I cannot thank this organization enough for surprising us with this blessing!

Please help them to help our special children by purchasing during the month of May!!

Wish Upon a Star
Jeanette Dubanowski

House of Angels
Krishan K. Agarwal
Mr. and Mrs. Homer A. Gregory
Susan Berger
Marcia McHenry
Elwin Leung

Kazakhstan
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Clark, In Honor of Director Erbol Kapanovich
David Wilstermann, Shining Light and Semey Windows Project
Lex and Karla Moran, for Vasalisa in Shymkent

Ethiopia
Brian & Margaret Dillingham, BP Pino Hope Project
Louis Demarco, BP Pino Hope Project
Jennifer Hall, BP Pino Hope Project
Eduardo Sanchez, BP Pino Hope Project
Christopher and Ann Muehling, BP Pino Hope Project
Teresa Carnt, BP Pino Hope Project

Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund
Melany Bartholow

Little Miracles International General Humanitarian Fund
Just Love Coffee Roasters
Asset Value Investors Limited, Kimberly Lau
Anonymous, In Memory of Alan R. Elia and in Honor of Irene Elia

I will be very busy again. Many students are still interested in my teaching them English. So my week hours of teaching will be 28-29 hours per week. It is a lot of work.

I am not sure if i will be able to visit the village orphanages. Let’s pray and see.
Orphanage #8 has been under my care for 11 years now. I love going there and helping the kids and caretakers with their needs. I also help the orphans who left this orphanage and study at collages. They also need attention and care. There are 61 children living at Orphanage #8 right now. Eight orphans have left the orphanage this year because they entered technical school. One boy was taken to a foster family.

My programs for 2009-2010 at this orphanage are:

1. Art classes at the orphanage and art school.
This will be the children’s second year of art classes. Ludmila, the art teacher is going to continue art therapy for 12 boys and 6 girls. Mostly all the kids are aged 8-12. The teaching will be once a week, one hour with each group. First taught will be girls then boys.

I watched with real joy and interest as the children were working on their art classes. It was amazing how interesting the art works can be with the help of the teacher. It was like magic. First as the art begins you see a clean slate, with nothing in the picture. But then gradually something new and beautiful appeared.

I was wondering how kids could become so creative!! At the end of the year they were able to express themselves showing brighter colors in their art works. The first class will be September 8th. I am meeting Ludmila and we will discuss the plan for the year and the art supplies we need to buy. The teacher will get 350 rubles (11.26 USD) per hour, 700 rubles (22.50 USD) per two hours a week.

2. Two orphans Luba and Sasha will continue attending our art school. For Luba it will be the 3rd year of art school. I am still very concerned about her because orphans can’t control their emotions if something does not go well no matter where they are. Not all adults are so patient with such fussy children. She will have art classes two times a week (6 hours of art.)

3. I am going to continue providing swimming pool classes. This will cost 3000 rubles (96.50 USD) a month. Most all orphans are able to go to the swimming pool once a week and some boys are taking professional swimming classes. This sport has helped the orphans to become stronger. The orphans are not having as many illnesses and sicknesses now.

4. The boys attending art classes will start learning English next week too. I ordered the books for them, bought copybooks (composition books.) They will have two classes a week. Their teacher will be a disabled girl Anna. She graduated from the university and works as a translator for missionaries from America. I got to know her at VBS School this summer when my missionary friends came to Khabarovsk this summer and we worked with children at the Christian school.

Anna can’t walk without crutches. So she will take a taxi. I will pay her 250 rubles (8.00 USD) per 1 hour and 200 rubles (6.43 USD) for the taxi each time. So it will be 500 rubles (16.08 USD) a week and 400 (12.87 USD) rubles for taxi a week.
I think she is a very reliable girl and is very interested to help me and work with orphans.

5. The boys will also have knitting once a week. Their teacher’s name is Tatiana. She is on vacation right now and will be in Khabarovsk next week. I plan on helping the boys to continue knitting. They will knit scarves, mittens, and socks for themselves. I am going to provide the teacher with yarn, and also pay her 250 rubles (8.00 USD) for one class a week.

6. There is a new caretaker Ekaterina who helps the kids to work on the computer. These teachers are interested in making a group from orphans and teach them origami. This is Japanese art to fold the paper and make different objects. This is a good way to involve the kids. Origami teaches attention, patience and motor skills. I am going to pay for the paper. There will be 10 kids in her group.

7. I gave some money to pay workbooks for the kids for school. These working books are to be bought every year for the kids no matter if they are from families or orphans. It is a big problem for the orphanages to buy these books. This is a very important purchase.

8. I bought some books in the summer. Theses books are classic Foreign Literature for children. I have talked with the director about planning time for each orphan to read 30 minutes every day. The director liked this idea. I would like to help the orphans to make a good reading a habit.

9. I am helping Anzhela and Yana who are studying at the railway collage. I am going to provide Anzhela ‘s tutoring. This year is her last year at college. She is going to enter the railway academy and needs help in math and physics. I give the girls money for food and clothes every month.

