Renovating with Yuri

I went with Yuri today to his house to finally see this place he has been so feverishly working on for the last several weeks. What's an orphan doing with a house, you ask? Don't be so hasty. This is the house (duplex) that he, his sister, and mother lived in before the family was broken up. It's been abandoned for 10 years, though, after a fire left it unlivable. Now his mother lives elsewhere, and after his hazing incident at the dorm, Yuri is keen to reclaim that territory for his own again.

The setting is really pleasant - well beyond the city limits, in a residential setting with single family homes with gardens and rolling hills. His home is wooden with 2 rooms and a kitchen (would that I had taken my camera), and it's a bad as you could imagine after being neglected for so long. Yuri has been a hero, putting in countless hours cleaning and fixing it up, but it's a huge job, and it was hard for me to be excited about it, since it's not like it's going to look all that great (given the poor quality it was built in) when it's done since he has so little to put into it.

On the way there we stopped at a trash heap where he often goes to look for glass for his windows and other goods. No luck today. Our time at the home was spent on spackling walls that have no prayer of ever being straight and Yuri putting wall paper over them. Russians hardly ever paint, and one reason is that they have so much to cover over that it would never look good to do so. The key is really thick wall paper, and he has done a nice job under the circumstances. In fact, I'm proud of him. Then we worked on the entrance way, taking off eight layers of former wall paper. Yuri estimates the age of the home at 40 years, and with 10 years empty, that's quite a track record!

He hopes to be able to move in in a month, but beyond the walls, there is no electricity, water, sinks, or toilets in there. But he's my hero for his tenacity and vision. I just wanted to give some moral support to my young mentee. It was good male bonding time.

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.

Now Horizons in Children's Ministry

I wrote this praise report to my intercessory team this week:

I hope I can communicate to you the level of excitement I feel at this moment. First some background. While we were on furlough, I attended a conference. Picked up a book that looked good for my kids. Went to the web site for the author and had some questions, so I called. The author himself answered (Mike Seth). He got excited about our ministry and gave me the names of two women who had been to the Ukraine with an interest in doing some innovative ministry to orphans. All three of us seemed to feel an immediate connection. One of the two happened to live in GA and she and her husband invited us over for dinner.

We bonded instantly, and an idea came up immediately (I think it was Diana's) because we knew that our agency was scrambling to find a team to come serve our children during our worldwide conference this summer in Malaysia. Long story short - their team now has all but final (formal) approval to come serve our (about 150) missionary kids.

Why am I excited? First, as you see from the above, all these connections were too amazing to not see God's hand. Second, I can't remember when I have ever in my life proposed anything significant to my superiors that they adopted. I think my ideas have always been too radical. I guess this is a pat on the back from God, saying "you're not so crazy after all, son." And it affirms that I am a part of a great organization.

Third, and most importantly, the ministry itself is amazing. It's called "No More Crumbs" based on the premise that children's ministry does not have to be about merely giving them simple Bible stories, crafts, and Jesus Loves Me. They believe that kids can know God personally at an early age and relate to Him as a loving Father. They believe that kids can gain a deep sense of identity and purpose from God. They believe that kids can learn to pray and worship with depth and passion. They believe that you don't have to just tag along with your parents; you can be a part of God's team today! They believe that kids can minister powerfully to other kids out of this place of intimacy with the Father. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Therefore, fourth, my kids are going to have a great experience that could impact them for life. And fifth, all these other missionary kids are going to get powerfully ministered to. That, I believe, is high leverage ministry. When you minister to the ministers, you get to impact everyone they impact. When you help the kids survive in the mission field, the whole family survives. In a word, this news is a big setback for the kingdom of darkness.

Here is a teaching from one of the leaders, Jenni Means, who will be working with our kids in Malaysia:

Ключи к приобретению надежды и исцеления (Wisdom and Revelation; Keys to Hope and Healing) from CoMission for Children at Risk on Vimeo.

I say "New Horizons" because this kind of stuff gets me more interested in direct ministry with children than I have been in a long time. Before I moved to Virginia in 1994, I worked exclusively with kids, through everything from camp counseling and outdoor education to ESL teaching and working with delinquent youth. Is God pushing me back to pick up an old refrain?

The Orphan Spirit

The following is a transcript of the message I gave to my home church in Georgia just before we left to return to Russia last month. It represents an important development in my thinking about why we are hear - not merely to minister to the orphans, but to the orphan spirit that drives it and so much else of what is wrong in Russia.

