedding. I have worked for the Good Shepherd for seven years. I attend one of the Christian churches in our city of Makeevka. I have a family. My husband works in construction as a sander. I also have a daughter and a son. My son is an invalid and is 26 years old. My daughter is 22 and studies at the university. I am glad that at the Shelter our children can receive food, care, and their first knowledge of the Lord. Glory to God that the children feel at home, they work and try to learn something.

I think that it is necessary to teach the children to build a personal relationship with God and also to raise them and teach hygiene, cultured behavior, and polite interaction with elders. The hardest aspect of my work is saying goodbye to children who have lived with us for years. That is the most sad part.

Introducing…Our Sergei Polchaninov

Our Sergei was born on 20 July 1999. Right now he is 10 years old. He has green eyes and a beautiful smile. Sergei’s mother has mental illness and cannot care for her children. For this reason, Sergei and his sister live with us. Sergei’s grandmother comes to visit him and he really loves and respects her. His grandmother told him about God early in his childhood. A special quality of Seryozha is his ability to think—he believes in God, but he bravely reasons and asks questions about Him. Once Sergei told a story about how the Lord answered his prayer and showed him that He is the Living God. Sergei wants to study business in the future and to help poor people. In school, he loves Math, Russian, and English. Sergei considers the most important and interesting parts of his life to be God, his repentance, and that he is not afraid of the dark.

Autumn vacation

Two months of fall flew by and two long-awaited weeks of vacation began for our children. There are 23 students at the Good Shepherd Shelter. They range from Kolya A., Andrey S., and Danil T. who entered the first grade to Dima T. who will graduate this year. The rest of the children are in the primary and middle classes. Some have already decided for sure that they will become a cook or a police officer after school and some are still pondering. The staff and friends of the Good Shepherd Shelter pray for each of our children, that they will find themselves and their calling in order to be useful to the Lord and those around them.
 
Vacation is the best time! During vacation you can finally sleep in (on school days the children are awakened at 6:15 a.m.), discuss with your friends everything that you wanted so much to discuss, but you didn’t have enough time, play soccer, ride bikes, take part in competitions, visit relatives. Vacation is the most wonderful time--you can ask any child at the Good Shepherd Shelter, but how quickly the time flies!

Beauty contest

It goes without saying that every one of our children is the most beautiful to us. You see the child, worry about him, try to feel what he feels, and the child becomes the most beautiful to you! But how many doubts and questions about their appearance spring up in every head, especially in the heads of girls! The difficulties and problems that they lived through with their parents left their mark on the outlook of the children and the children’s opinions of themselves. And how important it is to raise this opinion and tell a child that he is special in our eyes and the eyes of the Lord! We held a small hairstyle contest in which all the boys and girls competed, young and old. Everyone styled their hair and we prepared small prizes. At the end of a few contests, we determined the winners. We thank God for this time, a chance to be together, to laugh and make each other happy! Is this not indeed a family?!

An evening of music

Music is around us everywhere—at the store, on the bus, when we move, think, and relax. What kind of music do you listen to? What is it about? Is it sad or happy? We decided to organize an evening of music in order to widen our children’s understanding of music. We invited guests who play various instruments. Together we were able to listen to different types of music, to reflect on what music carries with it, and to participate in skits and games.
 
It is also a great joy to us that five of our girls of different ages have begun to take piano lessons. The teacher comes to us for the lessons. To those who practice with great desire comes ongoing improvement and inspiration. Please pray for our children, that they will have desire and zeal and will learn to overcome challenges.

Good Shepherd Shelter Pedagogical Conference

Six educators work in our team. Three educators work with the oldest group and middle group, and three work with the youngest group. To be an educator is a special position in our home because you are an example—you are watched and evaluated, tested, and questioned. You are tested to find if you can be trusted--are you a true friend or only pretending? How can one be a wise educator? Where can one get the strength and wisdom to receive, understand, and help a child? Glory to the Lord that we can always turn to Him. In the Bible it is written “ “ and therefore the pedagogical team gets together every three months in order to advise each other, share experience, and pray for our children together. Also, at every conference an appointed educator prepares a report on a given theme applicable to us. At the last conference the educators discussed the book How to Love a Child, by the renowned Polish teacher Yanusha Korchaka.

Six questions

In October, our Kristina B. turned fifteen. Kristina has lived at our home for around three years. She is a serious and responsible girl. This summer, Kristina helped the cook prepare food for 50 people at the camp our children attended. She loves to work and is able to cope with difficulties.

We asked our Kristina six questions:

One girl’s story

This girl’s name is Alyona. She has lived with us for only a few months. She is ten years old and is in the third grade. She has blue eyes and is a very lively, active girl. It sometimes seems that her energy and optimism have no limit. Alyona has only a mother. Her mother has HIV, doesn’t work, and drinks. Alyona lived with her mother in a rented house without electricity and unheated because no one bought coal. Alyona rarely went to school and when she did, she was dirty and had lice. Her mother brought her to our home. Alyonka easily joined in with our group of children and became friends with other girls. Our teacher is working with Alyona in order to get her up to par for school. Alyonka is also studying games and piano. She came up herself and said that she wants to study with the other children. Every parent can make a mistake and sometimes these mistakes are irreparable. Every adult can give in to his perpetual troubles and despair. And while the adult looks for a way out, the child suffers and it falls upon the child to pay for others’ mistakes and resolve adult problems. Praise the Lord that in the life of this little girl something changed--she doesn’t have lice, someone is caring for her health and development, she can go to school, learn to play piano, and most importantly simply be joyful and give us her smiles and happiness every day!

Dear friends, praise the Lord that He cares for us, looks after our needs, helps in times of trouble. Thank you very much for your prayers and spiritual and material support. We help the children together — you on your end and the staff of the Good Shepherd Shelter on the other. And may our Lord rejoice when he sees our united work for these children! Dear friends, we thank each of you very much for being with us!

Please pray together with us:

Our material needs: