When I was a kid, I had the idea in my head that I didn’t like Butterfinger candy bars. I think I misunderstood the wrapper’s meaning. Between the name and the yellow packaging, I equated the product to a chocolate covered stick of butter. Mmm yum. At some point, of course, I ate one and realized the truth. While I don’t go out of my way shopping for them, I like Butterfingers just fine. In fact, if I came across one here in Kyiv, I’d buy it if only to show off to my American friends.

I work with kids who have been given a sort of misleading label. We’ve recently been working with a new orphanage. In a village just outside of Kyiv, there’s a boarding school meant for orphans with special needs. In the old days, it was a Pioneer camp, a center for training the next generation of communists. Weird to think about that, especially when I’m using their stage.
Clearly, there are children here with severe learning disabilities. But many more seem as normal as any kids you’d see in public school or a neighborhood playground. In some ways, these kids are exceptional; extremely open and loving. It’s my favorite ministry location in Kyiv so far.
I’ve noticed the kids to be unusually kind to each other. There is one girl who is mentally retarded and didn’t understand that she needed to wait in line for her snack. One of the big boys close to the front of the line pulled her gently in place in front of him. Nobody pushed her away or yelled at her. They understood she needed help and they gave her first class treatment.
A few weeks ago we were teaching the kids that God had plans for them. I encouraged them to “dream big dreams,” because God has great things for them. One of the workers told Vicki, from our team, “This is a good teaching, but not for these kids. They shouldn’t dream. They’re invalids.”

Vicki said, “Not all of them. They act like “normal” kids.”
“No,” the worker said, “all of them are invalids.”

Now I’m not saying that every kid who dreams of becoming an astronaut or football star will become that if they only follow Jesus. I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid, and my work is… um… significantly different. But the ability and desire to dream is even more important than having them come true. With my dream, I had the motivation to explore that dream and the next one, and the next one. Somewhere I learned that I liked orphans more than killer whales, and here I am. And I’m convinced God’s direction was moving me through different dreams.

Orphans need to know that they have a hope and a future. They may target the moon, and only get to parliament (still not finding intelligent life) but it’s better than aiming for street sweeper because that’s all you think you can do. Most people live far below their created purpose because of what they believe about themselves and ultimately what they think about God.

My big emphasis with these children is, “Don’t believe what people say about you. What does God say about you? He’s your Designer.” Here’s what the Bible says. You’re not a tail-less monkey, but you’re made in His image. You’re valuable not because of your grade point average, or adopt-ability, or computer hacking skills. You’re valuable because you’re designed by the King of the Universe, in His likeness and adored and understood by Him.

I just needed one person to show me that a Butterfinger wasn’t Oleo coated in chocolate. One person to break one open it and convince me to “taste and see that” the candy bar was good. That’s why I believe that over time, we’ll change the course of many lives just by taking off the label.

¶ 8:40 AM

 Joe said...
I’m writing this to inform you about a project I am working on something that will help missionaries like you raise awareness and support. I am in the planning and design stages of launching a missionary news website (GodWitness News) and I would like you to be part of it. The purpose of the website will be to increase awareness about what missionaries are doing around the world. It will be missionary related news, by missionaries. The design I’m working on will be similar to the Yahoo News or to the BBC News websites.

I’m a professional Internet marketer, SEO expert and web designer. I have been thinking for some time that there must be a way I can use my skills to further God’s kingdom. After doing some analysis, I discovered that although there are many missionary blogs and websites, there are not many that have been optimized correctly to get a lot of readership traffic. You are probably aware of this, but a couple of the most important ways to get a lot of traffic is by having a high Google (Google, because it gets the most search traffic) PageRank and by having new content – A LOT of new content.

That is were you come in, with the content. Before I launch the news website, I would like to get 100 (eventually, I hope to have even more than this number, but this would be a good start) missionaries around the world to agree to be “news journalists.” If you are interested, I would like you to be one of the 100. If successful, there would be thousands of hits a day on the website. You would benefit by having many thousands of people around the world read about how God is using you, the work you are doing, and the people you are working with. Hopefully, some of the people visiting the website would support you with prayers and/or finances. Maybe some of them would want to volunteer to help with some of the projects you are working on. You could also benefit from having increased traffic to your website (each article you write could have a link to your website).


If you choose to participate, I would like you to agree to provide at least 12 articles in a year’s time. If you don’t want to write that many, you don’t have to feel obligated to do so though. The topic choice would pretty much be up to you. You could write about events in the country, challenges you are facing, tips for new missionaries, how God provided for your needs, and more. The articles don’t even have to be all that long. If you want to write more detailed articles, that’s fine, but if you want to write short ones(minimum should probably about 300 words), that’s fine too. You can also submit videos and photos. I just ask that everything submitted is good quality (you know, dot the i’s and cross the t’s, spelled checked, etc.) and original. It’s fine if it’s been published in print before, but if the content is already on the internet, the news websites PageRank will be reduced if the content has a copy somewhere out there on the web (yeah, the search bots are picky like that). Search engines don’t care about copies of videos and photos, so no worries there. The reason I say a year is because that is the time period through which I will evaluate how well the idea is accepted and whether I should continue the project. Call it beta testing if you want But that is about the necessary time needed to make the website a success.


If you are interested, please contact me by sending an e-mail to joe@josephkolb.info. Please let me know your name, the country you are working in, your missions name, your website, your contact information, your website, and any questions you have. Please provide as much of that information as possible as it will be hard to keep track of everyone if I have so many participants. Sometime after I get your e-mail and once I get the site going, I will send you a user name and password for your publisher account. I may also send updates or more detailed article criteria (good titles, photo sizes, etc.). I will also send a statement of faith that will have to be agreed to. Pretty much Jesus is the only way, the truth and the light and no one comes to the Father but through him.

I think that’s about it for now. Oh, yeah one more thing, I would like participants to add a link from their website (if they have one) or blog to the news website. In-links is another way that Google uses to establish PageRank. Also, I have had some people respond saying that they were uncomfortable with having the articles link to there blogs, if you don’t want to do that, it’s fine. And if you feel uncomfortable giving me some info, then that’s fine, I understand. I won’t sell it of course, but you don’t know me, so I can see why there would some level of distrust.

Along with the news website, I’m thinking of launching a social networking website (maybe part of the news website) for missionaries and those interested in getting connected with missionaries. It would be very similar to myspace’s set-up, but would be geared towards the specific audience that I just mentioned. Before I launch that though, we’ll have to see how successful the news website is. It would take considerable resources to get the social networking site up and running.

So think about it, and most importantly, pray about it! Thanks in advance!

If you have any ideas that would help with the website, let me know!

God Bless You!!

Joe<><
joe@josephkolb.info

PS. A little introduction to myself: I’m Joe Kolb and I’m from Britton, Michigan. I go to a church called Hope Christian Fellowship and North Ridge Church on weekdays. I’m currently working as a web/graphic design and finishing my second degree. I am engaged to an awesome girl and Lord willing, I will be getting married January 2, 2009.  

 Ministry Happens in Ukraine said...
Great Blog...if you get a chance I'd love for you to look at mine; I'm hoping to be in Kyiv in January...would love to work with orphans and teens eventually.  

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