Restoration House

Something I've always liked doing is getting out in the community to meet new (to me) ministries. I don't do nearly enough, but I have extra motivation with my new role at MIR. Just Monday, I found out about a ministry well outside the city that serves much the same population as the Harbor - post orphanage graduates, yet not really the same kinds of kids at all. There are three levels of orphanage graduates.

1. High functioning kids take care of themselves (a tiny minority).
2. The Harbor targets the middle strata, able to function at a minimal level, with some motivation to thrive in life. These are the kids I have worked most with to date.
3. Restoration House goes for the kids who end up on the streets because they have failed to navigate the challenges of life after the orphanage.

We are talking about highly dysfunctional kids, who have NO independent living skills, who usually (maybe even always) live on the streets, and who usually are addicted to something, most likely sniffing, which causes permanent brain damage in a way that no other drug does.

I spent several hours with Olga (left) who founded Restoration House (pictured above) and runs it to this day. What was most encouraging about their work (beyond the incredible devotion and sacrifices the staff live out) is the openness they report these kids have to the gospel. In contrast to the average kid at the Harbor, these kids seem to have a greater sense of their need for God, for help, for transformation, and they seem to be more in touch with spiritual world.

Olga had two requests of me: they are desperately seeking a camp where they can take the kids this July when a team from Oklahoma is coming to help lead. There are a lot of camps around, but they are all booked or too expensive. Already I could help by putting them in touch with the contact person at MIR's Camp Elama, which she had never heard of.

Her second request was for a space in the city for kids to gather for a Bible study. I was frankly amazed to think that these youth would actually want to attend a Bible study, despite what she had explained above, but the other issue is their palpable need for relationship and love.

I'll get on that.

Dorm life ain't no party

Yuri showed up for his weekly visit the other day. Only he didn't look well: two black eyes that proved a violent confrontation had befallen him. He had just that day come out of the hospital after nearly a week there! The reason: a couple of fellow students had come to pay him a visit and ask to play his guitar. When he refused, they put him in his place, as it were - beating him for an hour and a half! He didn't go to the hospital until the next day, and never called us!

Boy, was I in for an education. What Yuri experienced is called дедовщина (dyedovshina), a term normally reserved for the way new army recruits are hazed by the older cadets. It turns out it's also practiced (according to Luba at the Harbor) in 98% of all male dorms, and 97% of even female dorms. This from a research proposal I found online (through Google translation):

Dorms, to some extent, became the main feature of the "socialist way of life", they formed a special subculture, which has many varieties. It is not only criminal subculture gulag barracks, but also a subculture of communal dormitory and "great construction projects of communism", a subculture in a secure dorm limitchik urban subculture of military barracks, barracks for the temporary accommodation of agricultural seasonal workers, a subculture of student dormitory, etc. During the years of Soviet power grew, and brought up more than one generation of people who had no hearth and home, past and communal dormitories, having learned their language, customs, values, norms of behavior, the twisted psychology of interpersonal and intergroup relations.

Dorms have always been a zone of high crime rates, special kinds of immoral behavior (alcoholism, drug addiction, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, profanity, etc.). This applies to vocational school dorms. With the crisis experienced by our society, the decline in the economy, with increasing migration, decline in living standards for people subculture hostel PTU (vocational schools) has a strong further advance in the direction of criminalization. Overcoming the effects of this particular subculture on the behavior of individuals and groups, its decriminalization, the formation of humanistic subculture of young people living in dormitories PTU - these are tasks that must be addressed.

So did Yuri go to the police? No way. He explained that since these guys had a record, they would be arrested, and then their friends (they are from the Caucuses where nationalist loyalties are really high) would come and possibly kill him. The dorm "commander" found out about the incident, but Yuri told her that everything is OK. She knew the deal, and told him not to be afraid. Somehow she has the bullies under threat without jeopardizing Yuri's safety either. Thankfully, she cared enough to intervene.

Luba told me that they had warned Yuri when he left the Harbor a year ago about this kind of thing. As a weak guy with no experience in defending himself (having grown up in a Christian orphanage), he was a rather poor candidate for going to such an environment. But he insisted. Wanted his independence and a free place to stay. I guess we should be amazed he lasted this long! Pray for his safety. If this continues, he will have to consider leaving not only the dorm, but school altogether, as he would have to go earn a living to pay for a place to stay. Diana and I would likely offer our place if there were no other options.

First day on the job

As I reported recently, I've been asked to serve on the board of a local ministry, MIR, who serves other ministries in the city be providing administrative services, program help, and connections with Western volunteers. Here is a summary of my first day (April 20th) going in to see how I could help:

I met first with Tanya, the coordinator of a program that they do with a ministry called New Horizons to provide host families for orphans for a month in the states. I had no ideas initially what I wanted to know from Tanya, so I just asked questions and followed my curiosity. What came out was that getting permission from orphanage directors and the related organs of authority is getting more and more complicated, so she would love to see more help making those connections. OK. File that away.

I then met with the executive director, Masha Oshkina, to follow my curiosity some for the same purpose. It happened that one of the leaders of New Horizons was there in the office at the time, being in the country to adopt a child himself. She introduced us, and I started peppering him with questions about them and how they work, and what they need. Come to find out they could place more kids in host homes (done in the summer and the winter) if there were more kids available. "Could you front some of that money to free up staff to find more kids?" He wanted to know how much. I gave him a monthly figure, and he thought it was do-able. "Give us a proposal, and I'll check on it meanwhile," he answered.

Masha, Tanya, and I had ourselves a project. Now, this was not a complicated deal I made, but what I want to point out are a few key elements here:

1. For some reason, this had never occurred to anyone else.This is a gift of our American culture - thinking outside the box. Masha and her husband (who is developing this project and will run it) actually do think creatively, I might add. They are proving a delight to work with.
2. Even if they had thought of it, the idea of so aggressively putting it into a proposal like I did sometimes doesn't happen. Plus, as the recipients of such help, they can feel in the lower position (though Westerners don't want them to feel this way, and I'm not saying they did in this case).
3. Although this isn't that formal a process, the Americans need the proposal in a form that addresses their needs and concerns. Americans have a specific way they want proposals to look, and it just takes some learning. Masha and Tanya immediately went to work and put together some great reports, and then I helped them understand what is wanted from the other side. I have a lot of experience in grant writing and grant reviewing, so...
4. This was pretty much a God day, confirming that He has sent me in this direction.

CMU Russia?

Out of the blue I got an email in the states asking me to join the board of a ministry in Petersburg that I have known about and respected since we got here. MIR, the Russian word for "peace" and also an acronym for "Mercy and Joy," is actually a lot like my old ministry in Richmond, Christian Ministries United. Both served as a link between ministries and the community at large, and churches in particular. Both sought to serve their partners, rather than do direct ministry. MIR, however, only works with ministries who are focused on orphans and children in need. MIR does a lot of work administratively for its partners, and it organizes a lot of short-term mission teams from the states to serve in orphanages and other ministries.

I told the director I wasn't interested in filling a slot, and he told me he is actually looking to step down soon and needs fresh vision and direction. That's my middle name. I'm just praying now for God to move me, rather than my own ideas, because I already have a million ideas of how I can serve these ministries and help them work together to bless the community.

Yep, I'm excited.