The story of a family there that

needs our help!

Please sign up to help or learn more

Eugene, Oksana, Yulie, Marina, Peter, Yulia, Helen, and Peter

By faith, believing we could buy the house, they took in Oksana’s sister, Susanna, and child

There was one local convert from the national television ministry there to help them

The orphans in former Soviet countries are released from orphanages when they are 16 years old.

According to sad official statistics, for every 10 children who graduate from orphanages only 2 adjust to their adult life and become normal people.

The rest (8) do not survive. They become drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes or die.

Eugene and Helen plan to do this for life, for this group, and the next, and the next

Oksana’s baptism

Baptisms of other foster kids

Catching up in school

Being a family

Patty Ibetson, who raised 14 American foster children, says that

she has never seen a method or technique for teaching life skills

necessary to survive except for God’s original plan of the family.

Note: Patty converted Helen Strakhov to Christ

In addition to finding jobs and one day raising normal families (instead of more orphans), their reception to Christian teaching is very high. They hear the words of Christ in the context of the Spirit of Christ!

From Google Maps

Simferopol, where kids will have a chance to make it past 16 years old, if we help

Donetsk where the national TV broadcast starts churches focused on helping nearby orphans

Ukraine

From Google Maps

Thomas Raikes offered the orphans in 19th

century England clean clothes and food for

a day, if they would come to a school on

Sunday

The idea grew, crime rates plummeted

“Sunday School” was born, the public

school system followed

So we can plant a seed to change the world

by starting a transition home to rescue

children

Oxford DNBW. P. Courtney, ‘Raikes, Thomas (1777–1848)’, rev. K. D. Reynolds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23017, accessed 7 Nov 2009]

Stories Behind Men of Faith by Ace Collins

The Strakhovs need a house to make a home.

$150,000 is the best option in this city that we could find.

Legally, the Strakhovs are not supposed to have a home for orphans if they have to rent the house. By God’s grace, the authorities have bent the rules and allowed them this privilege anyway.

Recently a new 16-year-old new mother was taken in who will likely not be able to raise her child with Helen’s help without a house. This is a chance to break the cycle.

The property would be under the supervision of Mission Ukraine and would be owned by someone other than the Strakhov family. If something unforeseen happened to the Strakhovs that prevented them from continuing this work, the property could be sold and the proceeds used for orphans elsewhere.

• On the one hand $150,000 is a lot of money, and from a human

perspective, an amount that appears a bit intimidating. For most of us it is

also a big amount of money to pay for a house.

• On the other hand…

– The Strakhovs have developed positive long term relationships with the orphans and the

orphanage directors.

– They have successfully navigated the difficult and laborious process of getting government

approval to operate an official house orphanage.

– They are in a position to use this facility to house 7 orphans immediately and many more

orphans for decades to come.

• From that perspective, the better response might be: What are we waiting

for?

Small churches are taking out loans

A cancer patient and others are turning

down offers of help to send that money to

the children

Ranchers are selling cattle to build a piece

of what is needed

• But none of these is enough on its own

Mission Ukraine is asking for pledges• Money will be collected when a sufficient total

amount is pledged

• Please make your pledges known to Stan Bryan

with Mission Ukraine

Stan Bryan <svcattle@hotmail.com>

Or, if you wish to learn more• Please sign up on the sheet nearby to receive

periodic updates by email

David Padgett <david_padge@yahoo.com>

Jay Collins <jwcollins74@hotmail.com>

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world– James 1:27 NIV