An Evening of Privilege

It is Saturday night and we just returned from a very special evening in Bishkek with brothers and sisters of like mind.  David had an opportunity to share with the men on the importance of the father in the home and I was privileged to share with the women. We would love to show pictures of these beautiful people here and our time with them, but have been asked not to due to sensitive issues.  We were told, however, we could show a couple pictures of their children.  You will see why we say the children of Krygz are among the most beautiful in the world in our eyes...

We hope that our time with their parents tonight was meaningful.  We look forward to seeing them again next weekend.

A Powerful Day - Just Before Part of the Team Leaves

On Thursday, we spent our last day with our team members, Lynn and Ruby Johnston as we visited a number of LAMb humanitarian projects. They reluctantly left early on Friday morning for Canada.  Ruby has posted a beautiful blog of that day. Please visit their blog to capture the meaning of the day.

http://www.lambinternational.blogspot.com/

An Older Book - New Connections - New Opportunites for ILDC

A number of months ago, we received a phone call from a man we didn’t know. Litlle did we realize that this call from Andrzej Zielasko from Poland would mean new connections, very special new friends,an enrichening opportunity to serve and the possibility of partnering together for adoption training in Poland.

Andrea and his wife, Kashia are adoptive parents in Poland and are responsible for leading one of the few parent support groups in the country.

This is Andrzej, Kashi, his wife and their daughter, Maya. She joined their family at 14 days old and is a delightful five year old.

 The Zielasko's adoption worker, Dorota, shared a book with him many months ago that eventually lead to us. It was the first edition of my first book, the Whole Life Adoption Book, published in 1992. She had just received it. He contacted us, asking for permission to translate it into Polish, and I suggested we send him the updated book. In subsequent conversations, we discussed the possibility of coming to his country for training…and that is what leads us to this past week.

Dorota suggested the book to Andrzej and that set everything in motion.

Off to Poland

Last Tuesday we left our friends in Kiev, Ukraine, for Poland and arrived late in the evening. Andrzejand his friend, Andrzej, met us at the airport and took us to his home. We met his beautiful wife, Kashia and peeked in at their sleeping daughter. She absolutely stole our hearts. The first day we were there, Mya told her parents that she was slowly getting accumstomed to us. By the evening of the second day, she said she was totally accumstomed to us. We have a new little friend we will always count as special to us.

David, Maya and her little guinea pig - whose name is made up and I don't have
any idea how to spell it!

At breakfast on Wednesday, Andrzej shared with us what to expect for the marathon days ahead.  He said there will be adoption seminars for workers on Wednesday and Thursday and adoption seminars for parents for evenings.  On Friday will be a gathering of adoption directors and workers from a number of different regions, as far away as two hours. And, oh, by the way, he told us, plan on Friday for TV and newspaper interviews for a national station and national newspaper.

Meeting with Polish Colleagues

What we experienced in meeting and working with our Polish social work colleagues is hard to part in words.  We were with the staff of the Adoption Centre of Wroclaw and local government workers for three days of training.  We saw their compassion for adoptive families and children and their deep desire to do excellent work.  During the days of training we have the privilege of having lunch with major government officials, including the Director of the Adoption Centre, the Director of the region's social services department and her vice-director.  All of them asked us to consider returning for a collaboration. I shared with all of the groups about the work of ILDC in Ukraine and Krygyzstan, about the training organization, Institute for Human Services in Ohio and they were very interested in future work with all of us.

Inside the workshops

The Director of the Adoption Centre, Sylvester Pajecki, opens the workshop on Wednesday.

Getting started...

     Andrzej translated all the powerpoints and handouts and interpreted throughout three days.

                                         Ending the final day of training....

                                           More of the awesome group....

Breaks During the Training Days
Between training sessions of workers and families, our hosts and new friends gave us a guided tour of their historic and beautiful city. We were captivated by their stories and peppered them with many, many questions.

                                      The beautiful city of Wroclaw, Poland.

Our new friends -  three of them are government officials who work in adoption and human services and Andrzej is on the far right. He collaborated with them for this week's work.

An historic monument

On Friday
We were prvileged to take part in a regional seminar and following the event, we were ushered out to interviews. We were just overwhelmed with the kindness of these gracious people.

The TV interview was scheduled to air Saturday on national television.

This journalist is from a national newspaper that is promoting adoption in Poland. The story should run next week.

Thank you for taking the time to share our blog. We share this because it simply reflects God's work and direction in our lives.  We can't set up experiences like this ourselves, but He does.I was thinking today on the way home that we were given the incredible privilege of speaking to over 200 folks in three days. 

 We are deeply grateful for entrusting this to us. We hope to continue our partnership with our Poland friends this fall.

