Cooking, Museums and Cows
March 2, 2010
News from Olga Goncharenko –
First of all, I’d like to start with the cooking class the orphanage. Teenagers from our church are very interested in helping out. Not only they became friends with orphans, but they are a great help in cooking classes and playing sports with the kids.
During those cooking classes, orphans learn basic skills of cooking a plain meal, as well as how to set the table and even how to make a dessert. They love it when they can do it themselves and we love to teach them how to do it as well as bring all the necessary ingredients.
Second, we had a great time with a group of orphans at the Belarusian Nature museum (it was my first time there as well). The children learnt about the animals that live in our country.
After the museum we all went to McDonald’s for lunch. Minsk Family Home girls have joined us, helping with orphans. It was the second time for Katya, who is 18 years old to be there.
After McDonald’s the girls as well as the orphans went to a Christian Youth conference dedicated to Love. The day was full of good impressions.
Another thing that we wanted to share was a visit to a foster family with 8 kids. SOR is getting a cow for that family. Nina, who is a mom, a single woman in her 60, is a new believer and loves the children dearly. For our visit, she has invited 3 other foster families from the area. She was an inspiration to them to start taking kids out of the orphanages.
It was surprising to see two kids from Stankovo, whom we met before, to be in one of those families. Last year SOR provided pigs for all those foster families, this year it’s a cow and we would like to get them chickens as well.
We shared a meal together and heard a lot of sad stories about each child: the girls of 3 years old were not walking yet, and the boy of 10 was not talking; some kids had scab. But the joy is that now they are all doing well, talking and walking, healthy and feel safe in a healthy Christian atmosphere.
Here are our prayer and financial needs:
1. Please pray for summer programs and camps. We want to take 40-50 kids to camps this summer. The cost for 1 child to go is 215$.
2. We would like to get chickens for 5 families this spring. One chicken is about 3$.
Thank you for all your help and support that allows us to continue the good work in Belarus. May God bless you abundantly and fulfill the desires of your hearts,
– Olga and SOR
From Russia to Montenegro
February 26, 2010
About 10 days ago, my wife and I began a road trip from St. Petersburg, Russia to visit Stoneworks ministry sites in eastern and central Europe. Stoneworks continues to expand, and it’s an honor to be able to visit so many wonderful people that God has put together as living stones.
Our first stop was in Minsk, Belarus where we visited with our ministry Spring of Revival. We stayed with Yasha and Olga Goncharenko and had a great time visiting several ministry sites.
Olga and her staff continue to do great work under difficult circumstances. They are very worthy of our help and support.
The highlight of our visit was at the Minsk Family Home. The young ladies who live there are doing very well, and Alesya (the counselor, in front on the right) is doing a great job.
We had a good meal together, shared stories and were blessed to have a good time of fellowship and mutual encouragement.
We also visited a foster family we support. The home, for eleven children, is in a small village 30 minutes from Minsk.
We had a great meal there (this is a theme of our travels), and saw some of the pigs we bought for them. We’re now helping purchase a cow, and we’ve also purchased chickens and provided other aid for foster families.
From Minsk, we drove through eastern Poland to Budapest, Hungary after a long day.
The trip through that part of the world is quite interesting and the land is very beautiful, especially as we made our way through the Carpathian mountains of eastern Slovakia. Read more
Minsk Family Home — in depth
January 28, 2010
Here is an in-depth report on the Minsk Family Home as it is functioning today. We are very thankful to be able to help these young ladies.
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There are five girls involved, in addition to Alesya the counselor.
Katya S. – Studies in vocational school for the shoe-making trade. She is a new believer and attends the ABC (basic) Bible training at church. After some rough times with personal issues at the beginning, she is now fitting in well. She and Alona are good friends.
Alona G. – Was studying insurance, but has dropped out and is looking for a job. She will apply to school again in the summer. Alona’s birth mother has cancer, and Alona often visits her as well as her brother and sister on weekends. As you might guess, this takes her away from church and Family Home activities, leaving her as the least “plugged in” of the girls – although she is good friends with Katya. Imagine the stress Alona must be under. Please pray for Alona, and that the other girls will know how to minister to her.
