Getting Ready for Another Adventure

It has been a number of weeks since we have posted on our blog. So much has been happening and we wanted to grab a moment to share before leaving for overseas this weekend.

 Here at Home

For well over two years, David and I have been working on a trauma informed training curriculum to help workers guide families and for families to learn how to live with wounded, hurting children.  We recently had the opportunity to share with audiences in New York, California, West Virginia and Mississippi as well as around Ohio. We have integrated some key principles from the work of Dr. Karyn Purvis and her team who have written the Trust Based Relationship Intervention materials. Their work is amazing stuff!!!  TBRI is hope for children and families and we see it everyday.

 

 

 

 

Social workers and families share together in Tupelo, Mississippi at the  workshop called The Power of Healing Connections. This event was sponsored by New Beginnings, an adoption agency in that city.

However, this is just part of the story . We feel  we are getting ready for another God directed adventure  - one that would not or could not ever come together without God’s  leadership and direction.

Amazing New Adventures

Last October,  David was in Kyrgyzstan and I was home. I was out mowing the yard and while working,  I was thinking about what we were training and how that might fit in over time in our work overseas.  We recently had participated in the creation of a learning series for adoptive/foster parents with Orphan’s Promise (CBN)  and I felt prompted to ask them of what interest they might have in partnering with us.  Orphan’s Promise works in over 50 counties around the world in orphanages and villages where children are at risk.

So, I simply wrote an email and ask them – would you be interested in partnering with us to provide trauma informed training to orphanage caregivers in some of the locations where Orphan’s Promise is working.

 To make a long, but extremely exciting story short that answer came at the end of January – YES.  LAMb International has received a grant to provide training in different locations as a pilot run.  Over the next 12 months, our team will be working in Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland Armenia, and possibly  Nicargua and Zimbawe.

http://www.orphanspromise.org/

 

David and I are so awestruck and humbled by the opportunities to be His servant in touching the lives of devastated children and the encouraging those that care for them.

We leave this Sunday for both Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.  Although we have a lot of plans for our time there, we simply want God’s direction and leadership ministering alongside those He joins with us.  Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

 Please visit the blogs of our partners regularly. They do a much better job of keeping up!

www.lambinternational.blogspot.com

www.actofkindness.blogspot.com

 

Jeremiah House is Official - Helping Youth Aging Out of Orphanages

From Lynn and Ruby....



THIS IS AN EDITED VERSON OF THE EMAIL WE SENT TO OUR BOARD MEMBERS ONCE WE MADE THE OFFER....
JUST NOW - MOMENTS AGO
THE HOUSE IS OFFICIALLY JEREMIAH HOUSE!

Omerbeck is going to have a home!
We have moved forward on Jeremiah House.  Wednesday we shook hands on a purchase and finalized all today!
The location is good, lots of potential for skill building in the different areas of the house....even the potential for a training room or a little business!  The house needs some work, new kitchen, bath, windows, doors.  It was listed for $38,000 in the spring.  She had an offer for $33,000 and turned it down.  She listed it this week for $35,000 and had two interested buyers immediately...us and another couple.Vlady went with Us to inspect the house. And said it was a very good deal and very good house.
Our team had just completed looking at about 20 houses in the last few days.  The other couple just started looking.  We offered her $28,000 and she said yes.  She has just been diagnosed with cancer and wants to go to Russia ASaP to be with her children.  We had a powerful prayer session with her, tears and blessings. 
We can start living there immediately.  We will do the kitchen renovation first, after getting furniture that is most needed.  We have $4,000 extra to work with.  Tomorrow, we are going out to purchase the needed items for the drop in Center as well.  We have funds for that.  We need to raise an additional $25,000 a year for JH. Plus the renovations and furnishings.  Praise Him!Very excited.
Later, we will list the project list for what needs to be done in the house.  However, we hope to open the home BEFORE renovations are completed.  The mayors office is pleading with us to open quickly as they have so many youth of this age that are in dire need of this home.  And we also have youth whom we have been working with that are just hanging on by a thread that would benefit from Jeremiah House.  We are looking at having only eight youth at a time in Jeremiah House.  Although we could take ten - we think as we begin it would be best to start by keeping the numbers a little lower - as staff get adjusted and we begin the program. 

OH HOW WE WOULD LIKE TO SERVE THEM ALL.  We know this little project just might mean life and death decisions and it really weighs on us.

CHANGING STATISTICS - ONE CHILD AT A TIME!
The statistics say 1/3 of the graduating orphans will be successful adults  - the other 2/3 will end up in prisons, suiciding, in prostitution, trafficked out of the country or addicted and living on the streets.

