Sasha - suicide

When viewing the statistics about orphans in Russia, the 15% suicide rate is alarming. I have heard specifically of several orphans who committed suicide and even visited the grave of a 17 year old girl who had done so. For this story I selected a Sasha since so many children are named Sasha. Sasha was an actual leader in the orphanage more by his strong personality. I do not recall details of his life before the orphanage. What impressed me was his knowledge of the scriptures and insight into the supernatural. He could answer most questions when we had bible class. However, I knew he was unstable from observing him, but one always hopes for the best. When he went off to technical school, he killed himself. The hard part to understand is that he had a really good sponsor who visited him in Russia and tried to care for him. It goes to show that we never know what is in the mind of a person and how a person will act. This one person continues to motivate me to keep trying for the rest of my life to help orphans. The task is overwhelming, but somehow I have a faith that is beyond reason to impact many orphans.

How would you interpret these events?

We desire to trust God, but things happen in life. I am posing a rhetorical question to reflect on these situations.

First I almost cut off my finger working on the downstairs. I was grinding nails left over from the carpet tack on one wall. Sveta was filling holes from some nails that were pulled and left holes. I had sparks flying and metal was glowing so I turned to see what she was doing. Even though it is a basic model, this grinder has really high RPMs. I  did not realize my left hand went into the grinder. Fortunately the glove absorbed the initial cut and I became a aware enough to pull my hand back and only sliced two pieces of flesh in the forefinger. Ironically I had taken off the guard to use the cement grinder attachment and forgot to put back on. (I did put it back on after the event). It was a close call.

Last week I took the Audi in to a mechanic because it was leaking antifreeze, but I could not find the source. Turned out that is was an external leak from the head gasket onto the engine. My regular mechanic  was so busy he said it would be 2 weeks before he could schedule it. I figured I would drive as long as I could before i was forced to repair it.

However, Sunday night Sveta was driving and called that the Santa Fe would not shut off. I told her to bring it home and I managed to turn it off. It turned out that the ignition switch went bad, so I ordered one. That meant we had to drive the Audi. It is 14 years old now. Monday night she came home and steam was pouring out of the engine. When I put in anti-freeze, it seemed to keep taking more. Then I looked underneath and it was literally poured onto the garage floor.

I bought the 2003 Santa Fe in 2005. For the 10 years I owned it and it never left me stranded. I only recall two trips to the shop to replace a transmission cooler pump and the speedometer broke. The A/C does not work any more-not a big deal in Colorado. The transmission is going out. In the past month I had to fix a broken door handle-cable and electronic window switch. Amazing that the junkyard had one Santa Fe and identical to ours-that was only $52 in parts. Now the ignition switch went out and I am waiting for the part to come in and then put it in myself.

So what is the point of all this? With the work and investment on the house remodel to take in international students, I had hoped the cars would last a little longer. The children of Israel apparently maintained their equipment and clothes for 40 years, I was hoping and believing for the cars to operate a little longer until we could finish the downstairs. Yet both cars broke and we do not know when it will happen again. How do you interpret these events. Random timing that the physical world moves to chaos and breaking down, the work of the devil, or perhaps a spiritual lesson to learn?

International Students welcome party

We had our start of the university semester party for ISI. Sveta and I met students from India, Iran, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. Thhhere were sandwhiches for dinner - food always draws students. We had some interesting activites as icebreakers to get to know some students. We had a lot of fun. We also chatted with a couple who lived in Kazakhstan for 2 years.
Frther contact info for ISI:::::

Dean's site is
http://deanhalverson.weebly.com/

The organizational site:
http://www.isionline.org/

Sex and pregnacy - Orphans desire children in Malawi

I read an article about orphan desires to have children to provide a sense of family. The authors advocate an uncommon reason for orphan pregnancy. Rather than a need for sex, they want "to achieve a sense of normality, acceptance and love". The study was done in rural Malawi. In the midst of the HIV epidemic, millions of children are orphaned and many suggest the morality causes more sexual encounters and risk taking. In spite of the high mortality rate of young mothers and the children, the authors concluded that women become pregnant to have a family. The orphans believe having a child and the potential for a family will put them within the social norm for a family and not separated from normal society. They perceive more acceptance because they have children and can engage with more people. They now have a child to care for and fulfill the nurturing need to love their own flesh and blood. The men also have this desire and want to have these same needs fulfilled.
     The article is interesting because research has looked into orphan hood as causing abnormal behavior to . The short term need for sex has driven many orphans to engage in heightened sexual activity. However, some may actually desire the opportunity to have a child and become part of the societal expectations to belong to a family. The view that orphans engage in sex to satisfy unmet needs was considered primarily as fall out from the trauma of orphan hood. This study offers a different look that perhaps some orphans, both female and male, want children to meet their own needs and meet cultural norms.

