Friday July 16 - Children's Handicapped Facility and Teen Dorm

On Thursday afternoon after the baby orphanage, we went to the "Art Store". They have things there like the traditional hand painted nesting dolls, hand painted Ukrainian eggs, hand embroidered cloth, hand carved necklaces, as well as art supplies. Then we had the rest of the afternoon off. On Friday morning we went to the handicapped children's facility. On the way there we stopped at a beautiful Orthodox church. We were allowed to take pictures inside, but had to have our flashes off so a lot of them didn't turn out. Then we went to the children's handicapped facility which is right across the street. We stayed for a few hours there and did a few dramas, some crafts, and just played with the kids. Then we went back for lunch. After lunch we went to the Teen Dorm and spent the afternoon there. There were only 12 boys there since it was summer. But during the school year there there are about 100 boys and girls there. They are all orphans, they come from the orphanage. Ages 16-18 live there. After that, they are out on the streets. Unfortunately, many of them, once they're out on the streets get addicted to drugs. They do go to high school while in the dorm, and they have a choice there to either become a landscaper or a tractor mechanic for a living, and then get trained on that. Those are their two choices, if they had the money to pay for it they would chose something else. Max is trying to start a sponsorship program for some of these teens so they can be trained for a better job. We played games with the boys, then visited their rooms, and prayed over them.

The Orthodox church

It was very beautiful inside.

The top of these domes are made of pure gold!! All of them!

My dad with some of the boys at the handicapped facility. Sorry I didn't get more pictures here!

"Shhh!!! Don't tell I'm in here!"

Brooke pulling Josiah

Laysa and Valik. Laysa and Katya from our Ukrainian team went with us to the Teen Dorm (and of course Max, you can't forget him!).

Max and Slavik. Slavik is a boy at the Teen Dorm that Max has taken in to live with him with some of the other boys.
He came back with us and went to Max's apartment. The next day our team (American) was starting to pray over each other while waiting for supper (we finished that in Kiev), when Max came and he brought Slaivk with him. We got to pray over Slavik too.

The other Max, a boy at the Teen Dorm

Valik and Alice (she told him she liked to get her picture taken with handsome boys ;D)

Let's just say, seeing this was my least favorite part of the Teen Dorm experience! Thank goodness we didn't have to go!These are the bathrooms at the Teen Dorm. There are 4 stalls in this bathroom, all of them look like this. The other bathroom is locked off because it is soo bad. 100 boys and girls have to share these four. There are no doors on the stalls so there is no privacy between girls and boys. The door to the actually bathroom doesn't lock. Needless to say, it didn't smell very nice in here either.

The bathrooms are Max's current project right now. They will cost $8000 to redo, but Max only has 1/2 of the funding he needs though.

If you would like to help fund this project, please email me (forhisgloryhandiwork (at) gmail (dot) com) for Renae's address. Renae is Max's banker in the U.S.

On the way back from the teen dorms, we got to the bus stop. (We were going to ride public transportation.) Our bus pulled up after a little while, and it was stuffed full, not even more room to stand up in it. So we let it leave. Max told us it will be another 1/2 hour until the next bus, but we could hire taxi's, which will be expensive. We decided to wait. There was an empty bus sitting there at the bus stop. One of our team asked Max if we could just rent that bus. Now these buses are public transport, they all have their own routes that they have to follow. Max goes up and asks the bus driver if we can rent the bus. He asked the owner of the bus who sets up the routes who is sitting on the bench right next to him. She said yes! So we were able to rent a bus, have it all to ourselves, with no stops to pick up people, and it takes us all the way across town. The driver only charged us 70 grivna, which is less than 9 U.S. dollars!! That's 2 grivna less than what it would have cost us to cram into a public bus! That's just one of the stories of the powerful anointing Max has. It is unbelievable how strong his anointing from God is! My dad keeps saying "One day, Max will be very famous, and we can say we knew him when he was just starting out!"