Expat Buffalo wrote a post about a study on Ukrainian NGO's doing anti-trafficking work. The post also notes that some of these NGO's also work with street children and are completely dependent on international donors to support their work. You can read the post by clicking HERE.
This information highlights the problem of complete dependence on sponsors outside of Ukraine. If that funding is pulled or lost, then the organization must shut down.
This is why we are working hard on our tennis tournament fund raiser here in Kyiv. We want to raise awareness of the problem of street children, show that there is a way to solve this problem and help educate the local Ukrainian community on how they can sponsor and help the children in their own city. We want to help build a bridge for NGO's and ministries to help them go from foreign sponsorship to local sponsorship.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Build The Bridge To Local Sponsorship
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Street Kids
Some of you reading this blog may not be aware that before I came on board with CrossRoads Foundation and ChildRescue, I ministered in a local church's soup kitchen for street children and then spent a year doing what I can only call, "bare bones" ministry on the street with two other friends, Tolik and Masha, who desired to keep working with the kids we had known for several years and had now "out grown" the soup kitchen's ministry to children.
That was a very difficult year of ministry for me and I still have a hard time writing or talking about it in detail. Unfortunately, most of those kids are still living on the streets as homeless adults. I don't regret the choices I made to continue to minister to them as it was the right thing to do at the time and the Lord urged me to do so. Even though I believe many of these kids came to truly trust in the Lord, it was still frustrating to not be able to help them get back into normal society. I cannot imagine to not at least try to do everything you can for these children to give them a hope and a future. (Hence, why what I'm doing now with CrossRoads Foundation and Child Rescue is so important to me.)
When I met with Tolik this week, he told me that he saw one of the "boys" we used to work with and he told me that he had married and now had a child and that he was no longer living on the streets. Tolik told me that he had thanked him for helping him. I know for a time he had lived with Tolik and Tolik had spent a lot of time working with him individually.
That year was a hard time for us and I am grateful to God that he is allowing us to be able to know that some extremely positive results occurred from that time of walking in faith and following his lead.
I know that God loves each of these children individually and is waiting to work through those of us who are willing to be his hands and feet.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Football Federation of Ukraine's "Day of Football"
Today was the Football Federation of Ukraine's "Day of Football" and children from all over Kyiv came to play in a special tournament just for them.
It was held at the beautiful Ukrainian Football Federation complex in Kyiv.
Our boys from the Day Center completed in a tournament for organizations that work with street children.
The competition was taken very seriously as they were defending their championship.
They were successful and WON! Congratulations!Friday, May 9, 2008
Strokes Against Hopelessness 2008
On June 13,14 & 15, CrossRoads Foundation and ChildRescue will be hosting "Strokes Against Hopelessness 2008."
Our first tennis tournament, held last fall, generated much interest and support from the Kyiv tennis, diplomatic and business community towards helping street children.
Those who participated were anxious to hold the event again and we are thankful for the support and excited to host it again this June.
If you would like to participate or help sponsor this event, please email us at mmkukraine@yahoo.com for more information.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Open Hands
One of the hardest things about our ministry or in fact probably any ministry where you are working with children, is keeping your "hands open" as your work with them.
It is so easy to begin to feel some kind of ownership over them or some kind of special protection towards them as you get to know them and work with them. I think this is partly normal as these are feelings that can come out of loving and wanting the best for them. But it is important that we always remember that ultimately, no matter what our influence in their lives are, they are in God's hands, they are God's children and we have to be willing to allow him to choose how he is working in their lives and what he allows to happen to them.
We had one pre-teen girl who had lived at the rehabilitation center for several years and then was forced to leave by the orphanage officials in her home city which is far from Kyiv. Many of our children are actually not originally from Kyiv and have migrated here as this is what many street children do to find "better" lives scrounging for food in the capital city. It is typically not a problem for most of the children who are not from Kyiv to continue to live at our center. Their documents and paperwork are reviewed by the state orphanage institution officials from the city of their origin and they are allowed by them to continue to live in the center. But in this girl's case, the officials demanded that she return to her local institutional orphanage. As she was well loved and was growing in many areas of her life, this was a huge blow not only to her but to the staff as well. It was painful to have to let her go.
Another tiny two year old girl was found at the train station several months ago and immediately stole everyone's heart. I got an email when I was in the states letting me know that they had found her family and felt that she could be reunited with her family and go to home to live with them. This again was painful as many of us had become attached to her. However, as I thought about it, I realized that this is what our ministry is supposed to do and that is what I have to focus on and be thankful for instead of focusing on how much I will miss this little girl that I never even got to say goodbye to.
Each of these girls highlights two different stories to me. One has a happy ending and the other and unknown and possibly a not happy ending to her story. I know that in both situations that we did all we could for each child within the means of the law and our own ability as individuals and a ministry. We loved each one while they were in our hands. Now they both are in God's hands and we have to trust that he will take care of both of them.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Photo Shoot
Photographer Cheryl Nemazie visited a couple of our centers last winter and here are some of her shots.......
These two guys never stand still long enough to get anything but an action shot!
On her first day at the center, this little girl took over the doll and baby carriage.
Break dancing at the Day Center.Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Get Creative!
I am getting emails from people who are interested in our ministry and I thought I would put out the suggestion to our readers that if anyone has any "topic" ideas for our blog or questions about our ministry to feel free to share ideas or questions in the comments section. I am thinking about how to be more creative and share about our ministry on the blog and thought it might be fun to get some feedback from the readers to spur ideas. This will help me a lot! Thanks!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Post From The US
You may notice that for the next few weeks, posts here might have a different twist or perspective to them. I am currently in the states and so am not on hand in Kyiv to photograph and write about our ministry first hand.
I am a missionary and as such I raise my own funds to live and serve in Ukraine. So, once a year, I travel home to share with my church, sponsors and friends what is happening in Ukraine. This is also a time to reconnect with family and friends, attend personal business like doctors/dentists/banking and try to catch time to relax in between it all.
I will post here as I am inspired to share thoughts about our ministry and also have some photos that I can share as well.
