Dear Friends,                                                                                                 March 2004

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!  Even though winter will last through most of March, Kiev is already looking forward to spring, especially since the official first day of spring in post-Soviet countries is March 1.   This newsletter will concentrate more on the local ministries in which Helen and I participate, the street children ministry and our church in Bila Tserkva.   We will begin with a letter from our daily director of our Street Children Ministry:

With joy we greet you, brothers and sisters!

We would like to share with you news of our Street Children Ministry in the city of Kiev. Children come to us from various family situations, ranging from troubled households to being totally orphaned.  Here are the stories of three of our children: Zhenya, Kolya and Julia.

1. Zhenya is boy without parents who is supposed to live and study in an orphanage. But since he is very small, even though he is 16 years old, the other children bully him and force him to do various things [a euphemism for sexual abuse].  Because of this, he ran away from the orphanage to live on the street.  He says it is better to live in a basement than the orphanage.   We try to get him to return to the orphanage and study, to work out his problems with other children and adults and to simply protect him.  Recently, he returned to the orphanage with the understanding he can come to our center after his studies.  He is very glad that we are here and that he can share everything with us: joys, sorrows and problems.
2. Kolya is a boy of twelve from the surrounding Kiev countryside.  He doesn’t have a father, only a mother.  He has four other siblings.  His mother felt she didn’t have enough time and work to care for him and provide for the entire family.  So Kolya moved by himself (at 12!) to Kiev to see if he could feed and clothe himself, but street life taught him many bad things: sniffing glue, drinking and smoking.  We have tried to get him to speak the about the condition of his home life, but he doesn’t want to talk about it.  He says life on the streets is better [usually this means there is severe abuse at home].  One day he came with a brother, 6 and sister, 7.  After a while we were able to convince him to take his brother home and his sister to a rehabilitation center where she was looked over and treated for ill health.  Kolya regularly comes to us and we try to change his mindset and perception of life.  We want to help him to return to being able to believe in goodness and try to convince him to complete school.
3. Julia is a girl of 12.  Julia has a brother who is 13, but he doesn’t come to our center.  She has a mother and a father who is disabled, missing both of his legs.  Several years ago, her mother and father divorced, and her mother found a new man with whom she lives and subsequently had two children: one, 2 years old and the other 8 months.    Julia’s mother rejected both Julia and her brother and tried to send them to their father, her first husband, but he would not receive them into his home.  So these two were thrown to the winds, unwanted by anyone.  They have lived already 2 months on the streets, sleeping in sidewalk underpasses or in the subway stations.  Of course, school is out of the question with this lifestyle.

Every child who comes to us is priceless.  With each we try to figure out some way to help them with the resources at our disposal.  We thank you so much for all the help you have given to us. During our prayer time, our children, on their own without any prompting, asked if we could pray for those who help sponsor our center.  So know you are being remembered in prayer and the help you give is giving hope to children without much hope.  May God Bless you and your family.

 Svetlana Tolstonok, Daily Director, United Methodist Kiev Street Children Ministry.

Note:  Since this letter was written, we convinced Julia’s father to give his permission for her to be placed in an orphanage.  Julia’s relationship with her father has improved so that she can visit him on weekends and on one recent visit she stopped by our Center to visit her friends.  Our Center has reunited over 30 children with their parents or relatives, or found them places in good institutions.

Two new elements have been introduced to the homeless children program, a school teacher who comes twice a week and a psychologist provided by the city government.  Many of our children want to learn, but without an official place of residence, birth certificate, or personal documents (internal passport required for all citizens of Ukraine), they cannot register for school.  This problem can be overcome by having their parents officially register as homeless, but many of the parents cannot be located, refuse to register or because of a substance dependant, usually alcoholic lifestyle, fail to show up to required meetings with the city social services.  

With recent statistics saying the Kiev area has as many as 50,000 homeless children, the task sometimes seems overwhelming.   The juvenile city social services wish to help, but the economic situation in Ukraine does not leave them with many resources.  Sometimes we wonder how our small center can help to stem the tide.  

Recently, Helen was at the center where the psychologist the city has assigned us with our staff were teaching the children how to make basic ethical decisions.  One of the boys, while thinking about one of the example ethical dilemmas presented him said, “I don’t know what to do, but I do know that however bad a situation is, there is always hope.” This twelve year old boy, who lives in a non-heated basement, has parents who do not want him, living from day to day in fear of the life on the street says there is no situation without hope!  A year ago, before he entered our program, he probably would not have said that.  Hopelessness is a factor shared by homeless children the world over.  Faith in Christ gives us the assurance of things hoped for.  We pray we can share a glimpse of hope with these children who do not have much evidence of hope.

Our center has also made contact with a Christian street children’s home in Kiev which is in the process of expanding their program.   As soon as they receive some required licenses from the city, we can start placing some of our children there who have no possibility of returning home.  One of the hardest things we have to do every evening is to close the center at 5:00pm, knowing that the children we serve must fend for themselves in an urban environment of 3 million people until we open the next day.   At this point, we see our day center as a bridge between life on the streets and a permanent home environment, either in an institution, or in a safe home situation with parents or relatives.

