Liz Hulley Sukhovskaya
July 31, 2011
Liz married Andrei yesterday. It was a lovely wedding at an old Finnish Lutheran church in St. Petersburg. Many of her family members were able to attend including David and Anne, Liz’s parents. Their honeymoon will consist of a few days in Pskov, an ancient Russian town south of St. Pete, before going to the USA for two weeks.
A Letter about Minsk Family Home
July 28, 2011
We’ve recently sent this letter to previous donors who have supported Minsk Family Home —
We value you as a prayer partner for Belarus and the ministry of the Minsk Family Home, and thank you for your previous financial support. I want you to know about the challenging time that the ministry now faces.
Minsk Family Home needs our support more than ever. In addition to the Belorussian economy facing serious trouble (inflation is rampant, the money supply is drying up), social unrest is growing and the culture is less stable each week. Olga Goncharenko recently wrote,
“Please keep us and our ministry in your prayers as life here is very unstable. You can read it online in the news, but besides all the prices going up rapidly and being tripled in the last two months, it’s also becoming strange to us how many people get arrested downtown. So we need God’s protection.”
Supporting Minsk Family Home is a way we can help believers in Belarus. Our support (spiritual, emotional, financial) has always been an encouragement and a ministry tool but is vital now in the midst of the unrest.
Also, after looking over past and current support levels, it’s become clear that Minsk Family Home needs an additional $3600 in gifts or pledges to keep the program viable for the remainder of 2011.
These are trying times, and Christian workers and orphans need a sense of continuity and provision from those outside of their culture.
Please feel free to share this letter with anyone you think may be interested in helping Minsk Family Home continue their-life changing work in Belarus.
Alina: Foster Care in Russia
July 16, 2011
You can see Alina’s first update here.
Hello my dear friends!
Praying this letter will find you well!
I have written recently sharing with you about our new life together. I am grateful to you for you prayers and support. With God’s grace and mercy we are surviving.
Unfortunately, we are not getting the support from our sponsors in July and maybe in August. With God’s help I was able to pay for the flat this month. As I understand, we will have to be able to provide the money for the rent for August and that will be the largest amount of our monthly income.
We were planning to go to Ukrainе for three weeks starting from 22nd of July. You all know that the climate and ecological situation in St. Petersburg is very bad. We need 15 thousand rubles ($550) in order for us not to cancel the trip and to have the travel in economy way. We would like to ask to help us financially and we need your prayer support always!
Please write us and we will gladly share with you our news and how the kids grow, how Nikita, the eldest brother of Danya and Nastya, is doing. We stay connected with him and we have good relationships.
We believe God will not leave us, and please join with us in prayer as we stand for our children!
We pray that God bless you families and your homes in every way!
Your in Christ,
Alina
Liz: Family and Orphanage News
July 16, 2011
From Liz Hulley Sukhovskaya:
Hello, everyone!
This is just a quick note to share a little bit about how orphan ministry is going. There are some needs that are pressing, and it’s wedding/honeymoon time soon for me.
Orphanage #27 in Kolpino
Many of you know of this orphanage or have even visited there, or met the kids at camp several summers ago. This is where Nastia and Masha (Hulley) spent their early years.
It had been increasingly hard to organize any sort of continual ministry at this orphanage. Contact decreased as kids graduated and counselors grew distant.
After a visit in the fall with my dad, it didn’t seem like there were open doors, and I stopped going.
Meanwhile, through the Russian online social network “vkontakte,” a woman contacted me who had been visiting the orphanage. We confirmed that we were both Christians and seeking to reach the kids for Jesus.
There is a new director now and this woman (Irina)’s church isn’t allowed to visit anymore, but they are still in touch with many of the kids.
Now I know that at the times when I was praying, there WERE Christians setting their feet in orphanage #27. Pray with me that God would be working there now, even when there seem to be a lot of dead-ends.
Becoming a family, Part 1
Maybe you recall my newsletters from a few years ago when I was actively working to promote foster care/adoption among Russian believers. Where are the families for these kids? Surely they aren’t only in America? Don’t any Russian families want to open their homes?
Having caught a glimpse of how tedious and exhausting it can be for local people to take any sort of step forward in foster care/adoption, I’m now quite inspired when I hear of anyone who has risen to the challenge.
Here is an update from Alina, a foster parent who has worked hard and recently gained custody of two siblings, Danya and Nastia. Their older brother is of legal age and continuing with his studies.
Their last two newsletters [in separate posts] contain some specific needs. Alina mentions some tangible ways that you can help. Also, let me know if you’d like to be added to a separate mailing for her supporters.
Here are a few other prayer requests and news items that Alina asked me to share:
-Nikita (the older brother) has passed his entrance exams for the Polytechnical Institute, which will give him a full ride. The government has also given him a room, which is very close to the metro, and in a 2-rm apartment shared with another orphanage graduate.
-Their mom has schizophrenia and resides in Pushkin, a bit outside of the city. She lives with an elderly blind woman who attends a Protestant church regularly. Please pray for the children’s mom to visit this church also and to get to know Christians.
Becoming a family, Part 2
Andrei and I will be united in holy matrimony on July 30, 2011. We have just 2 weeks to go and virtually all of the planning has just gotten off the ground in the last few days.