I want to try to make our ministry as plain and simple to you today as I possibly can, because on the surface we are involved in a number of different activities. Some people think we are just involved in ministry to orphans. This is actually not true. What we are doing is asking God to use us to reverse the orphan spirit which is so pervasive in Russia. What, you ask, is an orphan spirit? I’m glad you asked, and here is my working definition: An orphan spirit is type of a spirit of fear that comes from not knowing and trusting in the Father’s protection, provision, and direction.

What does this look like in Russia? Let me give you a few quotes from some research conducted back in the 1990's to help Christian workers from the West understand the Russian soul:

"Though the third millennium is on our threshold, our country still remains a teenager, compared to the countries of the West; and adolescent whose childhood and adolescence were devoid of most things essential for normal development and who stepped into his adulthood, messy, bloody, and distorted, inadequately prepared for his vital functions there."

"...many Russians approach life like adults who were abandoned or abused as children."

"Russians seem to experience shame (rather than guilt) as a core issue.... It's not just that I have failed or done something wrong in my life. I, myself, my whole being is irreparably flawed. I am hopelessly defective."

"On the whole, Russians surveyed in all age groups have shown that they look at God as an abstract concept. He appears unknowable, enigmatic, and mysterious. Most Russians tend to see him as remote and unwilling to intervene in the terrible events that have happened to them. His involvement is more that of a Celestial Judge who dispenses rewards and punishments to those below. They are like children who have been beaten and cover when approaching the master or parent, not knowing when the next blow will fall."

[from: An Introduction to the Russian Soul. Ennis and Rinehart]

It’s a spirit that affects all of us to some extent, but those with no biological fathers, and, worse, those with bad biological fathers, whether through abuse or neglect, are particularly susceptible. Some have questioned our patriotism, since I have been critical of the direction this country is taking. But I want to say to you that it doesn’t take long living in most any other country, but especially one like Russia, to see that the blessings that the United States enjoys because of its Christian roots is undeniable. On the whole, we take care of the fatherless in this country. In fact, there are essentially no orphanages here, because of the societal value we place on taking care of our children, and so we have foster homes instead. Not that we don’t have our share of problems with our system, but compared to other societies, we care.

In Russia, on the other hand, they don’t adopt, and they don’t even take kids into their homes in any significant numbers. It’s just not a cultural value, which means that the biblical value of caring for the “stranger, the widow, and the fatherless” has not penetrated their thinking.

And why should we be surprised? Only .9% of Russians are considered to have an evangelical faith, so even though they all got religion in the 1990’s when the Soviet Union fell, in most cases it only went skin deep. Compare that to 7% of evangelicals in the US. At first blush that may not seem like a huge difference, and it certainly is far from our glory days after the Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19thcenturies, but it only takes a 2% minority to change the course of the entire population.

So one of our key verses for our ministry is from Malachi: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse." The way I read that verse, the attitude of a father is so foundational to a society, that the land itself suffers when that relationship is broken. Moreover, God so cares for the ones ignored by their fathers, that He holds society responsible for it.

The number of real orphans are as high or higher in Russia than at any time wince WW2. Annually, 130,000 children become orphans, 90% of whom are not true orphans without parents, but social orphans – rejected or taken away from their parents for various reasons.

If we think about it, the real issue is not that these children don’t have parents to raise them. What’s more important than a parent? The answer is, a parent’s love. It’s the lack of love that comes from not having parents that damages these kids. So these kids learn an orphan spirit, because they are rejected. What comes with that spirit? A fear that they will not be protected, provided for, or guided in life. And the system puts out 10,000 “graduates” per year. Leaving high school 8500 of these fall into drug dealing, prostitution, other crimes, and homelessness. 500 commit suicide. That’s a 90% failure rate that the orphanages have in preparing these kids for life.

Now think about those issues from the perspective of the orphan. What is their thought process?

• I have to be a criminal because no one loves me enough to provide for me.
• I sell my body because no one values me for who I am.
• I have to kill myself because no one thinks I am worthy of their time, care, or investment.

The system that generates such a result is from the pit of Hell and must be fought by every godly means possible. What that should look like deserves its own message, but my focus today is on the lie that these kids believe about who they are as a result of this rejection by society. For we know that there is One who loves them with a perfect, perpetual, and purposeful love. Receiving that love is so powerful, that it can literally wipe away the most damaging aspects of not having a parent who provides those values.

