Broadway Baptist Church - Louisville, Kentucky

Ukraine Mission Report

Greetings from the Ukraine!

I'm here to tell you a little bit about the journey that we took last week. When I say we - I mean all of us.

Those of us who traveled would never have been able to do so without the love, prayers, support and donations from you all. Our best estimate is that we took 1,000 pounds of items that were donated and knitted by this congregation.

As many of you are aware, there are thousands of children who live on the streets of Kiev. They are there because they have either been abandoned or have chosen to live on the street to escape the rampant abuse they suffer at home. While there are many ministries available to them now, the project we were working on hopes to not only provide shelter and food, but show these kids a new way of life.

The Village of Hope is a 17-acre facility that used to be a Russian children's camp. The building we were there to work on will house three units of children along with stand-in parents. Although sharing the building, each group will function as an individual family - each with its own kitchen and living space. They will be able to live their lives, cook together, and discuss family issues over their own dinner table. As the children see how families can function, the hope is that they will be able to continue the example as they start their own families.

While there, we did manual labor in the truest sense of the word. After extensive training, several of our team - including your pastor - mastered the use of a technical Ukrainian device called la-POT-tah (phonetic). Better known to you and I as a shovel. We dug ditches, cleaned up construction debris, cleaned drywall, hauled sand and gravel, poured concrete and scraped brick.

There are several Ukrainian construction workers at the Village of Hope who will be there throughout the length of the project. They are the skilled labor that keeps the work progressing while amateurs such as ourselves come in to help them in any way we can. These workers made a tremendous impression on us.

They begin their 10-hour day at 7:30 am with a devotional that they were gracious enough to include us in.

After that, the work commenced without ceasing. At 1:00 pm, we volunteers trudged a mile down the road to the Bucha Church for lunch and trudged a mile back to keep working until 6 pm. Then we trudged the mile back for dinner.

After eating, we were driven 30 minutes back to our showers and beds. By the time we scraped the dirt off of us, all we had the energy to do was sit around in our pj's. Our days concluded with a devotional time when we discussed where we saw God that day. As tired as we were, there were no shortages of stories.

We saw God in the Ukrainian construction workers who worked tirelessly without complaint and welcomed us into their routine with grace, patience and good humor.

We saw God in their voices as they prayed and sang during the devotional and at work.

We saw God in the worker who still believed despite having two years' worth of wages stolen from him.

We saw God in the stories of a man who lived through the early days of Christianity in the Ukraine.

We saw God in the people of Bucha Church who worship devotedly for hours at a time.

And of course, we saw God in the faces of the street children of Kiev. Who, despite their tough exterior, are just kids.

With your support, we laid the foundation - quite literally - for a better future for the street children of Kiev and built on a foundation already well underway for missions at Broadway.

Although this trip has ended, we see it as merely another step in the journey we at Broadway take each day as we strive to touch the lives of people around the world and at home. Be assured that our efforts matter.

Ellen