A Brief Note

This has been an incredible week in Ukraine as all of us participated in the first adoption conference over the weekend.  On Monday, we met with the International Leadership and Development Center board here as we are planning for the next week. ILDC has been conducting trainings for social workers, families and orphan caregivers for a number of years here and has earned a respected position with government and local NGO's.

It is quiet this morning as we prepare to leave for a four day training trip to Poland. We will be meeting with and conducting workshops for social workers in adoption during the day and workshops in the evening for families.  As a partner with ILDC, it is exciting to represent this organization in a new country.

By the way, LAMb, a founding organization of ILDC has just launched their new website.  To find out more, visit  http://www.lambinternational.com/. Also visit their blog - http://www.lambinternational.blogspot.com/  and John and Julie Wright's blog - http://www.actofkindness.blogspot.com/. 

We return home to Krygyzstan on Sunday morning, We do understand that things are somewhat better there, but there are pockets of chaos around the country.  Please continue to pray for our precious friends there and the work that has been established.

A Week of Training and Conferences

It seems like a world away from our work in Krygyzstan.  We have been in Ukraine since Tuesday doing social work training, ministry training and sharing in the very first adoption conference in this country.  Held in downtown Kiev, this awesome conference was sponsored by LAMb International, Father's House and CBN Ukraine among others. It has been wonderful to meet adoptive parents in this country who have such a beautiful heart for the orphans here.

May our pictures tell a small part of the story. As we share these pictures, please know that we are deeply humbled by these opportunities and trust that we honor God in the work in Ukraine.

   WEDNESDAY TRAINING AT THE NEW ILCD OFFICE IN KIEV

Lynn and Ruby conducted caregiver training at the new office of the International Leadership and Development Center.  This is a separate organization under LAMb International whose purpose is to offer leadership training for ministry, social work and business.

This is the first group to enjoy training in the new location.

Wednesday evening David spoke on the Power of Deadly Emotions.  The responses were extremely positive. The pastor reported a number of calls the next day from people who were impacted by the session and felt God had brought healing into their lives. 

While Lynn and Ruby were in one location, David and I were in another.  This is a light hearted moment in our training on Thursday afternoon.

AN AWESOME OPPORTUNITY

Prior to the conference on Friday, we had the opportunity for an interview for the television program - 700 Club of CBN Ukraine.  Our book, Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child, has been translated into Russian and was the subject of the converation. This is on one of the sets of CBN Ukraine that we visited after the interview which was filmed in a private home earlier.

PREPARING FOR THE ADOPTION CONFERENCE

A valued moment of prayer before this Christian adoption conference begins.

Families from all over Ukraine

        Another view of the crowd, while Anya, one of the ILCD staff shares announcements.

Ruby shares to a packed room of interested families

Sharing from the book, Telling the Truth, which was given to everyone attending. Sitting next to David  in the front row on the right is Ruby and to her right is Lynn.  This conference happened due in a very large part to the vision and work of Lynn and Ruby.  They have been working in Ukraine for over six years.

After our work is completed on Tuesday morning here, David and I will fly to Poland for another round of new experiences and new people.  We will be training government social workers and Polish adoptive families on Wednesday through Friday and flying back to Kyrgyzstan on Saturday morning.

ALLOW ME TO BRAG FOR A MOMENT…..

The pictures above from an awards event. They are of our daughter, Kristy and her husband, Rick Matheson, the award recipients and a picture of Kristy with the award.

Last Friday night, Springfield, Ohio, North High School had an honors banquet and presentation.  The occasion was to present 10 former students dating back to 1950 with the DISTINGUISHED ALUMNAI AWARD. This award was presented to those persons whom the selection committee had decided had made significant social and humanitarian contributions since their graduation. 

Jayne was one of those chosen.  Since we are out of the country and could not attend the banquet, presentation and other activities surrounding the event, our daughter, Kristy and her husband Rick, were there to receive the award for Jayne.  We are very grateful to them for being there and representing the family so well and honorably. 

I have included some pictures above from last Friday night, April 16.  Thank you for allowing me to honor someone very special to me and to so many others.

Thank you and may God bless all of you….The Journey Continues

David

 

Possiblities Improving

Just a brief note - it does look like our trips to Ukraine and Poland are a go.  The Kiev airport opened tonight and that was key to our getting to go.

 

What is happening next week is very exciting.  Lynn, Ruby, David and I will be joining national speakers in Ukraine at the first adoption conference held in that country. Among the co-sponsors of this event are LAMb International and CBN Ukraine.  We are to arrive there on Tuesday, will have two days of social work training and then the conference on the weekend. 

 

A week from Tuesday, David and I will fly onto Poland for three days of training both social workers and families.We will be staying in the home of an adoptive family while we are there. We return to Kyrgyzstan on May 2.

 

We are truly humbled by these open doors as we continue to ask God's leadership in what we are doing. 

 

Thank you for sharing our journey....