Fighting For Those Who Can’t – Page 2

Finding Joy in Reaching Out

Today’ s post was meant to be a Fearless Friday post, with a focus on fighting for hope on behalf of others, or as the page on my blog says, Fighting For Those Who Can’t.

Whenever I say that phrase, I think of a person who is stuck, unable to change their situation or circumstances without someone stepping in to help. People without the physical or emotional ability or means to fight for hope on their own.

Sometimes God places these people right in our path. He isn’t hindered by geographical location, so the people He places in our path could be literally on the other side of the world.

The Lord placed the children of Galette Chambon in my Aunt Roxie’s path. It didn’t matter that they were in Haiti and she was in Mississippi. God gave her the courage to step out of her comfort zone, and to step into the brokenness of a community in need.

I am so excited to have her as a guest today.

So here is our Fearless Friday post….but on a Monday.

Finding Joy in Reaching Out

by Roxie Ewing

In 2015 I was blessed with the opportunity to go on my first mission trip to Haiti. I will be honest. That first night in Galette Chambon I wondered, What have I gotten myself into? I left a week later with a God-given heart for the people of Haiti and its children.

On my second trip we were performing a skit about Jesus healing the blind man for a group of orphan children. A two year old boy named Davinski fell asleep on the bench and I had the joy of holding him while the older children colored a picture of Jesus and the blind man.

I discovered that there is no language barrier in a smile, hand holding, hugs, or with the smallest ones, holding them in your arms.

When I went to Haiti on my first trip, I knew I had to do something.

I have a bed to sleep on, they have dirt floors.

We have water in the tap. They take a bucket to a well and haul it back on their head.

We have grocery stores. Food is scarce in Haiti..

A job with a paycheck? None in Haiti.

But what could I do?

I prayed about it, and the Lord provided the money to sponsor a child through But God Ministries. For $37 a month or $440 a year sponsored children can go to school. They get uniforms, books, paid tuition, and a hot meal every day, which may be the only meal they get that day. When a child is sponsored, there is a domino effect. Teachers have jobs and the ladies that cook have jobs also.

The first child I sponsored was Jackson, a shy 15 year old young man. I met him in 2016. This past year I was told that he dropped out of school due to his parents moving.

I now sponsor a 10 year old little girl named Modelaine.

I met her this past August on my third trip. I send her a small package twice a year with items like clothes, gum, candy, a doll, and pencils. I located a Haitian Creole Bible so I was able to send her one of those as well.

Words cannot express the joy I feel each morning when I sit at my desk and look at her picture or when I send her a package. She is in my thoughts and prayers daily. With my help, she can get an education and become what God wants her to be.

God gave me something to do that is life-changing for her.

Will I go back in 2019? Yes! Because in Mathew 28:19-20, Jesus said go!

If you are interested in finding out more about sponsoring a child, visit But God Ministries at butgodministries.com

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What I love about this is that Modelaine.is helpless to change her situation, but God is using my Aunt Roxie in a behind-the-scenes way to provide for her needs.

Heritage Ukraine: A Light in Dark Places

Slavik motioned toward the couch and chairs in his living room.

“Spasiba, spasiba.”

My mind went blank. Spasiba was one of the 5 Russian words I knew, but a 13 hour flight, a race through the Paris airport to catch our connecting flight, and the experience of going through customs had me completely numb.

Our team stood in the middle of the room, smiling and nodding like a collection of bobble heads.

Thankfully, Alyona came in the room and said “Please, sit down.”

The next morning I tried to tell Slavik’s mother Good Morning, but my version of “Dobroe utro” was, no doubt, too Southern. She just waved her hand impatiently and pointed toward the kitchen as if to say “Don’t bother, just go get breakfast.”

Traveling to another culture is so humbling.

I needed help turning on the shower. Which knob is for hot water and which one is cold? I needed help plugging in my hair dryer.

And I certainly couldn’t read the gas pumps.

One afternoon our team sat on the floor of the Slavik and Alyona’s home office wrapping Christmas presents to take to the orphanage that we would be visiting the next day. Suddenly 3 clowns walked down the stairs.

Thankfully, they weren’t the creepy kind of clowns. They were colorful, cheerful, and in full costume from head to toe.

They nodded at us, and we nodded back, bobble head style, as they walked out the door.

I never knew what to expect from moment to moment.

Ukraine had delicious pizza, huge grocery stores, beautiful landscapes, cold weather unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And beautiful, hospitable people who welcomed us into their homes.

