WELCOME TO THE ORPHAN MINISTRY IN UKRAINE

We invite you to share the joy that the orphan ministry can bring! On May 30th we opened up a new season of the summer projects in the orphanage in Vorzel. During this summer we will be serving the kids age 1through 6 as well as reaching with the Gospel about 200 workers of the orphanage. THe program of the summer project includes

Daily lessons for children twice a day.
Bible study for the workers twice a week.
Bringing workers and older kids to the church service.
Construction work:
2 playgrounds in the orphanage buildings that have no playgrounds.
reconstruction of two restrooms
reconstruction of two rooms where 30 kids live all year around
total replacing of plumbing in one of the orphanage buildings
We are looking for and delivering any humanitarian aid need like diapers, clothing, vitamins, medicine
Please, pray for us and ask GOd to provide all the necessary resources: spiritual, human and financial. You can follow our news daily www.almazGO.com

Thank you for staying with us during the summer!

Sasha and Olya Skrypak
Leaders of the Orphan ministry in Almaz church

1 June 2011, Wednesday

Today the men were assigned to help build the foundation of the future playground. The concrete was supposed to come at two and we were to prepare the location for the concrete in the meantime. The morning consisted of all the men shoveling gavel or hand mixing concrete for specific locations to assist in leveling the foundation. We had a great time working extremely hard in the sun. Around 11:30, David and I stopped working on the foundation and went to one of the houses where the children were putting on a show. They were 3-5 yr olds and extremely cute! I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE SINIGING! It’s a bit difficult when they’re singing in Russian. However, we’ve all been enjoying learning to communicate with one another without using our full vocabulary and everyone is trying to learn new words in the other language. After the concert, David and I returned to the playground area and continued hard labor. We are all loving the hard work and the breaks with the kids. The concrete didn’t come today, but this gave us all time to finalize the prepping of the site and clean up for a great dinner/picnic in Pastor Nickoli’s backyard. It was a great meal to end a great day.

Jesse Bogert

Tuesday May 31st

Section: Missionary project in Vorzel (summer 2011)
31 May 2011, Tuesday

Today we kept in mind a few verses from Exodus chapter four, verses 11-12. In this God reminds us that we do not have control over the way that things are on this earth. God knows that there are orphans among us that do not have parents. He knows that there are children who are not born with eyes, a hand, or legs. He knows that all of these things have a purpose and work together into His intricate plan for humanity, yet we do not see the purpose behind these things that are. These verses remind us how important it is to remember that God created the world and has everything under control and that He brings glory to His name in everything He does, even if we do not see it as well.

Today the women played with the children that we met yesterday. We had a wonderful time reuniting with the children and we continued to share the love of Christ with them by loving on them and playing with them. It was much hotter today than yesterday because there was no breeze and we became tired much faster, but we still had a good time playing with the children. The children are so easily amused that it is easy for us to just play. The difficult part about interacting with them is when we try to speak to them or understand them. I don’t know much Ukrainian or Russian and they don’t know much English. However, Sasha pointed out this morning at the team meeting that we all understand one common language…Love. Some of the guys also came up to the children and played.

Is it possible now for foreigners to adopt a child from Ukraine? What awaits Ukraine's orphans?

Section: Some news
31 May 2011, Tuesday

On the 19th of May 2011 Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Parliament) passed a law “About amending the Family code of Ukraine regarding specifics of adoption of a certain class of children”. The law forbids adopting children for those persons who due to their health grounds need to be nursed on a regular basis; stateless persons and those who marry such person who can’t be an adoptive parent.This law also allows adopting children without parent consent in case if they didn’t take a child out of public health service’s institution.

The law also states that a child who is a national of Ukraine can be adopted by a foreign national in case if for more than a year he/she is registered at the central authority of the executive branch which competence covers issues of adopting and protection of children and he/she came of 5 yearsold. An adoption can be accomplished before the stated period and also before reaching by a child of 5 years old in the following cases:

An adopter is a relative of a child
A child suffers from a disease that enters a special disease list confirmed by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
Foreign nationals are willing to adopt a child who is brother or sister of before adopted by them child
Adoption of all siblings in one family if one of children reached 5 years old and if not less than a year he/she is registered at the central authority of the executive branch which competence covers issues of adopting and protection of children
If you have any questions, please write to skripak2007@gmail.com