ChildRescue Shares Ministry With Philadelphia Church

On February 24, 2008, ChildRescue shared their ministry with the congregation at Kyiv's Philadelphia Church. Philadelphia Church's relationship with ChildRescue has been a positive force in supporting their work with street children not just financially but also by being a source for staff members and a place where the children are warmly welcomed to come and participate in church services.

ChildRescue showed their new video on street children and the children perfomed some songs and skits. But nothing is ever as effective as when the children and teenagers themselves give their own testimonies and share their smiles to bless those in the Christian community who are reaching out to help street children.

At the end of the presentation, Philadelphia Church pastors and the congregation prayed for the leaders, staff and children. This kind of church support and participation for the staff and children is not only encouraging, but it is a crucial spiritual step as these children learn to adjust to life back in normal society.

On Adoption

International adoption is very popular in Ukraine. People from all over the world want to adopt Ukrainian children from the Soviet style institutional orphanage system. Upon seeing these institutions filled with orphaned children, many visitors are appalled at the lack of care the orphans receive from the state. The government's slow process of addressing the out of date system of orphan care in Ukraine has generated many problems.

The blog, Expat Buffalo wrote a lengthy post on this subject and writes, "commercialization and profit margin of criminal activity mixed with foreign adoption is driving a trade in children." To read the post, click HERE.

Blog Award

We bloggers actually have an unspoken etiquette about encouraging each other and supporting each other's passion to blog about whatever is on our hearts that we want to share with the world.

I think blogging is an incredible way for anyone to get their thoughts or information out into the world that otherwise may never be heard. If your blog is good, people will read it and you can have anything from a small to large influence on your corner of the world.

I have encouraged many friends to start a blog and one of them is Marianna. She writes a blog called "The Heart Of The Matter" which is about her family's life in Ukraine. She just won an "Excellent" blogger award and has passed that award on to me here at Scenes From The Sidewalk.

My job is to now pass that award on to ten blogs that I think are excellent. Here they are in no particular order:

1. World Street Children News - The most comprehensive blog on the international problem of street children. A MUST visit for anyone working in this area of social work.

2. African Kelli - Living the life in Phoenix AZ, Kelli bikes, cooks, photographs, and crafts her way through life. She works in public health and has great thoughts and books to share as well.

3. Emmychka - Emily is an independent missionary in Kyiv, Ukraine and she opens her heart almost daily to share about her life, faith and how God is still not finished with her yet, but has already done so much which she wants to share for his glory.

4. Family Frontiers - Richard J blogs about his faith and family life with his wife and their three adopted children. He shares tales with a particularly special sense of humor and style.

5. Mission Issues - Everyone should know a missionary who has lived on the field longer than they have. This blog is written by a missionary in South Africa who has a wealth of experience to share with anyone who stops by his blog.

6. Persecuted Church Weblog - Do you want to be challenged or humbled in your faith? Read this blog.

7. Inside The Mind Of Cap - A constant commenter on my personal blog, Greetings From Kyiv, I encouraged Cap to become a "Spin off" and write his own. Cap has taken on the blogosphere and moved it to new heights. Stop by Cap's blog to get a good laugh and hear some stories about my high school days.

8. Robyn's Thoughts - Robyn writes a daily devotional blog and shares information about Christian books that inspire her. She has written her own book, Blessed, in which she tells the story of how she and her husband adopted six children.

9. Ukrainiana - A front row seat to the circus like atmosphere of Ukrainian politics.

10. Vilhelm Konnander's Blog - An expert on politics and security in Russia and Eastern Europe, Vilhem's blog is a great way to keep up to date with the political happenings in the former Soviet Union. He also has collected an extensive list of links to the most popular blogs from all over the former Soviet Union.

The City of Happy Children Grand Opening

On January 26, 2008 The City of Happy Children hosted it's grand opening. The City of Happy Children is a government sponsored NGO. This new rehabiliation center is modeled on ChildRescue's organization and is administrated and run by their staff. It's an example of one successful organization helping another and this way the children are the ones who benefit the most out of the partnership!

There was a press conference held by Lesiya Svyatnenko, President of ChildRescue, Nikolai Kuleba, Director of Kyiv's City Administration Children Services, Dennis Bass, The Mayor of Kyiv's 1rst Deputy, and Jeremy Hartley, UNICEF's representative in Ukraine.

TV news came to cover the event.

Clowns came to blow up balloons and be silly.

Singing was mandatory.

.Cake was served!

Keep Praying

I hope these posts on prayer gave you a idea on how to more specifically pray for our ministry and others working with these children. Continue to read our blog and pray as you read about our ministry, see what we are doing, and learn about these children.

One of the goals of our blog is to share how God is working in the lives of these children so that the readers are encouraged in their own faith and that they would be moved to become involved in our ministry. Prayer is a simple and powerful way to help support our work in Ukraine.

"Rise in the night and cry to your God. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord; lift up your hands to him; plead for your children as they faint with hunger in the streets".......Lamentations 2:19 (LB)

Foster Families

Pray for foster families.

Our ministry works with several foster families and would like to find more couples to get involved so that the children can be placed in homes if possible, rather than having them live at a rehabilitation center.

The concept of using foster families instead of the old government system of institutional orphanages is a new one and so far there is only a small amount of movement towards this change.

Pray that healthy families would desire to take in children for foster care and that a national system for foster care would replace institutional orphanages.

Obviously foster care has it's weaknesses but in many ways it can be a stronger and better system for the children than the orphanage system which basically tosses children out of mainstream society.

You can read a blog about an Ukrainian foster family HERE.

"He is a father to the fatherless; he gives justice to the widows, for he is holy. He gives families to the lonely, and releases prisoners from jail, singing with joy! But for rebels there is famine and distress"......Psalm 68:5,6 (LB)