Alla S. – Studies chemistry at the Belorussian State University. She has finished a Bible training course at New Life Christian Church (NLC) and has become a member there.
Tanya S. – Is taking evening courses to be a sales clerk. She plans to take qualifying tests during the summer so she can apply for the teaching program at Belarussian State Pedagogical University. She attends pastor Tamara’s church in the village.
Masha I. – Studies marketing at a college in Sennista village, near Minsk. She is at the MFH on weekends. She loves the Lord and has completed part of the Bible training course at NLC.
So you can see there are four girls full time. One leaves, but another joins, on weekends.
Aleysa is doing very well. Olga says the girls respect her as a leader and listen to her counsel. Alesya keeps Olga informed about how things are going, and Olga gives input as needed. Read more
God’s Love in Shelters, Orphanages and Hospitals
January 21, 2010
Here’s the most recent from Olga Goncharenko in Belarus –
Christmas season is very important for our ministry as it’s a great time to touch so many lives of children that we know, tell them that we love them and Jesus loves them as well as to meet new children that need our help.
Stankovo
Christmas started for us December, 14th when we went to have a Christmas fair at Stankovo. 65 children waited on us, as we came in with many toys, sweets, school supplies, and other things we prepared for them.
That day the concert room looked like a store with different department, where children can buy things using their orphanage motivation coupons. They come in by groups.
There 5 groups and only two groups have girls (all together there are 10). Each group has made Christmas cards and we too brought them cards from the students of Holden Christian academy.
The fair is a fun event; it’s always a question if we brought enough things or if we sell out before some kids have a chance to get things.
It surprises me that soap and shampoo are the first things to go, as well as food and drinks. (Click HERE to see more pictures from the fair.)
Slytsk
Next step was Slutsk orphanage with 105 children (again less girls, only 40 and more boys, 65).
It was a hard trip, as far as driving. The weather was about 0 F and our diesel fuel froze all the time. We had to stop, the trip one way took almost 4 hours verses 1,5 in the normal weather. But it was worth it.
We invited a Christian musician, who really did a great job in putting a concert, he played 4 saxophones of different sizes, shared his testimony of how he became a believer, told a story of silent night, let children play his saxophones and the concerted finished with all of us singing together a great Christian song. Everyone was impressed.
Our team has packed 105 gifts for all the kids as well as we brought cakes for every group of orphans.
Besides that we gave a special time for 22 Slytsk orphans, by paying for them to go to circus during their winter break. They loved it. Read more
Belarus — Christmas Fair
January 16, 2010
As always, Spring of Revival held a Christmas Fair at Stankovo. The orphans there earn credits (special coupons) for participation in SOR programs and then are able to use these credits to purchase items at the fair. In some of the pictures you can see kids holding their white credits, the size of paper currency.
SOR brought a lot of sweets, drinks, cookies, chips as well as toys, school supplies, soap and shampoo etc. The orphans enjoyed the fair as they got to spend their own “money”:
Belarus Slideshow — Sharing the Birth of Jesus
January 14, 2010
Olga Goncharenko recently sent some very good pictures of the Spring of Revival ministry at a shelter in Stankovo. They brought Christmas gifts, Christian literature and even had clowns, as they shared the story of the birth of Jesus.
Belarus — Families, Cooking and Conferences
December 24, 2009
Dear friends,
As you continue pray and support the ministry in Belarus, we want to fill you in a bit.
The Minsk Family home really brings us a lot of joy. The girls have lived there for about 3 months now. So we can look at it as a trial period and can say, that it went well and we are ready to move on.
This month we had an official opening ceremony of Minsk Family Home. We invited people close to MFH, we prayed together for girls, we shared with them the goals, the plans and ideas about MFH.
Each girl has signed a contract to agree with all the rules and all the girls lit one candle as a symbol of family flame and unity. We had a nice dinner and shared stories after that.
The girls are also having great desire to minister to orphans, so this month we gave them an opportunity to go to the Zhdanovichi orphanage to visit pre-school orphans and give them diapers, as well as to Stankovo orphanage to have cooking classes.
Since there are more of us now, we can actually take several groups to cook at a time. It went really well, the orphans were happy and the girls want to do it again.
And also in December two of our girls: Alla and Tanya had their birthdays. Those were the first family holidays in MFH.
