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A Home for the Orphaned I have a dream, what I believe is God’s vision and calling, A Village where the love and caring of an orphan A place for those children who are God’s Hidden Treasures has been granted a 49-year lease on more than 30 acres of land. Preliminary plans have been drawn up with the help of Engineering Ministries International and the Ukrainian government. Initial approval has been granted to build 14 individual homes, a school for the disabled, four group homes for adult handicapped orphans, multiple shops, a church, wheelchair manufacturing center and a community center.
The estimated cost for the Village is between $3 to $3.5 million dollars. The costs will include not only the buildings mentioned above, but the infrastructure (roads, gas, water, electrical plant, phone lines, etc.). We are seeking long-term relationships through this program so the families will know who is sponsoring them and praying for them. We are also hoping that the families and their sponsors will eventually meet in person. We are also seeking those whom God may be calling to be Christian house parents for these children. If you believe that God is calling you to long-term ministry as a parent to some of these children, please contact us immediately. Nita's Village Update Not long after I came to Ukraine in 1996, the Lord began to send me to the orphanages. And my heart was broken over and over for the children who don’t have the tender, loving care of a family – for those who develop physical and mental handicaps because they aren’t held, touched and loved. God’s plan is for children to have a mother and father who love and adore them – parents who hold them, talk to them, and teach them how to live. One morning while in prayer, I envisioned myself standing in front of the Lord with a little baby (whose head was huge because of hydrocephalus) in one arm and holding the hand of a woman I had found lying in the street burning up with fever with the other. I knew that God wanted me to do something for them, but what? As I prayed over the next few days, God began to give me a vision for a Village – a Village with individual homes and mothers and fathers who were holding the children I had seen in the orphanages. And a dream was born from the ashes of my broken heart.
Our classes at the orphanages continue to be a special and blessed time, but there hasn’t been anything happening with the Village. Whenever I go to the Boy’s House Orphanage for mentally retarded boys, I am asked by the children, “Are you still going to build the Village and can I come and live there?” Discouragement is one of the most potent weapons of the enemy of our souls and he wields it often in the missionary’s life. It was as if everything started well for the Village Dream and then got put on hold. I think Psalm 69:3 best describes my feelings about the Village Dream: “I am weary with my crying; my throat is dry; my eyes fail Recently I found in Habakkuk 2:3 a verse which really spoke to me: “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Because of the cost of bringing in a gas line to our land, at one point I had tried to find information about building a hydro-electric plant as our land for the Village lies within throwing distance of a dam. But it seemed that no matter where I looked, I couldn’t get practical information that would tell me how much it would cost to build. And so the idea for this plant got “shelved.” Several months ago I asked Valentina, our Manager of Special Projects to look into the idea for hydro-electricity again. She came to me a few weeks later and told me that she had found out someone was thinking of building such a plant right across from our land! I actually felt my spirit leap within me and I knew that if this really happened, it was a sign from the Lord to begin the Village Project. (Right now they are scheduled to begin construction in January 2008.) Not long after that, while I was in prayer one morning, I felt the Lord tell me to “step out in faith and begin” the Village. He reminded me how we had stepped out in faith to purchase, tear down and rebuild our Wheelchair Center and Office; and how He had faithfully provided for every need as we stepped out! And so, in obedience to God, we have begun the mounds of paperwork and red tape needed to get permission to break ground! And as we have stepped out in obedience, God has renewed my strength for the task ahead: “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 We have come a long ways in the last few months. On November 6th, the Kiev State Rada (equivalent to our State Congresses) voted to approve the Village Project as submitted to them by God’s Hidden Treasures, Ukraine. This is not by any means the final step, but it is a BIG STEP forward in the realization of the dream. At this point, if everything goes “perfectly,” we believe we are about a year away from being able to break ground, at which time we would be able to start to build the road and do all that is necessary to put the infrastructure in place. Following are most of the steps we will need to take in order for this to happen: 1. Have the National Ecology Department approve our plan. (Note: So far they have refused to approve it and are ordering us to do all the paperwork again. This would be a big expense and very time consuming.) Please be in prayer for us as we proceed in faith. Please pray: That God’s hand of favor would be upon us each step of the way. Especially lift up Valentina as the Project Manager. That God would raise the funds we need (which now are estimated to be more than $4 million to build the entire Village, consisting of 14 homes, a school for the handicapped, four group homes, a wheelchair factory, church, and several shops). For strength and encouragement each step of the way. That God would begin to touch the hearts of couples to come and give their lives to be house parents for the children.
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Most of you know that God’s Hidden Treasures was given a 49-year-lease on a little over 30 acres of land several years ago. It was a time of joy and amazement at God’s provision for the
dream of the Village. But a lot of time has now gone by and still there is no Village.