+ 10 - 6 | § ¶Arena City Kid's Project 12-27-06
HAPPY NEW YEAR, A LITTLE EARLY!
My friends...We had a good time at the celebration for some of the Father's house orphans. 31 children under 12 years old had a good day of it at Caravan - a big shopping mall about 20 minutes (without traffic) from my house. This Mall has lots of entertaining things, such as bowling and an indoor ice skating rink. The Kids, however, had a drama presentation for them, with Santa Claus giving them gifts, and food...then games. After that, they enjoyed some cake, then a indoor jungle gym and fun sport games, and finally they got tickets and popcorn to a movie/cartoon. It was a fun time which started at 12 noon and went until after 5 pm. I am posting some pictures of this time together.
The Father's House is a Christian organization that has taken this kids from the streets of Kiev and given them a "home-like" environment and hope that the kids will be adopted in the future, by Ukrainians or people abroad. The government of Ukraine is currently still changing it's organization for letting Children to be adopted by foreigners, so there is difficulty in that department. However, older children, like 14-16 years old are easier to adopt for foreigners.
Anyway - since about 30 other children from the Father's House - didn't get to go to this celebration because they were older than 12...we are going to have a party for them and gifts for them at Caravan later, next week. ACT-UA has donatated $600 for gifts these children...as well as one of Lloyd's churches gave $200 and we gave another $200 towards these upcoming events. Oleg will be purchasing MP3 players for all these older children...a cost of $30-40 for them...so, it is going to be a Merry Christmas for them too.
There are other projects taking place after January 7th. There will be 3 projects with Grace Evangelical Church...with a total of $3,000 given to these 3 projects and a total of 175 kids will recieve gifts (a little under $20 each) and a presentation of the Gospel, etc.
Another project is being worked out with ACT-UA. In which, 31 more kids will recieve gifts worth $20 each.
So, far...so good...thanks for your prayers...and giving...it has been and continues to be exciting with making some children really blessed this holiday season. Bless you...
+ 7 - 9 | § ¶Kid's project today...noon to 4pm
Hey,
just asking for prayers today...on the Kid's project that takes place in less than 2 hours. I know it is like 2 in the morning in America, but thought I would throw this out there anyway. Hope to put pictures up online once it is over...so you'll get to "experience it" a little from America. Blessings,...thanks for your gifts and prayers so far.
+ 6 - 9 | § ¶Christmas Weekend 2006, Tanya's Parent's Home/City/Church
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course, I pray you had a great Christmas and that God was showing you the light of the World, Jesus Christ, in a fresh new way. I spent Saturday evening in a church celebration at Tanya's home church in Chercassy, Ukraine (about 3 hours drive from Kiev) and yes, it was all in Russian (which kept me sleepy). Then, Christmas Eve, we went to Church again in the morning...all services there must be over 3 hours long...and so...you can imagine how I wish I knew the language better. Anyway, Sunday Evening, Pastor Sasha and his family (wife and 3 children) came over to Tanya's parent's apartment and we had dinner. After dinner, we always have tea and tort (cake) and told funny stories. Finally, around 10:00pm, I asked Tanya's brother to bring Alexander (her Father) and her pastor to the kitchen...where we had a little talk for about 30 minutes. Yes, you can imagine I was pretty nervous all day - but the converstation went well. Who knows what we talked about - I will leave that a mystery in case Tanya reads my website:)
Anyway, Then we had a "gift opening" time around 12 AM - or Christmas morning, if you will. The next day, her brother Artom (Author in English) showed me around Chercassy with Tanya. He speaks English, so it was really nice to have that. Tanya's parents do not speak English, which made for a little difficulties sometimes. Anyway, I had lots of practice with the words I knew.
Her family is good - solid Christians, with a positive outlook on life - Tanya's mother actually sells and works successfully at AMWAY...which is pretty cool...I never met someone so successful at it. Plus, she works as an Accountant, and Tanya's father is an Electrical Engineer. She only has one sibling, and her brother is very successful in his own businesses.
Aright - I will add some pictures of the church services, and family...blessings, Rick
PS - big week...pray all goes well...need to run to a few meetings in about 15 minutes.