The girls invited their friends from colleges and had real birthday parties. We also wanted to do something special for them, so we took them out for a day trip celebration. We went to bowling (for some of them it was the first time, but by the end all of them were doing pretty well). And after bowling we ate together in a cafe.
The girls were happy, we made their day and it was very special. It’s also neat to see how they support each other and help each other. Read more
Belarus — Growth and Faithfulness
November 25, 2009
Olga Gonchrenko reports –
The month of October was very special for us all our family (Olga, Yasha, Thomas and Stephanie) traveled in the United States, visited churches, shared about the ministry and made new contacts.
It was also a great time to see many of you in person and to say how much we appreciate all that you do for the ministry and for the country.
We want to thank all of you who made it possible for us to make this trip financially, hosted us, fed us, and drove us around.
We had a great time and I believe that the trip was a success and fruitful.
Minsk Family Home
A few days after coming back we had two day women’s conference. I was jet-legged, but still made it to the conference with the girls from the Family home. It was a great time with about 800 women participating, great testimonies and message. All the girls really enjoyed that. Just to be in a church with so many women together was very exciting.
Now all the girls from the Family home attend church, most of them gave their lives to Jesus before coming to the Family home, but one girl Katya came to our church for the first time this past October.
She gave her life to Jesus and it’s so great to see how she is growing spiritually now. She attends ABC classes (basic truth about God) as well as she participates in different activities (prayer time, Bible lessons) at the Family home. Besides, the girls go to the orphanages to spend time with the children.
Another exciting event was that our Family Home was visited by a few girls from Equip office (John Maxwell ministry). They came as a part of a team that did seminars in the church on Leadership (I was helping to translate for the church) and one evening we invited them to Family home.
The atmosphere was so warm and open, that all our girls opened up and shared their life stories; how they lost their parents and came to orphanages, about their siblings and about the changes that God is making in their lives now. I was so blessed to be there at that time.
We prayed for them and encouraged them to go on with their studies as it’s hard for them and we constantly help them with studies and encourage them.
New Pictures from the Minsk Family Home
October 14, 2009
The Minsk Family Home is moving into its second month! We are very thankful that God has brought this to pass.
Currently, three girls live there full time, two others will probably move there soon, and ten others visit regularly (weekends, evenings) for fellowship, ministry and training.
So, even though only three live there now, about 15 graduate orphans are being served because we now have the flat.
Alesya Kuleshova, the counselor, is on left of the first picture –
News from Belarus — Summer Camps 2009
September 14, 2009
Here is news from Alesya Kuleshova, staff member with Spring of Revival:
This summer 215 children participated in summer camps in Belarus and Latvia.
I and a few other volunteers were counselors in Christian camp in Latvia. There were two sessions: one for younger kids and one for older kids.
Each session lasted for 12 days. There were 63 children participating in each. There were children from different background: foster children, children from families with many children, children from poor families that cannot afford to go camps.
The program was full of different events. Every day there were so many interesting games and things to do. Also we had a Bible lesson and service every day.
There were three excursions during this trip. One day all the children went to the Baltic Sea were they had a really nice time and some of the children saw sea for the first time in their lives.
The other trip was to Riga the capital of Latvia. It was a very nice city to see. And the last trip was to the big Zoo in Riga where the children saw many different animals.
At the end of the camp the children were given an opportunity to accept Jesus as their Savior and almost all of them answered that call. And even children who knew Jesus before stepped out to renew their relationship with God. That was a really awesome camp and no one wanted to go home.
Another camps were Military base camp for Stankovo kids and Tent camp for Slutsk kids. SOR paid for children to go to those camps.
I got to visit both of them and spent time with the kids. Forty five children from Stankovo orphanage spent 40 days at the military base. It’s a true army base, and it was very good for the kids, as most of them are boys. Every day they had a very strict curriculum. They had some training like real soldiers have and the meals were the same too.
The camp was situated in a very clean area of Belarus, surrounded by woods. And it’s the main base of the country for training guard dogs. Twice a day for several hours’ children spent time with the dogs: walking with them, playing and helping to train them. The children became really good friends with the dogs. Children really liked that. This camp was a really good life experience for them.
