A boy, a dad, and a car

I have always loved cars and still enjoy getting my Car and Driver magazine each month when I'm home. Cars and young (and not so young) men are kind of a universal match.

The Lada, Bogdan and Seroja

A few months ago, one of the guys here at the house, Seroja, bought a 40 year old Russian Lada from one of Bogdan's friends. Often times, I've come home to see Seroja, his fiance Yana, and some of the other guys and girls from the house just sitting in the car listening to the radio.

The car needed quite a bit of work and it's been awesome to see Seroja and Bogdan working on that car together, as a son and father. Such a simple thing, but one that wouldn't have happened if Bogdan and Anya had not made this group of people a family.When I see these things it makes me think of all the day-to-day events that we take for granted as "normal", which are anything but that for so many kids who grew up in orphanages.

Today, I was sitting here and looked out the window and saw the two of them putting on a new grille--again, a universal thing with guys and cars is that you have to make them unique and "tuned" as possible. Seeing such interactions and seeing Seroja and the others enjoying a such simple things is really a blessing. God still has a way of making something out of nothing, even in the little things of life.

It is Good Friday

 

When I was a child, I could never understand how this day could be called Good Friday. I would sit in the church and look at the crucified Christ and wonder how His death could be Good. I understand now, from the theological point of view, that it is Good because Jesus' death allows us to come back to a unity with God that our sin had destroyed. Yet there are times when that Friday so long ago just doesn't seem good.

 Today, I was in bed recovering from a mild case of the flu and I found Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth on YouTube. When I first became a believer at Boston University, with the help of my then roommate Jim Vivian, we wanted to watch Jesus of Nazareth on TV. But neither of us had a TV so we went throughout the dorm looking for one. When we asked one guy if we could borrow his set, he asked what game was on. When we told him, "Jesus of Nazareth, you want to watch?", he looked at us strangely and said to just take the TV.

I remember watching the series and being in awe of what was happening. As I watched the final segments today, I cried a bit and felt a love in my heart for the Lord that sometimes gets covered up in the day-to-day.

Some of those tears were helped by missing Deb a lot this week and some were from the fever. But most were from a place that needed to be touched by God's Love.

Sergei, Pasha and Igor

We all need that touch. This past week, I got to spend time with Sergei, Pasha and Igor at the rehab house in Zolotonosha. A group of guys from New Hampshire is interested in coming over and repairing the second floor of the house as it is falling in (not a good thing) so I needed to get some photos. As I was there, I saw how Igor is like a child in many ways, especially when he is around Sergei. Igor never knew his parents and grew up in an orphanage. After he turned 18, he lived on the streets and at places all over Ukraine, never for more than a month.

A couple of years ago, Igor found his mother and was so excited that he bought her roses, candy and other gifts and went to her door. When she opened the door, Igor saw his own face before him and she saw hers. Yet in an act of brutality that is hard to understand, his mother told Igor that she didn't want to see him and started to shut the door. Devastated, he threw the gifts at her and ran away.

Until recently, Igor has kept running. But he is learning about a Father who never shuts the door to His children. He is also finding that there is a love that allows others, like Sergei, to love him more than he has ever been loved before.

Tony Campolo used to say,"It's Friday, but Sunday's comin'." Igor's and many others' lives are full of Fridays, but thank God we have a love that comes from a special Sunday so long ago.

Христос Воскрес! Christ is Risen! Happy Easter.

New Every Day

One of my favorite scenes in the Bible is in the Gospel of Mark where a father comes to Jesus and asks him to help his son. When he comes to Jesus, the father asks for help with the words "if you can" and Jesus replies, "'If you can!' All things are possible to him who believes." But the part that always strikes me is the father's earnest response: "I do believe; help my unbelief." This has been a prayer of mine for many years now, as doubts come up more than they should.

Just a few days ago, I was with Sergei Skiba, who is now on staff with us at Straight Ahead, when he called the director of the juvenile prison colony to see if I could finally go in there. As they were talking, Sergei sounded a bit doubtful, my heart sank, and my unbelief started to rise. I prayed. Sergei finished and said that the director was going to call his superiors to let them know how much we have done to help the boys in the prison. Ten minutes later, he called and said I had been approved to come in for the next six months. The Lord continues to help my unbelief.

Bogdan and friends

This past weekend, Bogdan, Anya, several others and I went to the orphanage/internat in Kaniv to follow up with the kids from the camp. Well, that was the plan; in reality, we ended up spending most of the time with the little kids who were not at the camp. It was fun to see them,to let them jump on us, to swing them around, and to realize what joy there is in being Christ's hands and arms for them.

Kostik, Ruslan, me in 2007

I also had a treat as a young man, whom I met when he was 8 and now just turned 15, came up and gave me and Dima big hugs. Kostik had pulled away from all of us over the last few years, but lately, there has been a softening of his heart. That is a huge blessing as many of the kids we work with in the detention centers, colonies and internats end up pulling away when attachments start to get deeper. They do that in order to protect their hearts, which have been broken before.

Kostik now.

So when Kostik gave those hugs, hung around with us, and then followed up with a phone call the next day, it was a nice gift.

Those are the things that renew and help our unbelief.