This is why ministry to orphans has any meaning at all. For if all we are about is feeding their physical needs while ignoring the cry of the heart to know the One to Whom they belong, then we are only prolonging the pain. (This one truth alone is enough to negate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.) All our service to these dear ones must be an expression of the Father’s love seeking to adopt those who are lost into His family. Jesus said that “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” and our ministry is no less significant: we are to show the Father’s love in everything we do.

I want Diana to come up now to tell one story of a child she has spent a lot of time with to overcome his own sense of rejection as a orphan.

[Diana]

And so the Harbor is a ministry we work with to serve some of these kids coming out of the system so that they can be spared the fate of the 90% of graduates nationwide by giving them a home, people serving in place of parents who model the father’s love, and show them that they have a hope and a future because they are His children.

My training of the staff at the Harbor is meant to fight the orphan spirit, both in the residents, and in the staff themselves. A true father is not interested in right behavior. Vadim is a great commander. He knows how to get those kids in line, and he does it with the love of Christ. But he doesn’t know how to reach the hearts of the kids. What separates a commander from a father is the heart of the shepherd. Since Russia is plagued generally with an orphan spirit,

a spirit of fear that comes from not knowing and trusting in the Father’s protection, provision, and direction, and

it affects even Christians. So my focus in working with the staff is helping them move from raising young adults with the right behavior to shepherding their hearts with the Father’s love, which means getting a true revelation of that love themselves.

Yuri is a young man we met through the Harbor who never knew his father. His mother completely neglected him, and he ended up for a season begging on the streets and at the train station before ending up in an orphanage. He comes to us to see a real family in action, warts in all, and God has given me access to his heart to help father him to become a good husband and father one day. He observes us carefully, and he asks good questions, especially in the context of his own relationships, so that he can learn and grow. Everyone needs a mentor like this. Think back on those who took the most personal interest in you, who really invested themselves in you. Weren’t they among the most important people in your life? Mentoring is virtually unheard of in Russia, though, because of fatherlessness, both spiritual and literal.

Likewise, my work in the community with pastors and other leaders (and potential leaders) is not about teaching them what they need to know to lead, or even teaching them how good leaders act, but rather teaching them what it means to have the heart of a leader, which is the heart of a father. For I believe that all organizations and all government ultimately derive their mandate from that of the family. Steward and shepherd the resources and the people in your care (it’s not one or the other) and God will provide the increase. This, too, is a huge subject worthy of attention.

At the church we attend, the leadership has given me the opportunity to speak into the life of the congregation, and my questions are always about how we care for and invest in the members so that they can connect with God’s heart for them and their calling in Christ. Whether I’m asking about how we follow up with visitors or how we train small group leaders, I’m always driving at the need to father people over a lifetime so that they grow continually and never fall through the cracks as spiritual orphans.

Leaders need fathering as much as do the rank and file. Our work with the leaders of the school our boys attend is a tremendously rewarding part of our ministry, because they are so hungry to be fed and nurtured in their ability to shepherd the kids in their care. I want Diana to come back and talk about Tanya, who is so thirsty for such attention that she has asked Diana to mentor her in any way and any direction that Diana chooses.

[Diana]

An orphan spirit can infect a person for life unless you come to Father God for a heart change. Drunkenness is a national epidemic that I believe is directly a reflection of an orphan spirit, and our kids got an early and harsh education in the reality of what alcohol can do to a person. One elderly man who lives in the house next door to us, named Valery, is someone we have had to see suffer the demonic effects of alcohol time and time again. And because the kids are outside so much, they have developed a relationship with him, and a burden for him. I want Lydia to come up now and share about how she has been given the Father’s heart for Valery.

[Lydia] - shared her experience with our neighbor Valery, and beautifully tied it in to the theme of the orphan spirit.

St. Frances says to preach the Gospel all the time, and sometimes use words. I hope you can picture Lydia hand in hand with Valery. She, who should be the daughter figure, can nonetheless represent the heart of God the Father to this man, but she prays often for an opportunity one day to share that love using words too.

Where do we want to go in the next season? We have some wonderful opportunities at our door: helping other ministries serve orphans, doing some direct work with orphans, training leaders in the city and across Russia who need to learn to lead with a father’s heart, and helping to train counselors to break the orphan spirit off of Russians. What will tie them all together is our commitment to learn how to serve more and more as a family, and to raise up fathers of fathers of fathers willing to let God use them to change a nation.