O.F. Prayer Requests April 18th, 2003
As we celebrate the Risen Savior and what His resurrection means to us,
many children wallow in dispair, drudgery and depression. Jesus is not real
to them, mostly because their lives are so robbed of hope, that their days
are bleak.
URGENT NEED for RUSSIAN ORPHANS
Remember, I mentioned that some children in St.Pete, RUSSIA have been
blocked (for seemingly political reasons) from coming to the USA this summer
and eventually finding an adopting family. I'm pasting below Joyce
Schaller's letter appealing for help. Please pray about printing this letter
out and sharing with friends. Easter is a great time to share what Christ's
life has done in us, and it has certainly filled us with compassion and a
desire for righteousness.
GLORIOUS REPORTS
As I still receive reports and pictures from our Christmas project, I am
absolutely mindblown to see how far a little goes, and broken to see how many
children's lives were impacted with joy and hope. I will also paste a report
below from Bishek for you to enjoy (below Joyce's letter). I hope to post
the photos on the website soon (Oh, for more help to get more done faster!).
EXPANSION
It is also with great joy that I see God answering your prayers to reach
more children. Today I received an exciting mail from Moscow, RUSSIA where
they plan to work in children's detention centers and other orphanages on a
regular basis with a budget from Orphans First allowing them to meet their
physical (& spiritual) needs. The same goes for other teams we work with.
Meanwhile, some friends are presently in Burkina Faso, AFRICA, helping
our orphanage there and seeing how we can expand it. Pray for them and their
entire family as they stay there for 2 weeks.
The works in India, Albania, Ukraine, Poland, Russia continue and we're
beginning to work with a new orphanage in Romania. God is good.
As you pray for the needy children, please read Joyce's letter below,
and a report below that. Thanking you for your faithfulness,
Janey
Letter re. older Russian orphans - "April 13, 2003
Dear Janey,
I am in the middle of planning for the Family Hope International
Summer Program here in Virginia for 30 older orphans from Muldova. While I am
anxious to find each of these children host families for the summer, my heart
broken as because I've discovered that the 15 children from Orphanage #46 in
St. Petersburg, Russia, will not be coming to Virginia for the summer
camp----a camp which opens up possibilities for these children to be adopted
by American families.
As you know, our son, Artur, was 12 a year and a half ago when we
adopted him from orphanage #46? He was so excited about more of his friends
having a chance to find families, that when he learned they could not come, I
had to pick him up off the floor where he had promptly toppled in tears. He
kept asking, "But why? But why, Mommy." How could I answer such a tearful
entreaty from my child when the answer given to me to this question was: "Due
to what the 'authorities' feel is a credible threat of terrorist action
against the U.S it is simply to dangerous for the children to travel en masse
for summer camp."
These children aged 9-16 are all devastated and know, as Artur does,
that what is probably their only real chance of ever being adopted was stolen
from them. If there is anyone who might consider any of these older
children---who are in a school for gifted children---I pray that they will
contact me. Every time I look at the these children's faces, I imagine that
they are mine, and if something happened to me or my husband how I would pray
that God would find someone to love them, and be their Mommy and Daddy. It
seems that simply because of their age, nobody wants them! If they were mine,
and they were 16, I would still want someone to be a parent to them! As a
high school teacher, I know how much teenagers need love and guidance.
Please, if anyone is interested, contact me at joyceschaller@...
Sincerely, Joyce Schaller"
Report from Bishek (re. Christmas Project)
"Subj: Orpanages in Bishkek
Date: 15/04/2003 19:21:25 Romance Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:vladgrace@...">vladgrace@...</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:Janey@...">Janey@...</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear Janey DeMeo,
I am so sorry, for being so late to answer to your e-mail. The draft
of the answer was sitting in an out box for awhile.
So we had 6 orphanage houses. They were for children of different age
and state of health. The whole church was ministering to the kids and
the lord was doing deep work in our hearts because we saw so many
suffering children and some of them were together with their parents,
because the parents could not afford medical treatment for their
children so they would use every opportunity to get a job in the
orphanage to stay together with the kids.
Some of the orphanages were taken very good care of. Everything was
clean and in order. These orphanages were built by some Christian
Ministries from the West. But ultimately what we saw - children did
not have enough food though they were in good quality rooms.
Everyone was blessed with our teams coming. All teachers, tutors and
certainly kids were surprised with the rich gifts that they were given
from the heavenly Father. Every child received a special Christmas bag
with sweets and fruits, scarf and a winter hat, toys and color pens
and markers. Than they would get hot tea with very tasty Turkish
meat-stuffed pancakes. They had never seen that in their lives before.
In every orphanage our Christmas team of up
to 15 participants would perform a Christmas play, a concert with
worship songs, have fellowship an the basis of the play and the
contents of the songs. Generally it would last up to 2 hours. We had
more than 150 raised hands for salvations. Some of the kids did that
several times already in their little lives through the ministry of
other Christians. It was joy and revelation how God would once and
again bring His children to minister to His children.
When we were planning our first calculations were more than 300
children, and in fact we served to: 31, + 56, +6, +27, +33, +100.
Total number was 253 dear souls.
We were taking a video film at each of the places. I am going to bring
a disk with it to Baltimore this Convention. We have also pictures
from the video film, would you like me to send them in the attached
file in JPG format?
Again, Thank you very much for helping us to serve the kids, we are
blessed with your heart and the whole ministry.
God bless you, greetings to the saints in the team, Pastor Vladislav
Gromov."
Have a blessed Easter, and my Christ's resurrection be real in our
lives,
Janey L. DeMeo
President/founder of ORPHANS FIRST; freelance writer.
Website: http://www.orphansfirst.org/
E mail: Janey@...
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