But in the last few months God has seen us through our civil wedding ceremony and all the steps related to updating my documents. Those were no small victories! It is exhausting to even look back at that process at the moment, but you can read some more details on my blog.
Also, Andrei got a visa to the U.S. and I should have an exit visa by the beginning of August, so we’ll be able to make a little tour of my home country!
Thanks for all you do to support me and the work in Russia!
Love,
Elizabeth
Camp in Belarus
July 5, 2011
From Olga Goncharenko:
We are back and after a few days of rest ready to sit down to write some about the camp.
The camp was great. It took place in the Northern part of Belarus on the lakes. There were 50 children, and 15 adults (team members). We had a team of 8 from Indiana, mostly young people and two girls from a Christian college in Arkansas. Together with Belarusian translators and helpers they did a great job.
As we travelled on the bus for about 4 hours to get to place, we have divided all the kids into 4 groups according to their ages. They kids that came to camp were from 5 up to 16 years old coming from different backgrounds, such as shelter, orphanage, foster families and poor, problematic families.
Originally we wanted to take kids from 7 years old and older, but we couldn’t resist the girl Vika, who was 5, as she had nowhere to be during this time as her mother went to prison because she had killed her cohabitant and Vika’s papers to go to an institution were not ready then. Sad story. As well as a few others, who were in similar situations with their parents taken them back from the shelter, because they were forced to pay for the tuition of kids while they were in the shelter. Only God knows if and when they’d get back there. Hopefully they can remain in their families, but very often we see how they come back to shelter every few months.
The first day of camp was hard, as we had to call the ambulance, that took two boys to the local hospital. Read more
Kate and Laura — Interns in Belarus
July 4, 2011
Our names are Kate and Laura and we are from Kansas and North Carolina.
We have just finished our sophomore year at John Brown University in Arkansas, majoring in Early Childhood Education with an endorsement in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). We just spent 12 days in Belarus helping with a camp and teaching English lessons there. We were excited to have this opportunity to come to Belarus to share God’s love with children and gain experience teaching English.
The camp was for needy children, many from foster homes or a children’s shelter. They heard the gospel everyday and participated in crafts, games, swimming, and English lessons. We had the opportunity to meet with a small discussion group, and we enjoyed seeing their growth in knowledge of the gospel. One of our favorite parts of camp was becoming friends with the children and just spending time with them.
Before and after camp we stayed in the Minsk Family Home. We got to know and love the girls that lived there and made new friendships. They were very hospitable to us the whole time we stayed there. We can see the fruit of this ministry and how God is working in these girls’ lives.
Before and after camp, we visited various attractions in and around Minsk, which broadened our understanding and appreciation of Belarusian culture.
We had a great experience in Belarus and were blessed to have this opportunity to meet wonderful co-laborers in the gospel of Christ and work with them to love children in need.
Prayer Requests from Belarus
July 4, 2011
Dear friends, please keep us and our ministry in your prayers as life here is very unstable, you can read it online in the news, but besides all the prices going up rapidly and being tripled in the last two month, it’s also becoming strange to us how many people get arrested downtown. So we need God’s protection.
Another need is to pray for orphanages and new ways for us in the ministry. It seems that the directors want so much more material help from us that we can give and they get very upset when we don’t give it to them. We want to help kids, not the system.
We are also working on selling our van and getting a newer one. Please pray for that. And we want to thank all of you who helped us in making this possible.
And pray for more helpers and volunteers to do more work with foster families.
Thank you again for all your help.
– Olga Goncharenko
Life-Giving Ministry in Belarus
July 4, 2011
From Olga Goncharenko:
Greetings dear friends,
May-June is a very busy time for us and God was good to us and blessed us in many different ways.
Orphanages
Stankovo
The end of the school year is the fair time at the orphanage. The children are looking forward to that special event. We got special requests to bring summer slippers, soap, shampoo, socks, and underwear. Together with sweets, toys, school supplies, the children had a great time and were prepared to meet the summer in their new summer shoes.
The first day of summer is Children’s Day in our country. We took 45 children from the orphanage to go to an amusement park “Dream Land” for a day. They really enjoyed the roller coasters and our time together. We had fun.
In June we had a team from TN who came to be in the orphanage for a day and we made it a special cooking day. We divided ourselves in three groups and did cooking with all the kids and then we ate with our groups. It was great! The kids enjoyed making crafts and fellowshipping with the team. The team also made it possible for one group to have a new bedroom that is being installed now.
Rudensk
We visited that orphanage last week, as we knew some children who were moved to that place. It has 160 kids, mostly with learning problems. They were glad to see us and would like to cooperate in future.
Shelter
Birthday party with home-made pies and pastries, fruit and sweets took place in May. In June we had a fair at the shelter. Kids got new underwear, toys to play outside in the sand, crayons, but most of all they love balloons. It’s amazing how a little thing like a balloon can make a child so happy. Since shelters have really young kids (3 and up) they usually do not go to camp and stay in the institution all summer long. So we plan to do summer visits there as well. Right now we are working on installing a dish satellite for them to have children’s Christian channel.
Foster families
We hosted 4 boys from Zhitkovichi foster family. They came for a youth conference that took place in our church. Read more
