Many more pictures of the ministry in Belarus –
Included are pictures of Alla’s birthday at the Minsk Family Home and Christmas celebrations and shelters and orphanages.
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- Alla’s BIG birthday cake
Greetings from Belarus. The winter holidays are over (here we celebrate from mid-December till mid January) and we are blessed to share all the good news in the ministry. The temperature is minus 8 F and we have snow above knee, but we do not freeze as our hearts are warmed by what God is doing.
This holiday season we visited about 285 kids in 7 different places. We brought Christmas gifts, shared Christmas stories, showed theater performances, and performed concerts.
All began with preparing gifts for orphans. We bought sweets, toys and people from our church gathered a lot of stuff for us as well. Boys from Timothy House helped packing gifts in shoe boxes and on December 13th we started.
Radoshkovichi orphanage has 117 kids . We brought gifts for all of them and we invited a Christian band to do a program, and our volunteers dressed up in costumes of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men to show Jesus story.
Borovlyanya shelter has 41 kids We brought a Christian theater with puppets, a lot of music, songs and all the kids were able to participate in songs; it was great. Gifts were so much appreciated. Each gift had something sweet, toys, socks, hat, mittens, school supplies, shampoo, toothpaste, soap. It will go a long way.
We also bought and installed 2 new windows for Borovlyani shelter. The windows are for a bedroom. It was very cold there and now it’s warm and cozy.
Stankovo shelter has 12 kids and for them we have prepared special private gifts. Children drew pictures of what they would like to get for Christmas and we have prepared those gifts for them. We shared Jesus story, made some crafts and we brought food for them for Christmas table, that we shared together. It was great. Besides in December we did our usual fair with a lot of goodies for the kids. The younger kids chose toys, while the older kids got clothes and immediately put it on.
Zhitkovichi (Greben) school and foster family has 61 kids. Christian youth theater from our church went with us to do the performance. Our van was packed with people, decorations, gifts and used clothes, shoes that we have collected for the school.
The program was great and at the end we had a chance to pray with children. Then we gave them gifts. Those were the only gifts they got .
And on December 25th Irina, the director, with her family and the foster family of Lidia drove all the way from Zhitkovichi to come to our church for Christmas celebration and we shared a meal afterwards. It was a great time of sharing God’s love.
There is a shelter in Minsk that has 12 kids. We brought cookies and sweets for them and very nice gifts. The Minsk Family Home girls decided to make weekly visits to the shelter.
And another exciting event took place on January 6th (that’s Orthodox Christmas ) we got 46 tickets to the performance “Road to Bethlehem.” Kids from a Minsk orphanage (the name is Children’s Town), from the shelter and from village foster families came to the theater.
After the program kids went to McDonald’s to continue celebrate Christmas.
Family Home News
This season we celebrated two birthdays. Our leader of the girls home, Alla, turned 23. The girls themselves made a fancy cake for Alla. And another girl Lena turned 17. It was a fun birthday and also everyone shared words of encouragements for Lena. At the end girls went out to play in the snow.
In December Lean, Sveta , Alena from MFH and Lesha from TH received diplomas for finishing Youth Bible School “Step by Step” and in January Lesha was water baptized. We are very excited about that.
Thank you all for your prayers and your support.
Our Needs:
1. Please pray for our health. All our family got sick with flue and it lasted for about 3 weeks. We need strength.
2. As summer is coming, we would like to start making plans for camps. We need prayers, funds to pay for kids to go to camp and teams. If you are interested please contact us.
3. At the Minsk Family Home we have 7 girls now, and we need to expand. We are praying for another MFH for girls.
Our Needs –
1. Please pray for our health. All our family got sick with flue and it lasted for about 3 weeks. We need strength.
2. As summer is coming, we would like to start making plans for camps. We need prayers, funds to pay for kids to go to camp and teams. If you are interested please contact us.
3. At the Minsk Family Home we have 7 girls now, and we need to expand. We are praying for another MFH apartment for girls.
Dear friends and supporters,
Blessings in the name of Jesus! Our God is a great God and His mercies are new every morning. Thank you all, who prayed for our church situation with the building. It’s resolved!!! Praise God!
