Connecting

Zhenya, Zhivchik, me and Gala

Smor's with the boys.

Zhenya was new when he came to the orphanage, but at one of our first camps, he bonded with Tim right away. After that, he latched onto Matt, who is Tim's good friend so that seemed to make sense.

Zhivchik, who is now 16, has been my buddy since shortly after he got to the orphanage, which was a few weeks after his father beat him and left him to die. Zhenya, Zhichik and many of the guys and girls at the orphanages and prisons have similar stories. They often put up high wall around their hearts, but allow some of those walls to fall when the Lord shows His love through His people.

Sometimes I wonder if these visits and the time we spend with the kids really impacts them beyond making them feel good for a few days. I know it does, but the prayer of the father whose son was being tormented comes to mind: "Lord I believe. Help my unbelief." This past week, I met with guys who have become friends over the years and who both grew up in the orphanages.

Sasha is approaching 30 and he spent most of his childhood in different orphanages. He is a good guy and a hard worker. When we went out last week, we starting talking about relationships so I asked him about a girlfriend. Sasha said that he goes out with many girls, but nothing ever goes beyond going out. As he struggled for the Russian words that I would understand, I also saw the struggle in his heart. "You know, when you grow up in places like that, it's not normal. You don't have family. You just have other guys and girls. I don't know how to have a relationship."

As we talked more, Sasha told me that Americans, Christians, would come each summer and bring them to camp. Sasha is not a believer, but he has fond memories of the camp. I asked him if he remembered the people and Sasha smiled and said "Ben, Linda, Sarah,..." He still has letters from them even after 16 years. Those were some of the best weeks of his life. I'm praying that those memories will open his heart so he can see that he too can have someone special in his life.

When I told Dima some of that, it lead to a good discussion on what people really want in a relationship and then he said that he thanked God for the relationships he has been given, especially the one with his new wife.

Then I asked him if he thought our going to the orphanage made a difference. "Of course" was his answer. Dima said that whenever he would get a letter from me or when other kids got letters or packages from people they didn't even know, it made them all feel special, wanted. "You don't know what that feels like; when you have no one and then you think that someone really does care."

At the conference I went to last week, Pasha, who came to one of our trainings a couple of years ago and who now leads a ministry that is getting mentors for the kids in the orphanages, spoke of how one person at the orphanage showed love towards him and how that changed his life. We can all do that, can't we? What if each of us found one new person to care about? Easy. Nope. Often those who feel uncared for are hard to reach. But we need to do this.

Please pray for Sasha, Dima, Sveta, Zhenya, Zhivchik, and the others so that those walls will continue to fall.