January 30th - Visit to a baby house

Tuesday morning our team headed out on the big tour bus to our first two sites. The initial stop was a baby house where there are infants from newborn to age 4. When Oksana, our in country staff person, called to verify the appointment, the director told her only 10 people could come in to see the babies. In faith we all loaded into the bus hoping the director would change her mind once we got there. This is a frequent occurrence.

Dave and Talu (our bus captains) went in with Oksana and the media people to visit with the director. The rest of the team stayed on the bus singing worship songs and praying. Sure enough, they came back and said we could all come in to see the children! Yea God! We took humanitarian aid in the form of clothing, blankets and other essential items. The director spoke of a need they had for cribs that could be used outside so they could take the babies out to play when the weather is nice. We took up an offering on the bus and raised enough money to buy a good number of cribs for them!!

My group was taken up some very rickety old stairs that curved around in a dark hall to the second floor. There were three rooms in this unit with different age children. The first room was small with about 6 cribs. There was one young woman taking care of the babies who basically lie in bed all day long. They were dressed in warm clothes and tucked into their beds, tightly, with blankets. There was a set of twins, both girls and a couple of other tiny not very healthy looking babies in that room. We were told not to touch them but we stood by their cribs and talked to them trying to get a response. They really didn't respond like a normal child would which was hard to deal with.

The next room had 5 older babies around 8-9 months. There was another set of twins, a boy and a girl, who were sitting in bouncy seats on the floor. The little boy wanted out really bad and started to cry. Instinctively I walked over to the one that was crying to try to soothe him. He reached out and I just had to pick him up! No one said anything so the others on the team spread out and picked up the other babies. They were so cute but we didn't get to stay long in that room. All too soon they herded us into the third room where there were children from 1-3 years old.

The third room was a much bigger room and there were quite a few children in there.
There were four workers in that room looking after the babies. One woman was holding a little boy that had no arms. He was a live wire and full of life. Having no arms did not stop him from doing anything he wanted! He had short legs with relatively normal feet but only had 4 toes on each foot. They sat him on the floor and took his socks off then place an electronic keyboard toy that had a lot of buttons on it in front of him. He immediately began to "play" the keyboard with his toes and push the other sound buttons with his chin! He laughed and had a wonderful time playing. His attitude was incredible and we all remarked that his disability would probably not stop him from doing many things in life.

There was a small child sitting on the floor just watching everyone and rocking back and forth with two small toys in her hands. She was not smiling so I sat down on the floor next to her and started talking to her. Then I started rubbing her back and soon she held out her arms and wanted to be picked up. I scooped her up in my lap and cuddled her, then turned her around so she could see my face. She was strong and could stand on my legs and bounce a little. I asked the caregivers what her name was. It was Marianna. Marianna and I spent the next 30 minutes together laughing and playing. It wasn't long before she was smiling and cooing, while showing me her little front and bottom teeth. She had soft brown hair and beautiful brownish green eyes. Her little face lit up when she smiled and she seemed so at home in my arms. Another team member wanted to hold her and have me take a picture of them together. I gently handed Marianna over to her and took the camera. The minute she was out of my arms she stopped smiling and started looking very worried. We could not get her to smile at all for a picture. I took her back and spent the rest of the time snuggling with her. All too soon it was time to go. This was one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. It felt like I was leaving one of my own kids behind when we left. I cried like a baby on the way to the bus.

Well it's 10:30 here on Wednesday and I've only told you about one of the four sites we've been to in the past two days! We went out to dinner tonight to a wonderful Ukrainian restaurant called the Seven Piglets. But that's another story!

Thank you for all your prayers and emails of encouragement. We've had two sick team members but they have recovered and we're hoping no one else gets it.

Please pray for good health, openness to the Gospel message and safe travels. The roads are covered with ice and snow and we travel by bus sometimes as much as an hour to get to a site.

Blessings to all of you. I'm having a wonderful time as usual!! By the way, the summer trip here will be to the Carpathian Mountains which are breath taking. Any body interested???

Love and hugs from Ukraine,
Dasha