Here is some news from Belarus.
MFH and Timothy House
Last month we had two birthday celebrations at family home. Nastya turned 20. We had a birthday surprise party for her. The girls and the boys from homes prepared the meal, we got together with gifts and had a nice time with Nastya.
The other party took place in Timothy House and it was for Lyosha’s 17th birthday.
This was the first time in his life that he had a birthday party.
Tanya, the mom, prepared a lot of food and all the guests came not only with gifts, but with nice, kind, encouraging words for Lyosha, shared Scripture verses with him and prayed for his future life.
Lyosha (TH), Lena, Sveta and Alona (MFH) have successfully finished the Youth Bible school “Step by step” and passed the final exam.
Now we are preparing for Christmas. The girls make postcards, crafts and plan on making a small theater show on Jesus’ birth. Soon most of them will have exams, please pray for them to pass them.
Family Ministry
Recently we have purchased groceries and made 60 food packages for families, who have 3 or more kids.
The food package had basic food items such as sugar, flour, oil, rice, macaroni, etc. It was a great blessing for the families, some of them are single parent families.
Orphanages and Shelters Read more →
An update from Spring of Revival, Minsk Family Home (MFH) and Timothy Home (TH):
This fall we’ve been visiting shelters and orphanages, village families and village schools, we had visitors from abroad and our ministry expanded.
Minsk Family Home
We have 6 girls living in the family home, 3 of whom are attending youth Bible school and two of whom attend “Every day one month Bible teaching school on dedication to God.” All the girls are learning to volunteer with the ministry and they made a new connection with a shelter in Minsk.
The shelter has 17 kids and is situated not far from the Family home, so it gives the girls opportunity to do the ministry themselves. With a few other post-orphan girls, we have a team of 10 volunteers to make regular visits to play with kids, do homework, and make friends.
This fall we made an outing with MFH girls and TH mother to the theater. The girls like it, and it also helps to unite MFH and TH.
Our foreign friends from USA and Russia came to MFH and TH to encourage the participants, pray for them and teach them some ministry ideas. Our MFH group leader Alla went to St. Petersburg to learn about ministry from MIR.
TH opened its door for our foreign friends as well. We had nice time with our friend Heather from Australia, Stephen and Marty from USA, and Mike and Sergey from Russia. The boys enjoy having male company and our guests also pray for the boys, encourage them and share meals together.
Shelters and orphanages
We have started working with new places and right now we have 4 shelters to work with (2 are in Minsk, one is in Borovlyani and the last one is in Stankovo). In October we celebrated Mother’s Day and brought cookies for the kids, went to their concert, had some nice get to know each other time.
Besides we had a nice birthday party at Stankovo shelter, where 6 kids got birthday gifts. We shared drinks and sweets, played some games and showed kids a puppet show.
Zhitkovichi visit
This fall the need took us to Zhitkovichi twice. The first time we came to visit three very poor families with kids to bring them Good news, food packages and Christian literature. As we saw many needs we went back in a few weeks. The second time we brought clothes for kids in the village, we visited more families and made a special visit to Yulia’s family. She is a graduate of Zhitkovichi orphanage and has a family now with 2 kids and is expecting twins right now. Both her and her husband are working on the village collective farm, where the salaries are so little that they can hardly make ends meet. During our visit there was no food at all in the house. Besides, the local authorities keep coming and threatening her that they will take her kids away and place them in the orphanage, because she is so poor. We want to help her with those needs as well as spiritually. She was open and we prayed for her.
Our main contact in that area is Irina (former orphanage director), who is also growing spiritually and she is like a chaperone for all those families. She is now the director of a village school of 50 kids, and we had a birthday party at the school. We brought cakes (some kids never had fancy cakes) and small gifts. Besides, we brought balls for their PT lessons because they didn’t have any. It was a great visit.
Also we visited a foster family home in Zhitkovichi. We’ve been friends over the years with the parents and the kids and now some kids got older and started their own lives, but new ones came. We met them, shared about life of David from the Bible, and made some crafts. They loved it, so next time we visited, it was another story about Daniel. We plan our next visit around Christmas.
