I have been visiting the orphanage near my home the last few weeks now since the quarantine was lifted. I have been going with my Ukrainian friend Anya and an American friend from school Amberly. The first day Anya and I went to the orphanage to see if they would allow us to come and work with the kids, I was amazed at how easy it was. The director immediately said yes and asked what we were interested in doing.
I've taught Sunday school classes occasionally and I used to babysit, but it's so different going to the orphanage. First of all, I can't speak to the kids too much because of the language barrier. Secondly, I've never been around kids who do not have parents and who live in country where Orthodox is the main religion.
Yesterday, we bought some apples, crackers, flavored spreads and some drinks. We took the kids outside and gave them frisbees to play with while we began preparing their snacks. Anya called them all over and she prayed with them before they ate. When we were leaving, Anya told me after the prayer a few kids started talking about believing in God and saying that they pray often. I was very excited about this and hope to build on those comments in the weeks to come. I want to find out what they know about God and the Bible.
After the kids had eaten their snacks, we wanted to kids to listen to a short story and then act it out. These kids do not have much attention span, especially outside, so there ended up being only one girl left standing with us. She is 12 years old and she asked me if she could read the story instead of me. The story is from a Russian/English children's bible and it was the story of the Tower of Babel. She read the whole story out loud. She had a lot of trouble reading; I was shocked that I could actually help her pronouce the words. I was worried about how bad my pronunciations were going to be and I ended up helping someone else. It was an awesome moment as I listened to Rosa read about God. I felt like in that moment, that was my purpose that day.
