CBU: Update from Novgord Team!

We just finished Day 2 with the kids at the orphanage. We are all absolutely loving our interaction with the kids. Today not only did we get to go back to the orphanage that we were at yesterday we also got to go and hang out at a sister orphanage not far from where we are currently serving. This orphanage had kids ranging from ages 4-9. We mostly hung out and played a ton of games with them. We got to go to the playground in the back of their orphanage for about an hour and run around and have fun. Sarah and Theodora both were able to connect really well with the kids. They were running around constantly up and down the swing set and around the playground.

After we visited that orphanage some of us took a bus and others went in a car to the main orphanage. We thought that we were only going to be able to spend time with the younger kids today but to our surprise at the beginning only the teenagers were there. So the entire team was able to spend 30 minutes getting to know the teenagers until the younger kids arrived. We then split into two groups; Sarah, Theodora, Lauren, and Matt went with the younger kids and Chris, Danny, Jackie, and Bekah stayed with the teenagers. Today was a great day for both of the groups. The group that stayed with the teens was able to break the ice with them and start to be open and just have fun. We taught them how to play Uno and ended up playing the entire time we were with them, we also brought an iHome and were able to show them some “American” music. They knew Rihanna and Justin Bieber (Russians have Bieber Fever too :).  Danny showed off his muscles and arm wrestled with one of the girls (we’ll let him tell you the outcome…), Chris got to play chess with one of the guys, Bekah tried to rap for them, and Jackie was able to have fun with them, even through the language barrier, by being her outgoing and goofy self.

The group that was with the younger kids was able to continue in making fun crafts and make fish out of paper plates and decorate them with feathers, googly eyes and tons of glitter! Many of the children we have met in Russia are very creative and crafts have been a great way to get them involved in what we are teaching. After craft time, we played a lot of games including musical chairs, a color learning game and Ootka, Ootka, Goos (or Duck, Duck, Goose). Matt has been a great and fun example for the kids and Lauren was able to play with the really shy, young kids in our group. It was a lot of fun and the children are really starting to open up to us more and more. The joy is already evident on their faces when we tell them we’ll be back the next day.

As some of you know, when we started our ministry we were unable to share about our faith and we were asked to only teach the children and teens to live good lives.  However, today we found out that we have permission by the director of the orphanage to talk about God and religion.  Praise Him! Pray that in the next few days we would be able to have intentional conversations and not just do what is comfortable. Pray for our energy level as we are now working with three different sets of children, requiring two to three sets of daily plans and a LOT of endurance.  The language barrier is also a bit of a challenge but please lift up our actions and non-verbal communication.  We need these kids and especially the teens to know that we care about them before we can impact them on the level we’d like to.

We can’t wait to tell you more stories about what God is doing in Novgorod and how He is using SunErgos International, but for now we are enjoying authentic Russian soda and ice cream. 🙂

Russia A Team.

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