Ukraine (MNN) – During a recent visit to Eastern Ukraine, Slavic Gospel Association’s Eric Mock had the chance to visit a couple of orphanages. Through both its Crisis Evangelism Fund* and its Orphans Reborn program, SGA helps local churches to offer support for orphans in Ukraine.
Orphans in Eastern Ukraine
“It’s a heartbreaking experience to sit down on the floor of one of the orphanages and have three little boys, probably ages three to four years old, begin to climb on you and talk to you and say, ‘will you be my daddy?’” Mock shares. “And my wife was there [and they asked] ‘will you be my mommy?’”
“We are thankful for each gift we receive for #SGAOrphansReborn ministries in the CIS.”
– Lana Yusov, SGA’s Children’s Ministries Administrator (Photo/Caption Courtesy SGA)
For a lot of these kids, they’re orphaned because of poverty and war. In fact, 70 percent of the kids in orphanages in Eastern Ukraine have a living parent. However, these parents (and other relatives) can’t afford to take care of them.
After being left heartbroken and alone, these kids are desperate for a mother and father. What’s more, they’re desperate to know that there’s more to life than the struggle they’re facing.
In many of the villages Mock visited, Mock saw struggling single moms and children living in despair. Regardless of whether these kids are raised in their natural family or in an orphanage, life is difficult.
This is just one reason why SGA’s ministry, Orphans Reborn, is so important in Eastern Ukraine. Orphans Reborn helps provide local churches with the necessary funds to visit the children living in orphanages at least once a month. On these visits, churches bring emergency food, clothing, and Bibles.
While there, church members also build relationships with the children and teach them about Jesus and the Gospel. Through these relationships and by providing some physical needs, church members show these kids what it means to be loved and cared for spiritually and physically. The local churches represent Christ’s love to them.
How to Help
And while SGA can’t help these kids find parents, they can help share Christ’s love. Will you help? As SGA’s founder often said, much prayer-much power.
(Photo courtesy of SGA)
“Just pray for the eastern part of the country. Pray for the orphan children. Especially for me as a dad and a grandad, a grandfather, when I think of these children and what they have to live through, it is heartbreaking. So please, keep them in your prayers,” Mock asks.
Pray also for these kids to realize how precious and loved they are by God. Ask God to transform these orphans’ lives and for them to be brought into a family that loves them.
Will you also consider walking alongside these orphans by donating to SGA’s Orphans Reborn program or to the Crisis Evangelism Fund?
Learn more and donate to Orphans Reborn here!
Learn more and donate to the Crisis Evangelism Fund here!
*The Crisis Evangelism Fund helps provide local pastors and their churches with the resources needed to distribute important food aid, Bibles, Christian literature, and other essentials throughout Eastern Ukraine. Just $15 can provide a food pack (which includes flour, cooking oil, past, and other staples) and Christian literature.
