updtates, info, changes…

Hello my friends! 

 

As you probably know by now, team luminous is currently in Lugansk, Ukraine. We are with Spectacle this month and finally got Dave and Jen back today!!! It’s good to see them again and I look forward to catching up with them in the following days. Our two teams are living in an apartment together and have split up into two ministries where half of us work with university students who are learning English and the other half of us are working in villages mostly with orphans.

 

I am in the group working with orphans and hope to add some pictures sometime soon but if I don’t you should look at some of the pictures from the girls on Team Spectacle. We go to a few different orphanages and I am always surprised at how different they can be for being so close geographically to each other. The statistics say that somewhere around 70% of these girls will end up in prostitution and about the same percentage of the boys will end up in jail. 1 in 10 will commit suicide and I don’t want to know the baggage that the healthiest will carry. On the flip side, is there anyone who has never carried baggage other than Jesus? Regardless, the statistics for these children aren’t great. 

 

The differences between the orphanages where students are looked after and loved and those where it’s lacking are astounding. The entire feel and atmosphere of each place is considerably different. One may hold a coldness and insensitivity while another may be welcoming and warm. Obviously not every child will fall into the atmosphere that they are in. I like to think that our lives consist of one third nature, one third nurture and one third free will (loosely…because in a way it is 100% of each.)

 

I’ve walked into a room where there is a tv set up and movies going constantly with no guidelines and no rules. Children of all ages may be glued to a screen with anything on it. The first time I walked into this room it took all of 15 seconds before the one of the characters on the tv grabbed a crab and started stabbing another guy while blood was squirting everywhere…I’ve been told that there have been other times where they will just be sitting there watching porn. Needless to say, with little supervision and lots of idle time, some of these kids are filling themselves with uselessness that affects them more than they know…unfortunately how many of the kids in America are doing the same thing and living the same way? How many parents sit their kids in front of the tv and use it as a baby sitter?

 

On the other side of things, it has been great to see a couple of the orphanges where the kids come to you with warm smiles and excited eyes just willing to let you pick them up and play with them. They are loved and they know it. I can’t speak for how dramatically different that makes everything feel. Does that mean that none of these kids won’t get into trouble? No, but they have something called hope that makes more difference than I can write about.

 

Regardless, I have enjoyed spending time with these kids and getting out of the city and into the smaller villages. I love being outside and seeing the colors change here reminds me of home which is always comforting. I have much more to say about Ukraine but all in good time.