Research article: Rachel Kidman and Philip Anglewicz on "Fertility among orphans in rural Malawi: Challenging common assumptions about risk and mechanisms."

Sucess comes with patience

One recent morning Iwas trying to drill a hole from the new downstairs bathroom. after 6 hours of labor the previous day, I took one look at the job and stopped. I went up to the patio porch and talked to the Spirit. I figured it was I to much to spend hours on basic tasks. I had cut through the wood and brick to find i hit the concrete slab of the patio. The Spirit communicated to me that I would have sucess. So I went back down and started drilling through the brick. The first one hit the concrete. The second hole hit the slab. Then the third one went through. When I pulled out the bit from the hole, I saw the sunshine coming through the hole. Rather than hours it was 20 minutes to fnish drilling and run the bathroom vent exhaust to the outside. In a strange way I was prepard for the next challenge. Running the dryer exhaust for the upstairs machine. That is another complicated story.

Pasha - success

As I wrote yesterday about how our best efforts may not produce the results we want, it is also good to hear of the orphans who become successful leaders. This story is about Pasha. he assisted our teams for several trips to Russia that I participated in and many others. I was pleased to see he is helping out teams going to Russia. I included a photo from one of his close mentors, Tom. Pasha told me he was living with his father and two brothers. Not sure what happened to his mother, but his father was an alcoholic. A Russian official came to the house and asked the father if he wanted to keep the children or send them to an orphanage. Pasha said to himself that he did not want to be sent away, but could not verbally say it. he was the oldest and made it through the orphanage. he takes care of his brothers. I met one, Sasha, who has a medical condition and needs help. He faithfully helps with American teams going over to Russia. Pasha has a quiet, strong spirit and is a leader for the orphans.

Aďopted from Russia

We were at a church picnic today at Fox Run Park. We met a woman who had adopted a girl in 1993. At age 7 the girl was born in the Soviet Union- the break up happened in December 1991. The mother felt for years that she would visit Russia one day and even during the Cold War had this impression. The opportunity came to adopt from Russia so she took a Russian girl. The girl was left in an orphange from birth. The biological mother drank alot so the orphan had Alcohol Fetal Syndrome. The mother told me the damage was such that a professional stated she had the genes to be intelligent, but was mentally worse off than a retarded person. She needed hormones to grow properly and the family covered other medical issues such as crooked teeth.
With a family and two biological children she related the difficulties of raising this orphan. If I recall in dialog with the adoption agency, they tated Russian and Romanian children were the most difficult. She had behavioral problems. Currently she lives on her own but rarely visits her mother.  She said her daughter is an alcoholic.
I asked if the daughter ever made a professio of faith. She said one night after six months in the home, she had done something that upset her mother. Mom was so angry she said she could not pray with her at bedtime. She usually did, but she asked her daughter to prayer. It was close to Easter, so the daughter said she wanted to accept Jesus into her life on Easter. So Easter morning, mom explained salvation and  the daughter prayed for salvation.
I admire the woman for adopting an orphan and still loving her daughter. Like many efforts in life we hear the success stories, but not the people who made a sacrifice and commitment to raise an orphan and have it not turn out as we expected. Still we are toĺd in the scriptures to look after orphans in their distress. Thhe outcome is in God's hands.

