Inspiring stories about sponsoring children in Holt’s care

From Loving Sponsor, to Loving Home
by: Jenn Hand, Nepal

I was at a Newsong concert when the Lord completely captured my heart as the band shared about the ministry of Holt International.  I honestly thought I should ignore the fast beating of my heart as I heard the stories of the children in need of sponsorship, because I myself was a graduate school student, which of course equals little to no money.  But I knew God was calling me to the sponsorship table, where I picked out my little girl, Manna. I fell more in love with her every month as I sent that check and loved getting the very detailed updates about how she was doing.  Little did I know during this time God was calling me to come serve him in another bordering country to where she lived in south Asia.   I was amazed how God provided for me as I raised support to come serve Him in south Asia, and even without a steady paycheck, there was always enough money to send to little Manna.  I proudly displayed her picture on my refrigerator.  In 2007 I left for south Asia where I received the blessing of getting to work with an orphanage here.  Every time I hugged one of our orphans I thought of Manna and prayed for her to find a great home.  I almost got to meet her in October 2007 as I traveled to Bangalore, India, to lead a women’s conference, however the conference session went too long, and I was unable to meet up with her foster family before I had to leave.  Every time I see a beggar child in the streets of south Asia (and there are hundreds) I praised God for the ministry of Holt and for the foster home Manna was in.  When I heard she was adopted into a loving Christian family, I just could not stop praising the Lord.  Now I have a new little girl’s photo on my refrigerator

Inspired to Give
by: Joann Westerman, Fair Oaks, CA

My daughter and her husband adopted a beautiful baby girl from Korea through Holt in October of 1999.   Tristen was 5 months old when she came into our lives.  Because of this amazing life-changing experience, I have dedicated my life to helping children.  I feel sponsoring is just a small way of helping.   I also do volunteer work with children in crisis.   Being able to financially and physically help children fulfills my life.

Joi’s Prayers Answered
by: Richard Buckley

As part of a ministry event called The Advent Conspiracy, my family and I chose to do four things to focus on Jesus this past Christmas: We worshipped more fully, spent less on ourselves, gave more to others, and loved the people God has placed in our path more fully. One exciting thing we did was to allow each of our daughters to sponsor a girl from their native country (2 from China and 1 from Korea).

Joi sponsored a child through Holt International, and she fervently prayed for her.  Every mealtime and bedtime prayer included a special mention of her name asking God to watch over her. If I forgot to pray for her, Joi made me “do it over,” or she added her own “P.S.” to God after the prayer. The amazing thing is that her sponsored child has the very same foster parents as Joi did! It’s tempting to say “It’s a small world after all” but it’s much better to say “What an awesome and huge God we have!”

Joi is a new Christian, and I love to see God affirm new believers as they grow in Him. This past week we got a letter from Holt International noting that Joi’s sponsored child had been adopted and has a forever home in the United States. You should have seen Joi’s face when it sunk in! Amy and I had the honor of telling Joi the Lord not only heard her prayers, but He has acted on them and placed this special child in a family where she will have the opportunity to hear the Gospel and understand unconditional love.

As we read the letter at the dinner table, we came to a paragraph noting that we had been assigned another Korean baby girl to sponsor and pray for.  She is the latest addition to our sponsorship family. Please pray for her to have a forever family soon…and remember, if you don’t, Joi will be there to remind you!