As we are meeting new people and new places we see more and more needs.
Prayer needs
1. Spiritual revival and growth in Zhitkovichi area
2. Healing of daughter Liza of TH parents. She has some skin illness.
Financial needs
1. We would like to get 200 Christmas gifts to give to orphan kids ($10 a gift).
2. Shelter in Borolvyani needs to replace 2 windows in the bedroom. The old ones are very shabby and the kids have to sleep in warm clothes, because it so cold there. ($500)
3. Shelter in Minsk needs some medicine for kids ($200)
4. We would like to help Yulia’s family from Zhitkovichi with food, repairs of their house and baby things for the twins.
We would appreciate any help to meet the above needs.
Blessings,
Olga
Dear Friends,
Summer is such a great time for ministry. We are very happy to be able to do a lot of things.
First of all we would like to share our great news about Timothy House, our second residential home for graduate orphans. For many months we were praying for this program and many of you too. So now we are happy to announce that we are beginning it. We now have a family, Dima (39 years old) and Tanya (32 year old) and their two girls Sophia (4) and Lisa (2). Dima and Tanya have already got the legal guardianship papers of a foster family from the government. And we have two wonderful boys from Stankovo. Lesha (16) and Boris (16). This summer they will send their papers for vocational school. We are opening Timothy House in August. Keep praying.
Our orphanage and shelter ministry continues in its usual way. We go and play with kids, do seminars and cooking. In May we had our great Fair at both the shelter and the orphanage in Stankovo. We loaded kids with underwear, socks, shampoo, sweets and shoes. It will be needed for their summer vacations at camps.
We also had a nice graduation party at Stankovo orphanage. We got nice dresses for the girls. The graduation party also became a farewell party at Stankovo orphanage will be closed in September.
We said goodbyes to kids and each child got a balloon with a piece of paper to write his/her dream and then we all let them fly in the air. It was great. I also did a lot to find people in our church to host orphans in their families for the summer and we have 12 Stankovo kids, who stay with Christian families for the summer.
And the last thing that was also very important is True Love Waits ceremony for young people. Two girls from MFH got the rings and made a commitment to wait. We are so happy for them.
Today we are leaving for 9 day camp in Estonia, there will be 30 of us. Please pray for safe travels, good health and all the kids to know Jesus.
Love and many blessings to you,
In Christ,
Olga
God is good and He blesses us daily. It’s great to see His hand in everything. Here is our update from Belarus — Olga Goncharenko
MFH
This month our girls attended a youth retreat. The theme of the retreat was “Let’s act differently!” It lasted for 4 days. Alla and Alena were counselors at the retreat and Nastya was a helper. They had 12 teenagers from 12 to 16years old in their groups. After the retreat the girls came home very encouraged and filled. Here is what they say about it.
Alla: “ It was a wonderful time, I learnt many new things and made decisions for my life. I had a nice rest for my body and for my soul. There was a great atmosphere and many friends. But the most important that there was a lot of time dedicated to reading the Bible and prayer.”
Nastya: “ The conference was notable for a lot of different activities. Nobody was indifferent to it. Being in a fellowship with Christians, great spiritual atmosphere lead to learning new things and changing standard thinking. Everyone of us got answers to our questions and made a further step in our relationships with God.”
Alena: “ The conference was awesome! There was a lot of activities, fellowship with each other and with God. It helped to grow spiritually. I have gained a new experience of being a leader of a small group. It was great!”
I am really very blessed with their experience as this summer we are taking kids to Estonia, where our MFH girls will be able to minister again, hopefully as group leaders. So the experience of the retreat was just to the point.
Besides, we also got another training session on how to do ministry with little children. Our new American friends Cathy and Faith, whom we met in Belarus talk a lesson at MFH. There were 8 girls there, all wanted to learn how to work with little orphans. What amazes me, is that all 8 of them are orphans themselves, now willing to go back and share God’s love to others. God is good!
Orphanage
This past month we provided detergent for the orphanage , besides we had some nice visits with kids, the Art studio is continuing as well as movie nights.
