I haven’t been good about blogging lately. I’ve been busy working on newsletters. As well as doing my own snailmail newsletter, I now write the newsletter for the team, and I ended up helping my roommate with his as well. All in all, my home time has been spent editing and re-editing and submitting for approval. I’m all newslettered out.
One of the major social issues in Ukraine is the high HIV/AIDS problem. In 2003, there were 360,000 people infected with AIDS, and about 20,000 AIDS deaths. Ukraine has the fastest growing AIDS population in Eastern Europe. And since this is a country with a population decrease problem, it makes it even worse.
That brings us back to the orphanage. Unfortunately in the orphanages, children don’t have training in right and wrong. Many of them are sexually active at an early age and it’s a breeding ground for HIV and AIDS. Another problem affecting our kids is the amount of drug use among the street kids.
That was a big ole’ encyclopedia back story brings us to Tuesday. We have a new team member, Vicka, who specializes in HIV education. While she was talking to the older kids, it was my job to watch the younger ones. (The younger kids that I worked with last week were in some sort of class study time)
Sergey, directed the 10-11 year olds into a classroom. “Here, these are your kids for today.”
I looked around the room. They were all boys, already hyper and laughing, making Russian comments I couldn’t understand. What would these boys want to do?
I shrugged my shoulders. “Futbol?” I asked. I didn’t even know if that was the word in Russian. I just pronounced football with a Russian accent. They were excited about the prospect, and told me with much gesturing that I’d better get my coat because it was “xolodno” outside. (Oh and just in case anyone’s wondering, “Football” is what the rest of the world calls, “Soccer.”)
Arrangements were made outside of my understanding. I did recognize that the captains played “paper, rock, scissors” twice to see who got to pick first. Being the only player over 4 and a half feet tall, I was chosen first. Might be the first time in my life. It also helps for them not to know how uncoordinated you are.
I’ve decided that I have to learn my Russian soccer terminology. For boys, this is great relationship building. You learn names when they call each other to pass the ball. There’s a lot of laughter, and communication and teamwork. And there was a lot of opportunity for me to say, “Hey, hey, Tulke Eegrah” (It’s only a game.)
Any life lessons here? I’m not at all a sports fan, but I am a relationships fan. Just like I don’t like bloody lips, but I will let it happen, even encourage it, if it means that I will be able to speak into a kid’s life later on. By now, all the kids in the orphanage know me, at least my name (Markoos). A handful of them might know I can draw and puppeteer but can’t play soccer. And in the midst of learning that, I hope they’re learning that I care about them, that I’m interested in the best for their lives. Ultimately, they’ll learn the God that motivates my love.
I recently got a pilot program for teaching life skills at the orphanage. We have a copy in Russian and English. It starts with identity and teaches about good hygiene, social behavior, money management, etc. I’m glad because it has a Christian Foundation. It was produced by CBN, and we’re working with it, with the intention of reporting back what works and what doesn’t work, or other ideas we might have to improve it. Kind of a neat process, actually.

¶ 7:06 AM

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