10. The kids at the orphanage participate in different celebrations every month (holiday, birthdays, guests, etc…) It is a big problem every year to buy treats, sweets, snacks, and cakes and to find money for flour and oil. So we talked with the director and found out that it will better idea just to buy flour, oil, maybe some vanilla, yeast, jam, cinnamon, raisins and the orphans will be able to cook themselves with the help of the caretakers rather then buying the treats and take everything for granted. I am going to provide the orphans with those ingredients. I am very excited about that idea.

That’s probably all. I will continue writing my updates.
Sincerely,
Lena

Lena continues her ministry with the orphans of Khabarovsk and surrounding villages. Her amazing faith and endurance continues to be a personal inspiration and this spreads to everyone that hears her story. She has managed to overcome great obstacles of health and bureaucracy to build a ministry that not only helps with the physical needs of the orphans, but also provides educational and spiritual guidance that continues after orphans have graduated from the orphanage system. In addition to her tireless work with orphans, Lena tutors students in English in her home and she teaches English in a private Christian School in the city.

We are doing many projects to assist the orphans in our region, not only medically, physically but emotionally as well. Part of our projects are to remediate the children in areas of gaps and areas they might not be exposed to otherwise like fine arts, such as painting and music, sports, cooking, knitting and various other wonderful projects your donations allow us to do.

I’ve sent pictures and here you can see all of our art projects:

The boys are knitting scarves with their teacher who comes to the orphanage once a week. The boys are going to wear these scarves!  In September the boys will learn to knit mittens, socks to wear in the winter and later they will learn even how to knit sweaters. This is a new project I will start in September. I am going to meet this teacher soon to talk about the details. I’m very excited about that project.

You will also see the photos of the childrens’ art projects, paintings, drawings. These classes are held at the orphanage by Ludmilla their art teacher who patiently teaches both boys and girls.  Next year there will be more boys and girls involved in the  art classes.

I am so very glad we will also start a cooking classes not only for the girls but for the boys too! I am going to buy cooking pans for the boys.

I am going to meet with the sport teacher to arrange football (soccer) sports for these boys to have regular meetings. The boys are very interested in playing football.

In May I am going to visit three orphanages that are in the village for a tea party and rewarding the best students. I usually give 50 rubles (1.50 USD) for each child who is good at school.

In the photos you can also see the Amur River in May, the area where we are. Across this river is my summer Dacha (garden home.)

The women in the photos are Ludmilla and myself with the children.

Love,

Lena

You can donate to Wish Upon a Star program by clicking on the GIVING tab above and designate your donation for Wish Upon a Star. There are several ways to to give. Any amount large or small would be so cherished!

Yesterday I went to the orphanage to the orphanage #8. Our art teacher had a class there for the children. Again I had chance to see how interesting art is and how the kids are learning to match colors in their art works, to feel the colors. It is very difficult if the child does not have any skills.

The last time the kids took a paper and colored it all blue and green. This time when the paper dried they drew faces with a pencil and then started painting wood fairies.

V. misses her family very much. Her father bought her a telephone and began calling her. That brings only problems because she became so fussy and nervous. The art teacher said that V’s colors in her paintings are always “heavy” (she prefers dark colors to light ones) We can’t judge the orphans parents but it is easy to buy a cell phone and call rather than to be responsible for bringing this child up.

I am praying that L. who attends art school will continue her art classes. This school is a very difficult experience for her. The home kids (non-orphaned children) in the group at art school are more serious and more attentive. L. became much better this year and seldom cries if something does not work out. I am going to take L. to eat something out again this Saturday, she doesn’t have any relatives.

It is interesting to compare orphans boys and girls. Girls seem to need more affection and love, they miss mother’s love in the orphanage. Becoming a teenager, all girls are seldom kind. In Russia when the girls leave the orphanage they very often start to have sexual relations with boys because they find care and attention from boys they meet. Making this the care they have never had in full, the natural care from their mothers.

The boys have a biological need bound to girls rather then really feeling and falling in love and taking responsibility for the mature actions to become a father. The girl acts like a dog. She is patted and the girl follows the person who pets her. This attention seeking is so dangerous. Very often the girls become mothers of the next generation of orphans.

The boys at the orphanage are very different. They are brought up in the army discipline.

Next week is the art teacher’s birthday. There will be no classes.

I will send you the art pictures later today. I have to go to the internet company to send the pictures, I have no scanner.

Love,
Lena
4/23/09

Note from Lori: I would love to be able to give Lena an excellent digital camera, one that is easy to use and takes great photos. Anyone have a used one that is in perfect shape? Anyone want to send a camera to us to send to Russia? Anyone want to donate to the Lena camera fund? I would love to bless Lena with a camera that she can upload photos with instead of going to the internet company to scan them page by page. Things can be so difficult in Russia. It takes much time for me to format, crop and cut apart the photos from a scan too. Lena is such an angel in everything she does for the children! If you would like to donate to Operation Camera, click on GIVING above and designate the donation to Operation Camera! I will be happy to buy her a new one if no one comes forward with a camera!