The PIR Children’s Feasts 2010Part III – The Urik Village Party (cont.) & Sludyanka Village

Party

An African in Siberia….

In my Sunday Best

Concentration

Sleepiness

The smallest kids dance for us

Sveta, the child psychologist, with a heart for the children

I win!!! But I’m not sure these boots fit.

More dancing…

… more concentration

PRESENT TIME!!!

A present fit for a king

This is a serious present

The team after Urik

Party at Sludyanka Village Home- 31 DecemberOn New Year’s Eve we headed out to Sludyanka, approximately 200km from Irkutsk on an icy highway through the forest. Sludyanka is a small city at the southern end of Lake Baikal, and though it has good sporting facilities for winter sports, it has very little in the way of economic activity and thus poverty is a big problem in the city.

Last year we added this home to our list of children’s homes and Sergei took the presents to the home after the New Year as the home had been under quarantine due to the world-wide flu epidemic at that time.

This year, most of the children in the home requested sporting gear as presents. 7 children wanted ice-skates and 2 of the boys requested skis. The director of the home had been hesitant to provide us with the list of gift requests as she felt that the gifts would be too expensive for us. Skis are extremely expensive as you need to provide skis, boots, boot mountings as well as ski-poles. But after praying about it I sensed that if it were my child, and he asked for skis I would find a way to give him this gift, so we decided to purchase skates as requested and skis for the two boys who requested them.

Even as we walked from the cars with the skis (its difficult to disguise skis) the squeals of delight from the kids watching us from the windows could be heard.

The village children are very passive as all their lives they have been taught to be passive, so when we arrived in the common room, they sat there quite unemotively. Only after we had played a number of songs did they start to open up. Paulina took the risk and played the drum for the first time, and Lyosha eventually warmed up, fetched his book of lyrics and gave us a heart-felt, if out of tune, rendering of “Yabloki v snegoo” (Apples in the snow – a popular Russian winter song).

The children were again, amazed by their presents and I hope they will be able to take part in the sporting events in the city now that they have some equipment.

The team outside Sludyanka

Welcome to our home and HAPPY NEW YEAR

A little nervous at first…

…but a song or two will change all that…

…getting into the swing of things

… and even more of the swing of things

Lyosha giving us a rendition of “Apples in the Snow”

Simunye!

SPA-SI-BO

Just what we wanted!!!

Ice-skates…cool!

These ski boots are really cool

Man, I’ve been dreaming about these…

Paulina and the ever popular Malenkaya Fey Cosmetics

The Team at Sludyanka

The Lasting LegacyI have a sense that this is not a short-term project. In fact I am sure this is a life-long project, This year we - reminded a number of children that they are valuable and loved- showed a whole lot of new children how special they are to God and to us- shared the gospel with them all both verbally and in our actions- created unity in the church as we blessed these children together- opened doors to help the directors of the children’s homes in the regions- created further opportunities to teach and bring the gospel to certain of these homes- created a positive attitude towards the evangelical church in the region

Most of all, God gave us grace to- truly love those who are not able to give anything back.

Next year, God willing, I’ll be taking a team with me to Siberia to minister to the children, and to the church, and to help in the community.

Pray about it, listen for God’s voice and if He touches your heart with these wonderful children, and with the spiritual needs of these wonderful Russian

people, then join me:

The 2011 PIR Children’s Feast Team19 December 2011 – 4 January 2012

Irkutsk, Russia

Blessings to youIn His Name

Paul