“We see that if we give children in need the whole world, but
their soul will not be saved, it will not do any good for them.” …Natasha
Kirillova
By Marla
Summers, Big Family Mission Volunteer
Help for Children operates in the St. Petersburg
area of Russia with the goal of preventing social orphan hood, while nurturing
the mothers and children already affected by it. A social orphan is defined as
a child who has at least one living parent, but is forced to live in an
institution because the parent or parents have lost or given up their right to
care for the child. This epidemic is largely fueled by the alcoholism and drug
abuse.
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| Girls at Jukki Orphanage Home |
Help for Children reaches out to children in
government-funded orphanages such as those at Gatchina, Jukki, Luga, and Tomlachevo,
and takes a preventive stance at Grace Center.
Grace Center is dedicated to supporting young and hurting mothers who
want to keep their children out of the orphanage system.
Since its beginnings in 1994, Grace Center, located
in St. Petersburg, has been reaching young Russian mothers with a success rate
of 96% of prevented abandonment of children among its focus group, graduates
from government-run orphanages.
Grace Center provides an apartment in which up to
four families (mother and child or children) can stay without expense.
According to Natasha Kirillova, Help for Children ministry leader, each mother living at Grace Center “gets the
knowledge of life in the family, learns to take care of her child, and gets
encouragement in how to overcome the future difficulties.”
Train
up young mothers and introduce them to God
The facility is partially supported by the local
church, Novodevichj Covenant. The vision of Grace Center is to train up these
young women and introduce them to a relationship with God, where, as said by
Natasha, they will “learn to ask for strength and help when we are not near.”
All graduates of Grace Center are have successfully begun their work and
studies, equipping them and their children for a brighter future.
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| Uliana with her daughter |
Uliana was one of the women nearest to the hearts
of those working at Grace Center. According to Big Family Mission (partner of
Help for Children) leader Ken Dockery, “We first met Uliana when she was nine
years old and an orphan at the Kommunar Internat School.” At age sixteen, the
young woman became pregnant and dropped out of the Jukki orphanage school.
Thanks to a dedicated Big Family sponsor who had been supporting her and
praying for her over the years, Uliana was able to stay at Grace Center and,
thanks to the volunteers, decided not to have an abortion. Now she has a baby
girl named Alina. Alina’s father married
Uliana, and she participates in the program for young mothers at Grace Center.
Along with working to meet the physical needs of
mothers such as Uliana, Grace Center provides women with the tools they need to
raise their children to be grounded in the gospel. As well as offering personal
counseling to pregnant mothers, joint meetings are held to support families and
graduates of the Grace program. While each family has a very individual “plan
of assistance” says Natasha, they also attend seminars together with topics
ranging from child development to motherhood. The families are regularly
visited, for according to Natasha, this helps the ministry to get a look into
their lives and “attract sponsors for the material support of the family, if
necessary.”
Reaching out to orphans in government-run
orphanages
Lessons of family values and Christian morality are
not limited to the ministry at Grace. Through Natasha Kirillova, Help for
Children also reaches out to children living in government-run orphanages at
Luga, Jukki, Gatchina, and Tomlachevo. While Grace Center assists mothers and
prevents their children from ending up at such orphanages, a huge focus of Big
Family Mission is reaching children that have already entered the system. Lessons
are given during visits with the children on topics selected monthly such as
“Purity”, “Kindness”, and “What Is a Family?”, lessons which fall upon the
eager ears of orphans who need to hear them the most.
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| Luga children during visit to ostrich farm |
The Christian volunteers also spend time with the children outside the
confining walls of the orphanage. “It’s
important to arrange trips and visit children at the orphanage so our children
will not feel forgotten,” said Natasha. Upon discovering an Ostrich farm not
far from Luga that the children had never visited, volunteers arranged a trip. What
delighted the children most were not the ostriches, but the domestic ducks and
geese they had never witnessed before in their lives. “When we asked the Luga
children what would be interesting for them to do during the summer, they all
wanted to have a picnic,” recalls Natasha.
So after the tour had ended, they all went over to a lake to eat, swim,
and play games.
“When it was time for the children to go back to their orphanage,” said
Natasha, “they said, ‘Thank you for arranging this day for us. It’s so boring
for us to stay at the orphanage!”
The volunteers who had continually sacrificed their time for the
children promised they would return, knowing that their efforts were truly
bringing joy to these young lives.
Providing
a refuge during the critical summer months
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| Girls learning how to cook at Bolshevo |
Most orphans have few opportunities to travel
outside their institutions during the summer is often a tough time for Russian
orphans. The ones that aren’t fortunate enough to spend the months with
relatives often end up in government-run camps unsupervised and experiencing
drugs and alcohol. In contrast, Help for Children has been working to brighten
up the lives of the through a summer camp in Bolshevo about 40 miles from St.
Petersburg, described by Natasha as a “wonderful opportunity for the children
we help support. The children are
supervised and taught valuable lessons in cooking, cleaning, gardening, and
ending their days with swimming and playing in the fresh air. Many of the
children lack the stability created by the activity and fellowship fostered at
Bolshevo.”
Along with the children, the mothers from Grace
Center also enjoy the stay at Bolshevo. The women who are unable to stay the
full three months are able to keep working and be able to provide their
children with economical and supervised summer camp. The ones that do stay are
blessed with personal and group counseling along with practical lessons such as
cooking. Those who desire can also go through the course of smoking
rehabilitation. The ministry of Help for Children has allowed the children and
mothers alike to be able to “experience the light and love of Christ in these
summer camps,” according to Natasha.
Finding themselves by serving others
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| Luga children and volunteers at church camp |
Oftentimes children in orphanages or at Grace
Center don’t believe that anyone needs their help. Together with organizations
in Luga and St. Petersburg, hospitals, nursing homes, and animal shelters, Help
for Children has arranged for orphan children to get involved in helping
others. This project is viewed as important, for the ministry in Russia has
shown time and time again that serving someone else is the best way to prevent
future dependence. Help for Children encourages the children to not only
experience the “light and love of Christ” but to live it out and share it with
others. They discussed with the volunteers what Christian love and kindness
looked like, and they loved this idea of helping their neighbor. When the
mothers at Grace Center were met with similar discussion, according to Natasha,
“All of them shared that
they didn't experience much kindness towards them in their life. We discussed
what will be the right answer in that case, and prayed that God will give
us all possibility to forgive.”
Through
the years of the partnership between Help for Children and Big Family Mission,
the ultimate focus of the ministry is the saving of souls. Each project has the
goal of bringing individual hearts closer to the Lord. At Help for Children,
the full weight of this responsibility is felt and volunteers strive to plant
“seeds of faith” in the hearts and lives of the children and orphanage
graduates. As the few Christians that their focus group will likely ever
encounter, this ministry is at the forefront of the mission for Russia and
approaches the orphan situation in a unique way.
This beautiful ministry
built through sacrifice, dedication, and generous sponsorship all boils down to
one clear mission. Natasha put it this way: “We see that if we give children in
need the whole world, but their soul will not be saved, it will not do any good
for them.”
