Ukraine

I’ve got an adult friend!

These are the words of children after only four times they spent with adults who were in the process of learning how to listen to them and to be there for them. All of this took place at the Walking With Wounded Children Course presented by Children Mission in August in Boyarka, Ukraine.

Children Mission sees its calling from the Lord to help children become friends with Jesus and grow in relationship with Him. Being 12 years in ministry we saw that many kids go through quite difficult life situations. That prevents them from experiencing God’s love. So we started a new direction in the ministry –equipping children’s workers to help such kids.

This training was a third one since we started in 2009, but this time presented by a Ukrainian team of tutors. 13 people from different parts of Russia and Ukraine came to find out what type of relationship can promote healing for a child and what they as children’s workers can do in the process. During this course the following subjects were covered: trauma and its influence on a child; post-traumatic stress; Biblical basis for healing, etc.

Here are the testimonies of some of the students at the end of the course:

Natalia, City of Kursk, Russia:

“I’m a mother of 5 kids: 2 of them are adopted. I experienced great difficulties with my adopted daughter: all other kids understood me, but she was acting against me. I was loosing ways to influence her. Once I came across Children Mission site and read about this WWW course. I couldn’t believe that somebody can help me! At first there was no hope that I can make a way to this course, but God arranged everything! Here I understood why my daughter behaves like that. Here I learnt how to talk and listen to a child without accusing him/her and moralizing. It turned out to be very simple: you sit by a child, talk to him, play together and help him look at the situation from another perspective. And a child will understand what to do, and as a result our relationship will grow stronger!”

Oxana, City of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine:

“I’d like to really put in practice everything that I have learnt here! I can compare it with a gift that I received. I was given a loaf of bread, and now I can make sandwiches and give them away to the needy. Before this course I went to government schools and pleaded the Lord: “What can I give these kids? Give me something so that can feed them!” I received the answer from the Lord during this training. I believe my dream to feed the needy will come true!”

Special thing about this course, like all the other Children Mission courses, was that it was not theoretical knowledge only, but students were practicing skills to help traumatized children such as active listening, sandbox, free drawing and therapeutic stories.

Very out-spoken, but quite reserved personally, students experienced great God’s work that Holy Spirit was doing within them. During the six days of the course they talked a lot to each other, and the spirit of trust grew in the group. Some of them for the first time in their lives shared something from the depth of the heart! If this openness is so important for adults, then how much more it’s crucial for a child to have such a grown-up to talk to! In such a way students understood causes of some emotionally traumatic experiences for children and also how they can help kids to cope with them.

One doesn’t need to be a trained psychologist or counselor to understand the needy child and to see him/her through the eyes of the Lord. But with God’s help it became possible to receive some basic skills and knowledge and become friends with kids! Jesus was a friend of children, and each one of us can become like Him!

Lyudmila Pasynkova,
CM coordinator for WWW

12 August 2011

All materials on the subject "Ukraine":

• Children Mission took part in the Annual Expo for children’s workers
• I’ve got an adult friend!
• We Are Stronger When We Are Together
• “Our lives changed, not just our ministries!”
• Module 1 in Lugansk
• We managed to make friends with kids without bribing them with sweets or gifts…