Center for Social and Spiritual Adaptation for Orphanage Graduates
For the last ten years my wife and I have been trying to influence the kids from Rivne region orphanages through our love. We tried to apply the gained teaching experience, working with children. However, we found out that even though, the life conditions in orphanages have improved greatly, especially for the last few years (new fine playgrounds appeared; the food now contains more calories, etc.), there still exists a special problem, which is not easy to solve. The problem is that after leaving the orphanage, children have nowhere to go. They are either orphans or “a burden” for their own parents and relatives. In 2005 we made a decision to start taking care of such children.
We planned that children would be studying in educational establishments, and we will be supporting them morally and financially. Also we planned that they would be living in the dormitories and would come to us at the weekends. But soon we realized that they are absolutely not prepared to live in a dormitory, where they need to cook for themselves and take care of themselves.
That is why in 2005 we took four young men into our family. The following year three more youngsters joined them. A year later we took three more children in our family: two young men and one young girl (a sister of the boys that already lived with us). The year of 2008 became special for us: in summer we had our first graduation. Five children from our home finished the trade school. Then there were some difficulties related to their employment, as well as finding the accommodations for their further living.
In September six more boys from the orphanages of Tuchin, Oleksandria and Mizoch (Rivne region) joined our family.
In September, 2007, our family received a special blessing – we moved from the apartment to a house purchased by “Hope to People”. We did all the repair work on our own, and now live there.
This year two young men from our home expressed their desire to study in the National University of Ostrog Academy. Now they have taken a preparatory course at the university since September, 2008.
On Sundays some of the children go to the orphanages together with our younger son. They conduct different sports events there and read the Word of God with everyone, who desires.