Captives of Childhood

Most of you probably don't know that Ukraine and the Eastern European Nations with Orthodox Christian Heritage celebrate Christmas not on the 24th of December but rather on the 7th of January. So a couple weeks ago we went out to a with my friend Richard Schwendinger (a.k.a. Rick) , and a ministry that we have been working with since I moved to Ukraine called Grace Evangelical Church (Charismatic Baptist), to hold a Christmas Service for some very special kids. Grace Evangelical Church has been running an outreach to the prisoners for a number of years now. During Rick's first trip to Ukraine we took him out to preach to the one of the prison populations. This Christmas we travel to a "home" built for the homeless children of prisoners. The prison that holds these particular children's parents is a stone throw away and can be seen through half of the windows of the building in which the children reside.

The children and the staff were so open. They have invited Grace Evangelical to even begin Bible Studies for the children. They want us to take a team in this summer to do some work with the kids, possibly some day camps. Please pray we find an appropriately aged and willing team for this venture. Additionally Natasha wants to help some of the girls from Grace, to bring some of the older girls to Kiev for a weekend, where they can have some one-on-one time with them, build relationships and take them to Church. This is a great idea, but we will need some serious FAVOR as these girls are wards of the State and getting permission to remove them from the grounds will prove difficult. Please pray we have favor with the necessary officials as we move forward with this project.

Rick had raised funds as I had written about earlier for Christmas Presents for Orphans. From those funds he was able to supply Grace Evangel with enough money to buy each of the children in the home a number of presents. The kids were truly blessed. To the left is a picture of Rick with some of the Kids. Please pray that next Christmas as we join Rick in raising funds for Christmas presents for Orphans that we are able to double the amount Rick raised this year.