Pictures...just for fun

Early last year while looking for ministry opportunities for visiting World Racers I learned about the abandoned babies at our local children's hospital.  We were able to hook the Racers up with a regular gig of just going to the hospital and holding babies every day.  If you are there at the right time you usually get to feed them, and if there are diapers available then you can change them...otherwise they sit in it all day!  The babies are almost always under-stimulated and sometimes under-developed, at least in terms of building muscle and coordination that comes with being played with and challenged.  We probably all know about those studies that indicate how babies need to be held...and I can definitely see a difference between these kids who aren't cuddled and played with versus children I know who are growing up in loving families.

So, we go.  It's a ministry that's grown from something we do with "teams" when they are in town, to something several of us do on a weekly basis.  There are as many Ukrainians that go every week as there are us American missionaries.

Naturally we grow attached to the babies.  So much so that several months ago one of our young (college aged) Ukrainian volunteers decided to track down what happens once the kids leave the Children's Hospital. Some of them are returned to their families, some enter foster care or perhaps are adopted here in Ukraine (they aren't available for international adoption until after their 5th year and in accordance with a handful of other conditions).  If they don't find families, then they go to a sure-enough Baby Orphanage.  Our intrepid Ukrainian volunteer (I'll call her Anna...because that's her name) found out where and how we could go visit the children there.  Since then a growing group of us (a new volunteer almost every week here lately) has been making the almost 90 minute trip by bus or train about once a week to spend a few hours with a group of 2-3 year toddlers.  We love it.  You would too.  And you know what? None of this is in my "job description"; this all falls in the category of personal ministry...and it's the favorite thing I do.