May 1st is a holiday in our country. And even though it’s Labor day, we didn’t work, but had a lot of fun with the orphans from Stankovo. It was a real picnic day in the woods, with fire and fried pig’s fat (the most obligatory thing for an outdoor picnic) We sang some songs and had a nice fellowship.
Also beginning this fall, Stankovo orphanage will be closed. The building will be used for other things and all 67 kids will have to find another place. We are praying and trying to find foster families in Belarus to take some kids to their homes. Please join us in prayer. And if there are not enough families, the kids will have to be separated and sent to other orphanages. It’s sad.
Animal fund
It’s became a great tradition of our ministry to help foster families and poor village families with pigs, chickens, turkeys , etc. This year is no exception.
We provided 100 baby chickens for meat to a foster family with 10 kids in Zhitkovichi. And also 30 chickens for eggs to two families in the village near Minsk.
The families are very poor and had no chances of getting the chickens themselves. One family is with 3 boys, grandmother and a single mom. The other is with two children.
The children attend a local Bible Sunday school, arranged by our church.
Big day project
It was a day trip for Zhitkovichi kids on April 29th. We were getting ready for it for a long time. It was the first time ever those poor village kids got out of their village. We ordered a bus for 53 people and they travelled for 4 hours to get to Minsk.
We took them to Belarusian nature museum, where the tour was arranged. Then we walked along the streets of Minsk, sightseeing. I was showing them around and finally we finished our day with circus, which they absolutely loved.
When the day was almost finished they had to travel back. Tired, but very happy. The next week all they talked about was the trip.
Summer plans
This summer in July we are planning on going to a Christian camp in Estonia. We are looking at 20-25 people going. That will include MFH girls and children ages 8-12 from foster families and poor families.
Besides, we are planning to do Day camps at the Shelter and our biggest plan for this summer is to start Timothy home.
Olga Goncharenko, Director of Spring of Revival reports on the good work in Belarus –
Dear friends and supporters,
What a pleasure and a great blessings it was to see some of you in person while I was in the USA. It was a short visit to the wedding of my sister. The wedding was beautiful and Alesya is very happy.
I got home just in time for Easter and it was a great day of celebration together with a group of orphan girls from Stankovo, whom my husband drove to church and back. They were so happy to see me and wanted to know all about my trip, that I promised to visit them with my photos and cookies for tea a few days later.
But on Easter day we also had a group of volunteers who went to the orphanage in the afternoon to watch a great Christian movie “Courageous” and have some Easter pies and breads made with love for orphans by our Minsk Family Home (MFH) girls. They did a great job, baking for 75 kids.
Another event that took place last month was an opening of Art Studio in the orphanage. Once a week we have an artist Dmitry come to the orphanage and teach the kids how to draw. We have a group of about 15 kids interested and it’s just the beginning. We plan to develop arts projects in future.
During the spring break (and while I was gone) our volunteers and MFH girls have arranged a trip for 13 orphans and 2 teachers to come to Minks. They visited an Art museum and went to McDonald’s, that was not crowded at all at that time. Usually it’s hard to find free places. But that day it was free and they spent about half an hour talking and enjoying the meal. I am very proud of my team as they continued the work while I was gone.
And the last thing is a great Birthday party at the shelter. There are 17 kids there now, all new but three.
The visit began with a few games on getting to know each other, since it’s new kids and then it grow into a Birthday celebration with songs and cakes and sweets, fruits and drinks at Birthday tables. Six Birthday kids got their gifts and they were very happy. Now they are waiting for the fair, which will take place in May.
Our prayer and financial needs:
1. In two weeks our MFH girls will go on a youth retreat. Please pray for God to touch their hearts and change their lives.
2. We would like to take a group of 50 village kids from Zhitkovichi Chernobyl area on a day trip to Minsk, to see the capital, go to the circus and to a museum. Their parents are mostly alcoholics and the kids do not see anything in life and come to school only because they get free meals there. We want to make it special for them. The whole trip will cost close to $1000. Please pray and give.