Bila Tserkva (the name in Ukrainian means: “White Church”)

This church started as a dream of Vladimir Kryzhnovski, the director of the “Chance” Children’s Center for Children with Handicapping Conditions.  Through the Ukrainian part of the United Methodist Russia Initiative, United Methodists from the Central PA Annual Conference had been working in the city of Bila Tserkva for 9 years with various humanitarian aid projects.  They were instrumental in the founding of the “Chance” Children’s Center.  In recognition and thanks to God for this labor, Vladimir wanted to start a United Methodist Church which would have as a priority to serve handicapped individuals.  Since the UMC does not have so much recognition in Ukraine, he decided to first start an ecumenical Christian fellowship for disabled persons.  As District Superintendent of the region and being the closest UM pastor to Bila Tserkva, only 80km from Kiev, Bill was invited to start visiting the church once a month in spring of 2002.   This turned into a full time appointment in fall of 2002 as a United Methodist Church.

The church membership in Bila Tserkva is about 50% disabled.  Two of the women in our church compete in Ukrainian Wheelchair Olympics. We have contact with many more handicapped people than attend, with transportation to the church the main problem.  The church is fortunate to be able to use a special handicapped accessible bus of the “Chance” Children’s Center where we meet, so we can pick up people every Sunday. Accessibility for handicapped persons is almost non-existent in Ukraine, but the government is beginning to take small steps in this area.  But for the most part, there are no ramps to provide access to buildings, especially apartment buildings.  When we pick up our members, we usually have to carry persons down at least one flight of stairs in their wheelchairs, because even the buildings with elevators, the entrance to the elevator is usually up a flight of stairs, a common construction feature of old Soviet apartments.   This process takes time and at least two strong individuals to help, so that our bus route usually takes 1.5 – 2 hours to pick people up.

Sometime in the future, we hope to purchase an additional bus for the church, so that we could pick up twice as many people in the same amount of time. We have twice as many people wanting to come as spaces on the bus. If we were to make two routes with our one existing bus, some people would have to be ready to be picked up 4 hours before church started, an impractical solution.

The Children’s Center “Chance” is located in an old kindergarten building donated by the City of Bila Tserkva.  But like all old Soviet buildings, it is not handicapped accessible, except for a few simple ramps built since the building was donated.  There is a wonderful auditorium on the second floor where our church could meet, but it is inaccessible to us since there is no elevator or ramp.  We have used the auditorium on special occasions, but it is quite a chore to manually carry people in their wheelchairs up the narrow stairs. 

Sometimes there are barriers to attending to church that one does not think about.  Many people wanted to come to church, but when they found out there was no wheelchair accessible toilet, they declined to come.  Just think, a center for handicapped children, but not even handicapped accessible toilets!   In an answer to prayer, the Arendal United Methodist Church in Norway donated the funds necessary to renovate the toilet on the first floor. Church attendance has picked up since then!

Four of our members are those who had accidents which caused them to become paraplegics. With the carryover of the Soviet attitude that disabled persons are only a burden on society, many of those who have become handicapped also become deeply depressed and recluse.   One of our members would not leave his apartment after his motorcycle accident because of the feelings of shame and being useless.  When he attended our church, it was the first time he had been out of the apartment in two years since his accident.  Now he is very active and a member of our church council.  Please pray we can reach more people who feel shut off from life because of their disabling conditions. 

District News

Kiev will be the host of this year of our Southern Russia, Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference to be held May 27-30.   This annual conference will be special in two ways since it is the first annual conference in our Episcopal Area to be held outside of Russia and that our Bishop, Ruediger Minor, will be retiring in February 2005 and so this conference is his last with us.  The annual conferences in the Eurasia Episcopal Area have a special relationship with Bishop Minor as all the elders (except for one) and pastors in probationary membership in all four conferences have been ordained by Bishop Minor! In 1993, Bill was the first pastor in Russia ordained by Bishop Minor.  Assigned to this Episcopal area when it was only an idea in the minds of the Council of Bishops, Bishop Minor now presides over an Episcopal area with four annual conferences, 110 churches, a seminary, a conference center and many thriving social projects, such as our street children ministry.   We give thanks to God for the hard work and sacrifice Bishop Minor has given in the last 13 years to the establishing of the United Methodist Church in the former Soviet Union.

Bibles and Discipleship Resources: Advance Special number 014052-6. This fund is used to buy Bibles, Sunday School Literature and other Christian literature for use in our churches.

New Church Start-up and Ministries Advance Special number 014053-7.  This fund is to help in the planting of new churches and evangelism ministries in Ukraine.

Street Children Ministry  Advance Special 014054-8.

Thank you for your support. May God bless you as He has blessed us through you!

C Bogom (be with God),

Bill and Helen Lovelace