Hands Full of Children in Need
by: Juan Ocampo

I took the rest of the child sponsorship folders and handed them to a lady who wanted to look at them, and she ended up sponsoring a child. She then handed the pamphlets to someone else, and the sponsoring moved forward. Seeing the handful of pamphlets that began in my hands being sponsored by others was God’s way of telling us that, though we could only sponsor one child, He would always provide for the other children to be sponsored as well. Our hearts melted, and we thanked God for His love.  My wife and I registered to sponsor a 4 years young little girl from the Ukraine for 6 months at $30 a month. That is a minimal amount of money that will help her with her medicines and general needs. That’s the least we could do. I’m sure it will go on beyond the six months, but everything has a beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

When Juan Ocampo attended Winter Jam Christian concert recently, he realized that God was directing him toward sponsoring a child. The following is Juan’s account of that event:

I can’t say that I am very familiar with today’s top Christian artists, but I was familiar enough with a few, and thank God that He is able to use the music and the artists to do His work. I have to say that I was moved by the mass of youth praising the Lord and having fun in their faith. It was a full house of over 10,000 people, and 1,800 souls were saved that night.

Holt International is an organization that helps “give orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children safe and nurturing environments in which to develop,” and they were one of the organizations and sponsors involved with the tour. My wife and I attended the concert to enjoy the celebration of our faith, but after the Holt International story and testimonies of former orphans, we looked at each other with certainty of what the Lord was calling us to do. God had touched my wife and I to sponsor a child.

We headed to the crowded table where Holt International staff and all the pamphlets of needy children were. On our way to the table, my wife and I were praying for God’s direction Read the rest of this entry »

Alice Evans, Managing Editor

Odessa District, Ukraine—Roosters crowed in the background as we arrived at this government-run shelter in Belgorod near the Black Sea outside Odessa. Here we met a group of children in temporary care. These children came to the shelter in various ways, most of them taken through court action from families in crisis. Some are runaways. Others are orphans. A few were found wandering the streets with no legal identity by which to track them.

Fair-haired Joseph came here on his own, asking for help to get his documents. At 15, he had no place to call home. He has always lived on the streets, traveling by train and begging, mostly alongside his grandmother between Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. But his grandmother died, and he does not want to live with his mother, who is an alcoholic, even if she could be located. Joseph has never met his father, and it seems unlikely the shelter staff will be able to locate him, although they are trying.

“I want to be in a family,” Joseph told them recently. “I want to live in a room. But I don’t believe you will be able to help me.” Read the rest of this entry »

Alice Evans, Managing Editor

Uman, Ukraine—Light shining through sheer lace curtains helped ease the institutional setting at the Uman Rehabilitation Center for Children with Disabilities. A small group of children with a variety of special needs played happily in a central meeting room. Smells wafted from the kitchen, and when we went in to take a look, a smiling cook greeted us. We watched as she rolled out dough made from wheat, eggs and cottage cheese. A bowl of seasoned beef with onions waited nearby.

The kitchen, newly furbished with funds provided through Holt International’s Families for Children Program with a grant from USAID, is a stellar, happy place. And it makes a huge difference for the 356 children ages 6 to 17 who are served at this center. Previously, children could come for no more than a few hours at a time. Now they can stay all day. This frees their parents to work.

Twin 11-year-old boys whose mother began bringing them to the center about a year ago from a village an hour away were so thrilled to be among other children that they begged her to bring them every day. Because of cerebral palsy, they are wheelchair bound. They live in a part of Ukraine where broken pavement and cobblestones make wheelchair mobility almost impossible. At the center, they receive physical therapy,educational training, and other services they cannot get in their village. Now when their mother brings them to the center, they can spend the entire day because of the food served in this new kitchen. Once isolated at home, they are now happy boys with many friends among the children at the center.

Staff at the center participate in FCP’s community family care workshops. Alyona Gerasimova, the country director for Holt’s Ukraine program, tells us that the worst institutions throughout the country are where relinquished children with special needs are usually sent. Children at those institutions are basically dying because of malnutrition, she says. This rehab center is very different. Families here are getting support and encouragement to keep their children with them.

Helping support children with special needs, and the families of these children, is a life-saving endeavor. It is a huge step forward for Ukraine to have this center in Uman, where children with special needs get loving attention and nutritious meals.

Alice Evans, Managing Editor

Uman Boarding School, Ukraine–The children for the moment are excited and happy, about to leave for the seashore. Bags packed, one little dark-haired girl sits waiting at the edge of the sidewalk with her luggage. Or maybe it’s group luggage. I find it hard to imagine these children having more than one ragtag bag apiece.