3. Summer is coming closer and we are preparing for that. Please pray for our summer camp and summer programs and also we need finances to cover the costs too.
4. Three girls from Stankovo: Sveta, Vika and Yulia, who graduate this year in June, and they need outfits for their graduation. They would really appreciate your financial help to get the dresses as well as your prayers for their future destiny. We have invited two girls to come to our MFH.
5. Pray for the Timothy Home as we hoping to get started this year.
If you feel like giving to any of the above needs, please make it known specifically what you are giving for.
Blessings dear ones, and thank you so very much for all you do!!!
In Christ, Olga Goncharenko
The Minsk Family Home in Belarus and Yan and Nadya Boldyrev in Russia are helping young ladies like those in this video. iEmpathize created it to show how Russian orphan girls are trafficked into prostitution. From the iEmpathize website:
17,000 Russian teens age out of orphanages each year and are routed to the nearest big city. Half the girls will be sexually exploited shortly after leaving their orphanage. Some are targeted by traffickers even while at their orphanage but most during their vulnerable transition to life in the city. Others are offered false jobs, such as modeling or working in a cafe, but in reality they are trafficked and forced into prostitution. Girls are exploited throughout Russia, Western Europe, the Middle East, and in North and South America. This is known as the white slave trade.
You can learn about the good work of iEmpathize here.
Alla S. is the new leader of the Minsk Family Home. Her story is a testament of God’s grace and the good fruit that He brings through the Minsk Family Home; for you see, Alla lived there and is now stepping into leadership. Here is her testimony:
My name is Alla. I was born in 1989. There were 5 kids in our family. The first few years were good ones. My dad worked, mom looked after the kids but then something happened. We were little and no one explained to us what it was.
My father started to come home drunk and would spend more time out. He and mom began to quarrel and they even had fights. Then dad stopped coming home at all.
Once I saw him in a shop and got very happy but he didn’t recognize me or pretended not to . . . . I heard my him say: “Alla, choose whatever you like”. At first I thought he said it to me but then I saw a woman come up with a girl whose name turned out to be Alla too. They were his new wife and daughter.
Sometime later I was told he had become a drunkard and had been drowned. I couldn’t believe that; I was still waiting to meet him. I would have been happy to meet him even by accident like there in the shop. My mom had a hard time: dad had left her and she had to raise 5 kids. She was looking for a job in despair. She would take jobs in kolkhozes (farms) and we had to move often from one to another. It lasted for 2 years.
Then mom got fed up and gave us to our grandfather. He didn’t cope with bringing up 5 kids and we were sent to the orphanage where I spent 11 long years.
After school I entered University where I chose to specialize in chemistry. I was just as homesick as when I was at the orphanage, because I wasn’t allowed to visit my relatives often. Even back at home they were not too happy to see me. One day when I came to visit, my stepfather and brothers were drunk and they turned me out of the house. I was really hurt by this. I didn’t see any sense in living because even my closest relatives didn’t want to see me. . . .
As I saw no one else who would be glad to see me I went to church. Right there in the church there happened something that brought me to life again. I was adopted as a daughter by God Himself. It was something that changed my life drastically.
I started seeing sense in living again. I started dreaming. I stopped existing and started living!!! Thus I started living with Jesus. I made new friends. Then I was invited to live in the “Minsk Family Home” and I agreed.
A new period of my life started. I remember the 1st time when I entered the apartment – I got the feeling it was my HOME. I can’t find words to describe how happy I was to feel home at last.
And now I am thankful to Jesus for arranging this all. In the time spent here I have learned to cook, to take care of my neighbors, to resolve conflicts, not to take offense, etc.
My heart is full of gratitude. I asked God to let me know my mission, and he answered me through our pastor. God has been leading me and this is not accidental. Now I am busy studying but after I graduate I would like to devote myself to ministering and to God only.
Now I am learning Italian and my dream is to learn English for making the best of my ministry! My dream is that there will be no orphans in Belarus any longer and much more effort will be put into saving mothers.
I am happy to be living and ministering in the Minsk Family Home and I’d like to continue that in future.