There was also brokenness and pain. I spent time with the children in the orphanages and heard their stories. I saw fear beneath their tough exterior. These children were placed there by the decisions of others and are helpless to change their situation. Being helpless can take us to some pretty dark places. And here, in the middle of darkness, Heritage Ukraine is a ray of light. A sliver of hope that things don’t have to stay dark.

The ministry of Heritage Ukraine involves children in one of these settings:

Orphanage ministry: Teams visit the children in the orphanage each month doing a variety of different activities including sharing Bible stories, playing games, doing crafts, teaching life skills lessons, and establishing mentor relationships.

JAM (Jesus and Me) Day Center: ministers to children from troubled homes and their families. Children in troubled homes often end up in orphanages. This center is a way to help prevent that from happening.

Joy Center: ministers to children with special needs and their families.

Camp Lela: Summer camps run from the beginning of June through the end of August. Each week of camp focuses on one specific set of children. The first week this year was for children from the Jesus and Me Day Center, the second was for children with hearing disabilities, the third for children from the Eastern Ukraine Conflict Zone. There are camps for the children from specific orphanages with special needs, camps for children from other orphanages and a family camp in the mix.

Three things I love about Heritage Ukraine: :

Slavik and Alonya are a great team. The Lord has given them the ability to dream big and communicate their vision to others in a way that generates momentum.
They give practical ways for others to become involved in stretching out a hand of relief to those in need. It’s easy to see a need, it’ s hard to know where to step in to help.
Everything they do is consistent with their purpose statement: Heritage Ukraine exists to shine God’s light in dark places for orphans, troubled children, children with special needs, and refugees.

Ways You Can Get involved:

Find out more about Slavik, Alonya and Heritage Ukraine on their website, http://www.heritageua.org/

Subscribe to their monthly newsletters to get an idea of what is going on that month and what they need.

Check out their Heritage Ukraine YouTube Channel to feel the energy, especially in the camp videos!

Like their Facebook page to get updates on Facebook.

Give financially.

Travel to Ukraine and volunteer with Heritage Ukraine on a short-term mission trip.

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This post is part of the Fighting for Those Who Can’t page at erinulerich.com

Fighting For Those Who Can’t is a resource to share the stories of people who are reaching out to the brokenhearted, the forgotten, and the helpless and to give practical ways others can reach out right where they are.

Fishes, Loaves, and Cookie Dough

“Wouldn’t you like to make a difference in someone else’s story?”

Karina wrapped her fingers around the podium and smiled as she looked out into the crowd.

“There is a person here who made a difference in my story and I am so grateful.”

10 years ago, Karina lived in an orphanage in Odessa, Ukraine. She was 12, and had no hope of a different life, no clue that God was working on her behalf.

10 years ago, a 4 year-old boy started praying for Karina’s adoption. He talked to everyone he met about her. He helped his mom make and sell cookies to raise money. In his winsome way he would say “Karina lives in an orphanage in Ukraine. She needs a family. Our friends want to adopt her. We are selling cookies to help them. Would you like to buy a cookie?”

People bought cookies. And prayed. And gave.

Nine years ago, Karina left the orphanage, no longer an orphan. In a moment she became a daughter, a sister, a niece, a granddaughter.

The four year-old is my Anderson, and I am the cookie-baking mom he helped. This journey changed Karina’s life, but it also changed mine.

I knew orphans existed “out there some where” but I didn’t know any. Suddenly this little girl tucked away in an orphanage across the world became a part of our daily discussions, prayers, and plans.

At first I was hesitant about helping. After all, my friends needed thousands of dollars. It felt impossible, too big to tackle.

But Anderson didn’t waver. He didn’t sit down and calculate exactly how many cookies, at 50 cents per cookie, it would take to raise thousands. He simply responded to a need and let God take care of the math.

He didn’t look at the plight of orphans as a whole and get overwhelmed. He saw the little girl God placed directly in our path. He knew how important his family was to him, and he wanted her to be in a family too.

Through this journey, God answered prayers and provided every single detail. He brought Karina home through the generosity, obedience, and willingness of many people.

This journey was much bigger than Anderson and me and cookies. And the results of Karina’s adoption are even bigger than Karina and her family. A beautiful ripple effect can be traced across the years. Other children have been adopted, orphan ministries have been supported, and along the way stories have been connected in ways only God could have designed.

As a little girl, Karina had no way of changing her path in life. She had no hope of anything except moving to the streets after she left the orphanage. But God used Hope Warriors, even a four year-old one, to reach into her hopeless circumstance and change her path for good.

Karina’s journey continues. Once without hope, she is now preparing to go back to Ukraine to reach out to children who are where she once was. She will have the chance to push against the hopelessness and helplessness on their behalf and point them toward lasting hope.