Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Spring weather has come to Kiev, the chestnut trees are blooming and people have finally begun to shed their outer coats.

Street Children Ministry

One blustery day this past February, as Helen and I made our way down the cracked steps of the Svytoshina subway station entrance, past the vegetable, seed and flower sellers, past several beggars holding icons and signs describing various afflictions, past the gold buyers, illegal money changers, battery/watch repair stands and newspaper sellers, I saw a small, skinny boy seemingly around 8 or 9, leaning against the wall, head down, standing between a woman wearing a placard offering to buy old watches and Soviet Army medals (for sale to tourists later) and a grandmother selling cigarettes. He had that "street look": clothes dirty and way too big, face not too clean, expression tough and hardened far beyond his years, but deeply sad and lonely. We were on our way to visit our street children ministry and I wondered if this boy was without a home.

When we got to the place where we feed the kids, next to a pirated video sales booth where Sylvester Stallone was silently killing innumerable persons on a small demo TV, two kids were already there eating a sandwich and drinking a cup of tea. Tatyana Michaelovna and Andre, two members of the Kiev "Spring of Life" UM church had been there for an hour feeding children who came by. The two kids were clutching new toy machine guns which they said "some man" gave us. The girl, African-Ukrainian named Tanya who looked 11 said the blond-headed boy next to her was her brother, but this most likely meant siblings of the street, kids who hang together for protection.

As we talked, the woman wearing the placard wanting to buy medals showed up, with the skinny boy we had seen in tow. "Feed this boy, won't you? He stands near us most days." We gave him a sandwich and tea while Tatyana asked his name and something about his situation. His was a familiar story. His name was Dima, Dad had left long ago and Mother was a "pyanni", a drunk, out of work, leaving him to fend for himself during the days. He showed up at night to sleep, but if Mother was drunk or had a drunken boyfriend with her, which was most nights, he left. I went over to talk to him, but he narrowed his eyes, clutched his sandwich closer and half turned away. Adult men in his life were persons to be afraid of, to be avoided. After eating his sandwich quickly, he asked for another one to take with him, then disappeared into the hurrying crowd. Tanya thanked us politely for the sandwiches, then urged her brother on to go with her as she twirled her toy machine-gun like a baton. With a tough guy expression on his face, he first waved her off and said no, then languidly got up from where he had been squatting and rushed to catch up with her as she skipped out of sight.

There are 20,000 such children on the streets of Kiev. Some without a home completely, some with an unbearable home life like Dima. Mixed race children have a tough time with racial feelings the way they are in Ukraine and are sometimes abandoned. We have been feeding children one meal in a day, two times a week. Without a building to house the program, we don't have much opportunity to do much other than give the children a meal and do some trust-building.

But now we have begun a new expansion on the Kiev street children ministry. Thanks to special gifts from a group of Norwegian UM churches and the Blacksburg VA UMC, we are able to feed the children 5 days a week, once a day. We hope to build on the get-acquainted, trust building we have done and move on to working with the kids in a more directed way, spiritually, emotionally and educationally. But without a building or room to meet, we won't be able to do much more than the dinner we provide. The search has been on now for about 4 months for a permanent place to house the program. The problem is not availability, but getting permission from the city and finding a place where the neighbors will tolerate street children coming and going. Pray that we can find a building. We have hired a full-time director, Svetlana Tolstonok who will manage the day-to-day affairs of the program. Church volunteers and some part time help will staff the program to extend it to 5 days a week.

Any one or church who would like to give to this special program can give through GBGM to the Street Children Ministry Kiev, Ukraine Advance Special #014054-8

Conference Structure

Due to the growth of the Russia Annual Conference and being the largest geographically Annual Conference in the world (stretching over 11 time zones), this year the Russia Annual Conference will vote to divide into 4 annual conferences. Ukraine will be in an annual conference which will include the present district plus the existing Black Earth district. The Black Earth district is the region around the city of Veronezh stretching to the city of Rostov on the Don. The new conference, tentatively named the Southern Conference, will have three districts, Ukraine/Molodva, Black Earth district and a new district, Northern Caucuses district. The Northern Caucuses are in our district now, so we are sad to be parting structurally, but happy to still be within the same conference and UM connection.

District Structure

Another big project we are working on is the registration of the UMC as a denomination in Ukraine. So far, according to Ukrainian law, we are a collection of independent churches. In order to qualify as a denomination, we must have 5-7 legally registered churches. The Kiev bible fellowship under the pastoral leadership of Andreas and Ruth Froesch has just submitted paperwork to be registered. The UMC in Lugansk has enough people to register two churches, due to the recent growth under last year's appointed pastor, Alexander Merzlikov. When these are registered we will have 5 churches registered in the Ukraine and we can start on the denominational registration.

We feel the District is taking more advantage of our UM "connectionalism" with a 2nd Pastor's training seminar on the sacraments and UM church structure, a UMW leadership conference, a Sunday School teachers workshop and a Youth Leader's workshop. These events have been well-received and everyone enjoys meeting other Methodists from around the Ukraine and southern Russia, sharing ideas to help the churches grow in numbers and in spirit.

As many of you know, we are nearing our expected time for our Home Assignment, now known as Itineration Assignment (IA) in the US. This time, our itineration will be different. First, a little background information.

Bill has served as District Superintindent for the Ukraine/Moldova/Southern Russia District of the Russia UMC for 6 years. According to the Book of Discipline, he can serve an additional two years. As we noted above, the RUMC is dividing into 4 conferences and we are trying to register the UMC as a denomination in the Ukraine under Ukrainian law. Bishop Minor would like Bill to stay on as DS for two years to help in the transitioning from 1 conference into 4 and to continue with the Ukrainian registration. After consultation with GBGM personnel staff and Bishop Minor, it was decided to delay our Itineration Assignment until September 2004.

We realize this puts a lot of time between the next IA and the last one, five years. Because of this large time gap, we will do a month of intensive itineration before September 2004, perhaps even fall of this year. We will also make attempts to visit support churches when we are normally home visiting my father. As soon as we find out the timing, we will let you know.

Additional Projects

People ask us from time to time how else they can support our ministry in Ukraine. This newsletter we have highlighted our street children ministry, but here are two other on-going projects:

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.

Thank you very much for supporting us in our ministry in Ukraine. Your prayers, financial donations, emails, letters and cards mean a lot to us.

God bless you as God blesses us through you.

Helen and Bill Lovelace.