A Day with Little Time to Stop

It has been simply a wonderful and beautiful day here today. But it just isn’t the weather that has made it so beautiful, but the connections with so many of people who have been special to us.


David’s Day Started When…

He left very early to walk to the University for his last class today. Exams are next week. We are so thrilled to be able to interact with these dynamic young people. Just last week, he was sitting out under a tree in the center of campus talking with a young man. Shortly, he was surrounded by 10 or 12 students who just wanted to talk with him. Our hope while on campus has been to develop caring relationships with these students and simply love them into the kingdom. Open conversation is happening more all the time. David is very busy the rest of today with grading research papers and designing final exams for three courses.

My Day Started When…

Natalia and I went to the government office building to talk with the key person in charge of children’s issues. We are discussing a new and most promising project- the creation of a family type foster home in Tokmok. Financial backing has come in for the purchase and renovation of a home where ten children will live. They will never enter the orphanage system. A few government hoops must be jumped through, and we are praying for God’s direction here. As soon as we have a clear green light, I will share more about this amazing project.

Then…

We went to the baby hospital to see Melana, a six week infant, abandoned by her 15 year old birthmother. Ruby had the privilege of naming her and Melana means “grace” in Kyrgyz. Melana apparently has some potential heart problems and through the project, “Babies Bound for Blessing,” she has been sponsored and will be taken early next week to the hospital in Bishkek for evaluation.

Little Melana will go to the hospital next week and then shortly move to the baby orphanage.

My heart breaks for birthmothers here as they simply are forced to walk away from their newborns, never knowing whatever happens to them. Maybe someday, we will find a way to minister to them. Relinquishment is not an event, but a lifelong journey for these young, frightened birthmothers.

Then…

We went to the bazaar because the doctor told us she had no baby food left for Melana from the supply given to them by Lynn and Ruby earlier. We hadn’t planned on shopping today, so had just enough money to get a few supplies – the essentials – oatmeal and diapers. Early next week, we will stock up the food supply at the baby hospital.

Then….

We headed to the university to gather the final news articles for the school’s first newspaper to be published early next week. After a quick lunch, we ran a short bank errand (40 minutes to withdraw some funds).

Then…

With all of 20 minutes left to get to the T-shirt factory before the manager left, we rushed to pick up the shirts for the journalism class. More about that later.

Then…
We hurried back to the baby hospital to deliver our small bundle of supplies…

Natalia, our friend and translator, (l) Hymanot, our friend and driver, and Altynai, a precious young student at IUCA who has a story of redemption all her own, helped deliver things today.

Then…

We came back to our apartment to finish some last minute changes on the student’s newspaper articles.

Then…

We grabbed a taxi for the last journalism class this term. Before rushing any further, I wanted to share what it was like to be with these 11 students. Here is the short article that will appear in the paper next week about the young people.

A Fantastic Group of Enthusiastic Journalists

By Jayne Schooler, Faculty Advisor to the Journalism Club

Something came to be today that just eight weeks ago was not even a thought. That something is the very paper you are holding in your hand – the new IUCA TODAY.

Just eight weeks ago, I met a dynamic group of ten young people, enthusiastic and eager to tackle a project in which they had no experience. And, tackle it they did.

How? Class attendance (8:00 am Monday mornings) was nearly 100% throughout our eight weeks. Each student readily took on new challenges, asked many questions, showed up and followed up with completed assignments.

To introduce the new course of journalism and to get a first paper out in eight weeks is just short of a miracle. I am so proud of these ten fine young people who worked hard and together published the first edition of the IUCA TODAY.

At the beginning of the class, I had the opportunity to share with them about the most important decision I ever made in my life and that was to make God the center of my life. I also told them that it was my journalism teacher over 40 years ago that led me in that decision. Following that short testimony, each student was given a t-shirt with the journalism logo they designed.

The IUCA TODAY journalism staff - a brand new experience for everyone of these young people.

                                  Did someone say "no final exam?"


A Day of Contrasts
This was truly a day of contrasts – engaging in the world of child welfare with all of its heartbreak and complexities and then engaging in the world of university students who are looking for meaning and purpose in life. We are truly blessed to be a part of it.