We take pictures of sad and hardened faces. And I feel intrusive. But many of the children are eager for the attention, and I, like the others in my group, want to record the rawness in their expressions so that we can show how great their need is. They all want something more than they are getting here.

Called boarding schools in Ukraine, places like this are, simply put, orphanages. Warehouses for children. A kind of prison. Alyona Gerasimova, the country director for Holt International’s Families for Children Program, tells me that 70 percent of all street children are runaways from such institutions as this. Read the rest of this entry »

Alice Evans, Managing Editor

Uman Relief Nursery, Ukraine–When Peter and Nadia arrive at the Uman Relief Nursery every Monday and Wednesday morning, the first thing staff members do is bathe the little brother and sister.

Warm water. Soap. Something we take for granted but a special experience for Peter and Nadia–and which has now become routine in their lives. Something their young mother never does for them because she does not know how.

And how could she? She grew up in an orphanage herself after both parents died and her uncle left her in the hands of the state. With a family history of multigenerational abuse, she never learned how to be a mother herself, and because of her neglect the local government was about to terminate her parental rights. Peter and Nadia would also be taken to an orphanage.

Instead, this young sibling pair and their mother found the help they needed through the Relief Nursery, a new facility modeled after a program developed in Eugene, Oregon, and funded through Holt International’s Families for Children Program (FCP), operating under a grant from USAID. Read the rest of this entry »

Alice Evans, Managing Editor

HIV Childcare and Parent Resource Center, Kiev, Ukraine—As we waited for a bus that would take us to the Center for HIV-Affected Families and Children, I saw a young woman in ponytail and jeans walk up to a blue donation box and drop in some coins. A sign on the box said in English, Russian and Ukrainian: “Help to Poor Peopls, Invalids and Children Orphans!” That was a heartening sight in a city where the cost of living is going up, up, up, and where the HIV/AIDS population is the fastest growing in Eastern Europe.

Besides the many facts and figures we heard about from the dedicated staff at the HIV childcare center, we learned that Holt International supports much-needed respite, counseling and education for dozens of children and families. It’s an integrated program that already serves as a model throughout Ukraine.

More than a hundred young children were on an outing to the seashore the day we arrived. And although we did not meet them face to face, we saw evidence of the care they were getting—a room full of stuffed animals, paintings they had made, a poster announcing an educational campaign to raise awareness.

We heard about 9-year-old “Tatiana,” HIV-positive and forced out of the school she was attending when someone suspected her condition. Read the rest of this entry »

Alice Evans, Managing Editor

Father’s House, Kiev, Ukraine—Some of the children came from underground—the cellars, sewers and tunnels of Kiev. But the environment we saw at Treasure Island was more like the green and open-air world of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, where loving adults looked after about 15 or so street ruffians who agreed to try a new life by attending a summer camp on a wooded island in the huge Dnipro River across from Kiev.

To get there, we boarded an aged ferry, passed through its open belly and climbed aboard a scruffy old motorized boat. On a hot day in the unshielded sun, we sped through cool river breezes and went among these tough but beautiful children, most of them gathered at tables under the shade of protective oaks, painting—stars over blue water, a leafy tree in a green field under a haloed orange sun. They were happy paintings rich with the colors of nature, pressed upon us by the children, who wanted us to admire their work and take home their artistic treasures, and who asked us to listen to them sing—songs about Jesus.

The children, ages 5 to 12, were chosen by the staff of Father’s House as likely candidates for rehabilitation—they had agreed to leave the streets and the life of begging and sniffing paint—and come instead to this Christian camp, where they learn another way of life, one that has freedom balanced by order, somewhere safe to sleep, frequent meals of nutritious food, and fun activities like fishing, boating, bicycling and crafts. Read the rest of this entry »