Why I am not In construction

Well to add insult to injury, I had two tasks to compete the rough mechanical inspection. On Friday the inpector told me I only had to change the ventilator from a fleible exhaust hose to a semi-flexible hose. And he concurred with the place on the side of the house that I could drill the hole. My concern was the 36 inch rule for the exhaust outlet. He said the hole is not an appliance and my planned location was fine. The other place had planned for would be a real challenge. Anyway, I proceeded to take him upstairs for our new washer-dryer upstairs. He did not have it on the list. I am too honest for my own good. I had thought about skipping it since I had a plan and no one was looking upstairs anymore. But I brought it up because it is ingrained in me to reveal the truth. As far as my conscience can recall, I have n secrets from Svetlana. Back to the inspection, the inspector did not like my plan to run along the wall. So I have to punch a hole in the roof or go up into the roof area and out the side. After he left I went outside and discovered I had 36 inches between the two windows. But when I ran the line up the side of the house, I saw the floodlight sitting right in the place that I would bring out the dryer vent. 1I     have ti figure a way to work around that obstacle. aTalk about adding insult to injury...it gets better. This morning I figured I could drill the basement vvent and be done in 30 minutes. The wood drilled out in 5 minutes. I went through the brick in 15 min and hit cement-not the air I epected on the porch. What I did not calculate was the height of the porch. I saw the previous owner's TV line going out but did not realize the steep angle. So for many hours I drilled running into 3 lare nails and overheating the drill and managed to break my 4 1/2 inch drill bit, a three prong extension cord, and shorted out my drill. The drill kept sparking and tripping the cicuit breaker. So off to the tool store. Again talk about adding insult to injury I am 6 hours into a 30 minute project and less than 1/3 done. Patience is a virtue.

800,000 children force to flee in Nigeria

Boko Haram is a group that refers to itself as ""Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad"" in Nigeria. Last year they abducted over 200 schoolgirls and claim these young women converted to Islam. Many reports cite sexual abuse. Now the estimates are that over 1.5 million people have been displaced including 800,000 children. The violence of the conflict must be causing orphans. I am sure Christians are involved but this information takes much research.The news covers the events and especially since the group swore allegiance to ISIS this year. Even the United nations - UNICEF covers many crises around the world, but no mention on the main page or timeline. I did a search on Nigeria and they discussed "internally displaced persons" being educated, some for the first time.

I tried a search on Christian aid to Nigeria. Christian Aid is a British organization trying to alleviate poverty in the world. They have several projects going on in Nigeria. Open Doors addresses the persecution and the country as a whole as number 10 in the world for Christians. I read one article-can not seem to find it now in which the US pulled out of supporting Nigeria due to a conflict over values - abortion and homosexuality. The issue may be more complex than that, but those two values did influence the decision. Waging warfare in terms of earthly concepts is such a fleeting effort. Prayer and supplication with thanksgiving comes to mind. Yet how do you deal with the people who just want to live a Christian lifestyle? I am trying to do what I can, but it seems so small in the grand scheme of God's salvation and the number of orphans in Nigeria. Yet the Spirit spoke to me to be "strong and courageous" from Joshua 1 so I must continue in that direction.

Mstera Orphanage Russia

I thought I had posted this, but still working through using my tablett.Sveta and I attended a Haert for Russia meeting last Sunday. A team of 5 went to the orphanage in June. They losttheir church sponsorship, so raising funds will be a challenge for future trips. They have a Facebook page called Heart for Russia. They meet twice a year for updates. The biggest take away is havng a sponsor who writes.  One team member mentioned how a couple of orphans can bring out every letter that they received. The group is very good about sponsoring evry child. That really means alot to the young people. The group has a very capable translator, so messages can be put into Russian for the kids to read. 

Back to blogging and where I left off

I was using my tablet and thought it was posting to this blog, but was in some other type of Google+ forum. After much reflection, I decided I had to somehow make time to blog for orphans. Several things influenced me to put this as a priority. First, it is my calling and consistent with the scriptures. Sometimes our life "compass" becomes full of many activities. I was trying to remodel the house and prepare for international students. As long as I did not put a timeline on it, I did not mind working on busting up concrete for the new plumbing, sheet-rock, driving holes for the dryer exhaust, and a myriad of small tasks. I figure it takes me 4-5 times longer than a professional to complete tasks, but I estimated I saved about 70% doing it myself. The electrical and plumbing I defer to the professionals, but the rest I can figure out. I digress. Anyway, we planned to go to an orphanage in Honduras and a trip with our church to Berlin, Germany, but they did not work out. This last year has been a plan and then an outcome quite different from the plan. And I had to take Svetlana to the emergency room twice and had 8+ doctor appointments. She will have surgery soon and perhaps another one. That was quite a concern for me as she is the closest, best friend I have ever had in the world and in the process, the complications could have been severe, but so far no life threatening issues. After many nights this summer worshiping and talking to God, I came to the conclusion that if I focus on the calling, the rest will sort itself out. Amongst all the other events and issues that happen in life, I wrestle with five topics. My two standing priorities are my relationship with God and my wife. The other three are my career, orphans, and remodeling the house. The timelines need to be extended to accommodate all of them and keep balanced. More follows as I move forward in faith.