Yesterday, we sat in the office of the university president to discuss what courses we will be teaching next fall. David will be co-teaching with the university president in a class entitled “Professional Ethical Leadership” and Applied Psychology: Principles of Counseling. He has been asked to be a part of a Learning Center next year, which is actually a guidance counselor’s office as we know it. So many of these young people have no family or broken families or come from very significant poverty situations and life is difficult.

International University of Central Asia's president, Camilla Sharshekoeeva and head of  the linguists department, Tatyanna Dubina.


Although it is still undecided, I will probably be teaching Beginning Composition and Journalism. There is a possibility that with the addition of the new Education Department, I could be teaching a course on early childhood development.

We start the ten day count down on Saturday with much yet to do. Again, we will leave here changed. We continue to be humbled by the gracious, loving people for whom life is extremely difficult, and yet, they extend themselves to us every day.

What's In Store for the Two Weeks That Remain

We cannot believe that we are down to our last two weeks here. We just returned from having dinner with our friend and team member, Natalia and we planned the activities for this week. Here is what is ahead, but as we always say here - we must be flexible!

Monday:

• We go to the Senior's home in Kemin to help plan a luncheon for the local churches and government administrations in the area.  The family managing the home does so, without pay and with little or no help and we thought it would be a good and fun idea to reach out to the community, get the word out about this life-saving facility and encourage volunteers to come to do a variety of things. The luncheon is scheduled for Wednesday, May 19th. This luncheon is being made possible through the gifts of our friends and partners. We trust that this time will encourage those in the community to share in this vital service.

Tonya and her husband and three sons basically manage the health care needs, nutrional needs, emotional and spiritual needs of 14 elderly people, who would have been homeless without their intervention.

• In the afternoon, we will drop in with a visit with Larissa, who has a Bible ministry at the home for invalid men. Lynn and Ruby left Bibles and other booklets with us to take out to the men and Larrisa will deliver those wonderful resources. Just last week, we visited the invalid home of about 250 men and took fruit and vegetables and treats to them. This also was supported by friends back home.

God has called this selfless woman to the ministry at the home for invalid men. Once a dark place, the light of God's love has been brought there by Larissa, and through the work of LAMb International and John Wright's group, Possibilities International

• Following our visit with Larisa, we will come back for an afternoon meeting at the University with the journalism staff. After Thursday, I want to blog all about these dynamic students. I plan to share the picture of all of them in their journalism shirts, which be given to them on the last day of class. These gifts made possible by the gifts of others, is an enormous blessing to these young people.

Tuesday

• Because of the sponsorship of friends in Lebanon, a young man attends the university. He is doing well in his second year.  We heard early last week of his need for shoes - he literally had none and was forced to borrow from a classmate.  So, on Tuesday, Natalia and Vitali will go shopping for shoes and other clothing items while we are in class.
• While here, Ruby had the privilege of naming a baby who was born in the baby hospital here and left there by her 15 year old birthmother. Her name is Melana Grace and just before they left, we heard she has a heart problem. Natalia and I will visit the baby hospital tomorrow and Natalia will make arrangements for her to be transported to the capital for tests.
• David and I have classes all afternoon at the university.

Wednesday

• We will meet with the university president to discuss their needs for the fall and how we might fit into the picture here in September.
• David will possibly have meetings, but it is too soon to know.
• We plan to have dinner with some special friends.  As we prepare to leave, one of the precious memories we experience is spending time with friends.

Thursday

•  We will go to see "Jessica's family" in the morning.  The oldest daughter is in need of eye surgery and through the gift of a special friend in West Chester, we will be able to share in this need.

           Ruby and Medina, who needs the surgery, on home renovation day.

• David and I finish our university classes on Thursday and will truly miss these fine young students.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday - Just too soon to know, however, a few things are planned. We will be going to Bishkek on Friday for dental work for Natalia and again on Sunday as David will be speaking at a church there.

Our love and admiration for our friends here deepens with each trip that we are here.  Our prayer is that in some small measure, we have blessed them as they have, indeed, blessed us.

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.