Fine-a Ukraine-a

Children.
They’re everywhere. It doesn’t matter where you are or for how long you’re there – you are bound to meet some children. It doesn’t matter what food they like to eat, what clothes they think are cool, how they do their hair, what they look like, what language they speak, or what language you speak, you will still find something in common, something to laugh about, something to bind you together and fill your heart with love for one another.

 

That’s where we’re at this month. We are where the children are.

 

Team Exodus has invaded Jeremiah’s Hope in the Ukraine. It is a camp set up by Andrew and Jenny Kelly for kids. Some of the kids who come for a week are from homes where their parents are missionaries, and some of the kids come from homes where their parents treat them in ways that make your stomach turn. For the past six days we have gotten to know 31 children from the surrounding villages. We know their names and their faces, we know who needs a hug before they go to bed, we know who loves to be thrown around like a rag doll, and we’re getting to know a little bit about their stories.

 

The strange thing for me is that I’ve grown up around these kids almost my whole life. Well, not these kids specifically, but kids just like them. After 15 years of living with foster children and learning their names, likes and dislikes, and their stories a part of me had become numb. I heard their stories and looked them in the eye knowing what they’d been through, and I felt empathy for them, felt outraged for them, but then I would take all of those hurtful, hateful things, put them on a mental/emotional shelf and get on with my life. Because, let’s face it, when you’re growing up and figuring out who you are, you feel like there’s only so much space in your heart for the pains of the world and if you don’t compartmentalize them a little bit you’d probably just sit on your bed sobbing and screaming every day for hours on end. After years of living with the walking, talking, and breathing products of pain and abuse those stories of cruelty and neglect became normal and the shock value wore off. I stopped being able to cry for the kids when I needed to, I stopped aching for the kids the way I needed to. My prayers became fewer and my spirit became insensitive in ways it shouldn’t have.

 

Then something started happening inside of me.

It started before I got accepted to the World Race family, but when I got to training camp God started taking my heart of stone and truly making it a heart of flesh.

And it got messy.

And it still is messy. Crying is not a neat and tidy business!

In a way, you’d think that after 10 months of seeing the extremes of poverty, abuse, and the heart of evil it would become somewhat normal and the shock value would wear off. But the truth it hasn’t gotten any easier. It seems, in fact, that it has gotten harder. I can’t compartmentalize the way I used to, I can’t hide those heartrending things away inside of me as well as I used to. They feel like they’re out there, walking around in the open of my heart, catching me off guard sometimes.

 

The Ukraine has caught me off guard, that’s for darn sure. I didn’t think I would have a deep love for Eastern Europe, for some reason I just didn’t think I would be deeply moved for Ukraine. Turns out that orphans, whether they’re white, light brown, or dark brown – break your heart. Turns out that here in the Ukraine the kids need our love and prayers as much as kids in the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, India, and Romania do.

 

The stories of the children who have come to this camp break my heart and make me wish I could find a way to give them a new home. One of the boys who was here at camp wrote one of the volunteers a thank you note. The note said this: “Thank you for not hurting us”. Then there are the orphans who are currently living on site. Our first week here two young girls came to Jeremiah’s Hope to live in the cottage. Marina is 6 and Masha is 3 years old. Marina watched her father beat her mother to death, soon after both girls were left orphaned after their father hung himself.

 

Jesus… Are you out there?

 

Today we sent the 31 children back to their parents. We shared our last breakfast together, played our last games, gave our last hugs and kisses out, and watched those beautiful kids pile into vans and go back to what they know as home, knowing full well that what those children were going back to was not a situation we would willingly choose for them.

 

It would be so easy to feel helpless, heartbroken, and completely useless because of what has just happened. It would be a lot easier to just shove the reality those kids live in under a mental rug and not look back. It would be even easier to focus on the three-ish weeks I have until I am back with my amazing family. But Jesus never promised me that this would be easy.

 

He did promise me that He would be with me through it all, though. Through the smiles and laughter, through the hard goodbyes, through the heartbreaking moments when a mistreated child whispers “I love you”, and through the instances when you realize you have nothing left to give.

 

He also promised me that He would send me an Advocate, that He would put His Spirit in me, that through Him I would do even greater things than He did, and that He would not leave anyone an orphan.

 

Today I watched as the children I fell in love with left our safety and walked into unforeseeable instability. Today, and each day after, I get to remember that for six days I was Jesus’ arms hugging those kids, I was Jesus’ laughter, friendship, and bedtime kisses.

 

Today I hold tight to the knowledge that my God is a God of justice, and He makes all things new, because quite frankly, I have nothing else to hold on to right now.