Igor

Real Winners

Find out who you are and do it on purpose

    Not long ago the Olympics were held for people with physical disabilities. There were a lot of winners and no losers because each one of them had already won. They won when they had stepped past the verdict others had stamped on their lives.
  
    I was shocked that a guy with no legs won a race on the track. This person confirmed to me that people with physical limitations have a right to live a normal and full life.

    They are winners because they were able to look at themselves differently. They didn’t see themselves as the world sees them. They believed in themselves because at one time some believe in them and helped them to move on.

    Mother’s Care believes in the kids we minister to. We believe that God has a plan for them. We believe that they develop and can achieve many things. Sometimes we are just lacking in knowledge, but faithfulness will do its work.

   One example is Igor, who was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. When I say him for the first time I was surprised that he was able to hold up such a big head on such little shoulders. But Igor has a strong personality and an assertive spirit. God’s greatness combined with our faith and his perseverance did it for him.

    When he realized that he could use his legs and feet he began taking his first steps holing onto someone with both of his hands. When someone tried to sit him down in a chair Igor loudly disagreed. Then he started stepping out holding onto just one hand and now he needs no one to help him. He can walk by himself. He is developing just fine and is learning how to talk. He now understands what is good and what is bad. He gets very hurt when he is disciplined. Now he is four years old.
He is our winner!!!

     Igor is great encouragement for us. We often forget that when we plant a seed it needs time to bring fruit.

(by Vicktoria Tepliuk)

Summer Updates

Update on Eva

If you don’t know about Eva you should read the post on this blog of January 2007 titled Can you see it??? I am just writing to update you that things are moving forward with her. She had her heart surgery here in Ukraine and recovered record fast. Already a week later, she was in a stroller enjoying the sunshine outside for the first time in her life. Here is the latest picture. Notice the little cheeks the butterfly princess has gained. Our missionaries from Netherlands still wish to adopt her so we ask you to continue to keep her in your prayers.

Walking Tall

Dear Marina fans,
Just a quick update to let you know that Marina is overcoming the weakness in her legs, and with two weeks of exercises and hard work, she is walking on her new feet with the help of a walker that Shriner's is letting us use until she walks on her own.
We are absolutely amazed at the progress she has made the past two weeks and she is really showing us all that she is not "crippled" as we were told so many times before!
Her therapist says that she will eventually dance, run and do whatever she wants to do on her prosthetic feet, and I have no doubt after seeing what she has accomplished already!
Marina will be going back into surgery on her mouth at the end of May to have the roof of her mouth repaired. This delays our return to Ukraine, but it also gives Marina more time for speech therapy and physical therapy before our return.
Thank you so much for your prayers and your emails. We appreciate you!
Rebecca

God is Generous

When Vova was born, his mom began to count his fingers – 1,2,3,4,… 11! Surely, there was more than enough! Then she counted his little toes – 1,2,3,4,5,… 12!

“God is generous,” comments Vova.

You can see this happy fellow’s baby picture in the beginning of this blog. There he looks just like a tiny elf in Inge’s arms. Now he is couple years old and solid muscle. He trains by spinning on his stomach, with his hands and feet up in the air or in the baby-walker, rolling wildly in circles. When they figure out name for this rolling sport, you will see him in the Olympics.

Vova has a reason to smile. In the beginning of the year he moved up to our ward at the orphanage. Before he lived in a ward where the children are not expected to learn anything. They are doomed to a life of dreariness, laying in their cribs in silence, waiting for their next meal and a clean diaper. There is no one to hold them, to enjoy them, there is no one to sing to them, or to see God in them. But someone saw his potential. Someone looked into those bright eyes and decided to give him a chance. I think he is taking it all in. He learned to crawl in less than two months and now he can already walk leaning against the sides of the crib. And where did he learn to smile like that? I think he has had some secret friends, heavenly warriors, smiling at him all along.

Sylvi

Baby Steps of Progress for Valentine

Let me introduce you to Valentine or Valik for short. He came to the hospital about 3 months ago and captured the hearts of the team. He was so tiny and small that we couldn’t believe that he was really 4 months old because he weighed only 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds). He cried a pitiful soft cry and would wiggle all the time except when he was sleeping which wasn’t often. We suspected that he was very hungry and couldn’t settle down because he was fed very little with a long time between feedings. Whenever we held him he would become agitated unless we were rocking or swinging him. I gave him a new nickname “Squiggly Worm”. Yet he captured our hearts and became a special little guy to several of the team members.

