Back in 2003 the Mendakoff family founded SunErgos International, to serve the orphans in Russia. Now in its eleventh year, the organization regularly sends teams of students to serve the orphanages caring for these children. Grace Marlene Gonzales was in one of those teams.
Grace was just finishing her sophomore year when she learned about the mission trips offered by her school, California Baptist University. She discovered a few team projects in Russia working with kids through SunErgos and joined one of the teams .
Soon Grace and her team arrived in Russia. Before they went to see the kids, the team went through a three-day course on Russian history, culture, and basic word memorization. Despite the nice change of scenery, Grace still missed home. Fortunately, her team was there for her. While she found the food delicious (and well remembers their crepes) she missed her spicy foods. Knowing this, her teammates found and purchased some salsa at the local supermarket and brought it back to her.
The next day the team met the kids. They were warned the children might take some time to warm up to them. But to everyone’s surprise, the kids were happy to see them.
To support their “Olympics” theme, Grace and her team split the children into groups representing different countries. They spent the day making flags for their opening ceremony to be hosted that evening. Each of the teams proudly marched around their flags.
The team also joined in the Olympics theme by performing “The Olympics of Life”. The performance was various skits to teach the kids about life. Afterwards the kids would break into groups and discuss the theme of the skit and share testimonies about how it applied to their lives.
While some of the groups easily responded, Grace worried about her kids. They didn’t seem to really be paying attention to the skits or the discussions afterwards.
After a few more days of fun skits, singing and dancing together, the visit came to an end. As a surprise, the team held a party for the kids and handed out presents too. However, to the team’s surprise, the kids also planned a party where they could say thank you, sing, dance and give out presents to the team.
Grace was particularly blessed when one of the girls expressed that the group of children greatly admired how the team treated each other and the kids with respect and kindness. She also said they were grateful the team traveled all the way from the US to Russia and they would miss their new friends. Grace knew then she and her team’s service had displayed Christ’s love for these orphans to cherish.
She realized, though, the kids weren’t the only ones changed.
“Going to Russia helped me realized that I must step out of my ethnocentric, sheltered bubble to really get the Gospel out to the world… I was able to whole-heartedly love these children that I had just met. I learned that living in community with other believers is essential in life as a believer…. All in all in was a major reality check for my life, the Lord really put me in a place [where I could] I evaluated my life and the future He held for me, and I thank Him for that. Russia, the people I met, my team, the experiences I had were such a blessing to me and continue to be a blessing to me.”