Another step of Hope

JEREMIAH HOUSE - HOPE FOR KYRGYZSTAN

So much need

We have been reading news reports that are almost beyond comprehension. The temperatures in Kyrgyzstan have been in the low teens AND the gas and most of the electricity have been shut off for days. We can't get our minds off this crisis. We have many special friends there who are suffering. I do not know what it feels like to not be able to find a warm place to go.

Ruby and Lynn just arrived there today and our prayer for them is that God will use them in very powerful ways. We wish we were there as well.

Please visit their blog     www.lambinternational.blogspot.com    for the latest updates.

Changing Lives

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine, who also is co-author of two of our book projects.  Betsy Smalley just returned from a week of training in Kiev with this exciting report about our book, Wounded Children, Healing Homes.

 

 

While I was training for ILDC in Kiev, Ukraine in early November 2012, a woman attending the workshop, Triggers, What Can Cause Adoption-Related Crisis?, stood up while introducing herself.  She stated, “I feel I must stand while introducing myself to you because your books saved my adoption.”  She began to cry as she shared that her 10-year-old adopted daughter, has serious behavioral challenges.  Prior to the adoption, her daughter was institutionalized for several years following the deaths of both of her drug-addicted birth parents.  I thanked her for her kind words and began to train.  Of course, we discussed the issues of psychological presence and divided loyalties.  I encouraged trainees to bring the birth family explicitly into the adoptive home through open adoption communication.  Several examples of open communication were given, including “Your birth mother would have been so proud of you today.”

The following day, this same mother attended a second day of training.  She was very excited to share that the previous evening, her daughter sang beautifully in a music recital.  At the conclusion of the event, the adoptive mother hugged her daughter and said to her, “Your birth mother would have been so proud of you tonight.”  Again, the adoptive mother began to cry as she described the way her daughter’s face lit up, “transforming her features” from an angry, avoidant child to one who was surprised and happy to see her birth family acknowledged and accepted.  It was moving to see how eager families and social workers are receive information that will impact the lives of children as well as the stability of the adoptive families caring for them.  It certainly made the long trip to Kiev very worthwhile!  It is startling to see the rapid progress made in Ukraine by ILDC; they are certainly earning their name: International Leadership and Development Center.

 

We are so thankful for the work of ILDC and for the Institute and Human Services for the role they have played and continue to in getting the books translated into Russian and into the hands of workers and families.

 

 

 

 

Pictures from the ILDC Training Center in Kiev, Ukraine.

It Is So Exciting to Know...

It is so very exciting to know that LAMb International (Lynn and Ruby Johnston) and ILDC (International Leadership and Development Center), a side arm of LAMb has such a key role in the global movement of a world without orphans.  Here is a sample of the influence of LAMb in Ukraine...please take time to watch this video.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h34gcqfgR7I&feature=youtu.be

A Little More Than Green

Just got off skype talking with David. He is currently back in Kyrygzstan for some very important and critical meetings at the International Univeristy of Central Asia.  Anyway, he asked me, "did you see the Wright's blog yet." No, I hadn't had a chance yet.  So why we were talking, I took a look.  Here is what I saw:




Today was reunion day for many of the children we knew at the Tokmok orphanage. Since the orphanage was closed a couple of years ago, the children were scattered to other orphanges, back to relatives or aged out.  I could'nt believe what I saw...and there in the front in the brown jacket was our buddy Victor.   Slavic is here too as well as Nastya, Iback, Maksat,Colya, etc....I have to admit, I am more than a little green with envy. 

David along with John and Julie look like they are having a great time. I understand Emma Wright put this whole thing together.  What an awesome memory for all of them!

Celebrating Hope

 

 

We arrived home early this morning after an incredible trip to Kyrygzstan.  What made it so incredible is that God enabled us to meet and work with orphanage caregivers and social workers who experienced trauma-informed training for the first time. They were so engaged, receptive and appreciative of the information

 

Over these three packed weeks, we were able to introduce the nine essential elements of trauma informed care, combined with the Trust-Based Relational Intervention principles (TBRI) of Dr. Karen Purvis.  Teaching the  "why" of the  essential elements of trauma informed care was only half the equation.  Sharing the principles of TBRI was the "how-to."  It was fun to see the groups process the material and then apply it to their own working situation.

 

 

 We wanted to share this experienced with you...

 

 

We are so appreciate to Lynn and Ruby who set up the training oppportunity for us. We made many new friends and our list of who we care about in Kyrgzstan has grown.

Thank you taking the time to read our blog. It means alots..  

Just and FYI.....David returns to Kyrygzstan in two weeks for a time of meetings at the univerisity.