Recently I started to bring some Johnson’s pink baby cream to the hospital to put on the babies who had dry skin. The children enjoy a massage and this cream helps them smell nice. I tried it on Valik and he loved it! He smiles and coos when I am rubbing lotion on his feet or arms. He especially loves it when I rub his face and head, cooing and smiling even more. As soon as I lay him on the changing table and take off his jammies he gets excited because he knows what is coming. Human touch! Comfort! Gentleness! The transformation that takes place during these 20 minutes is amazing. God is teaching me the power of gentleness in the lives of these children who are starving for love. Pray that Valik would continue to grow and get healthier each day.

Marina's new smile

This is it! This is Marina's beautiful new smile!

She is learning to eat solid foods now, and has almost mastered the use of a spoon, despite only having four fingers on her right hand.

She is crawling around like a little speed buggy, and will get her new prosthetic feet in a few weeks! We are going to have to get some new jogging shoes to keep up with this little girl. It is hard to believe that this is the same little girl who could not sit up or even hold her own bottle 9 months ago.

We are happy to announce that Marina is turning four years old the last week of March! Congratulations, Marina! After fighting for your life for three years, you deserve the happiest birthday in the world!

We love you, Marina!

The Mother's Care team

News from Marina

Dear Marina fans,
We are pleased to announce that Marina had her cleft lip and palate surgery on Tuesday at St Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida and she is doing great!
I am attaching a picture so that all of you can see how she is doing. She has some swelling and some stitches that will have to stay in for a while, but she is recovering great, eating, playing and adjusting to her new mouth.
Breathing was a real challenge that first night, with the swelling and the new roof to her mouth, but she came through beautifully and is doing great. We even get a little smile now and then.
She is on blood thinners because of her blood clotting disorder and will need to be in the hospital to be monitored for a few days, and she is really wanting to go home, so pray that she will be at peace until she is released from the hospital.
Thank you so much to all of you who have called and written to let us know you are praying and thinking of us.
We appreciate you so much!
After the stitches and tubes come out, I will send a new picture.
Blessings,
Rebecca and Marina

The lost and found

Natasha's mom received an unusual phonecall in December.

"You should come and sign papers concerning your daughter that you left to the hospital a year ago."

She had given birth to a tiny baby girl (only about 1kg or 2lb), who according to the experts was not going to live. So she left, grieving over her lost daughter.

Miss-Gobble-the-Hut has been with us since year ago February. In the beginning we did not see much but cheeks and eyelashes. She has done a lot of growing to catch up with her cheeks and has turned to a charming and surprisingly plump little girl (how she does it with the orphanage food, we don't know). She loves attention and can hardly wait to have her own mommy to love her all the time! For this is as true as rumor can be - mommy went to court and should be coming to pick up her lost baby any day now. Looks like this story might have happy ending.

Update February 27th

I asked today at the hospital. Mommy came to take Natasha home. Fair well!

Mobiles for kids

When we asked for mobiles for the kids we were not exactly talking of the kind that Karina is holding here. Although we do have some use for those within our team.
For kids we were thinking of more like this educational device attached above Oleg's crib. It is both nice for them to watch and for him it offers a great opportunity to excercise. Just to let you know, Oleg did not do much grabbing of any kind until this mobile came along...

Look mommy, no hands!

Can you tell me she has no emotions? The nannies at the orphanage told us that Karina had no emotions. We would see her laying despondent in a ball pit or rocking back and forth with a green piece of foam before her eyes. God’s love has truly reformed a life before our very eyes.

Karina is all smiles and giggles these days – she has learned to walk. We are ecstatic with her, for we know even more what this means for her future. Learning to walk and feed oneself with a spoon before the age of 5 are some of the main goals we work towards in the orphanage. These are the requirements for special school here in Kyiv. Karina will be five in December of 2007. She has now all summer to steady her steps and get ready for school. We have hope that people will be investing in her life instead of her living in remote, poor, far away storage for handicapped. She can learn to read maybe, maybe learn some simple crafts or other way of making herself useful and help her find her place in a hopefully more accepting world 15 years from now.

Or maybe someone will adopt this beautiful, brown eyed little girl and she will get to live through all the colors of life with a family that enjoys her and accepts her and gives her emotions room to grow. She might be scared of the Santa Clause, cry when her pet hamster dies, be nervous before her first piano recital, exhausted after a camping trip and maybe fall in love and experience the pain and joy of parenting?

Can you see it???

Can you see it? From Baby Einstein we have learned that infants can sometimes really benefit from multi media. Our butterfly princess Eva took this picture of herself few weeks ago, obviously trying to tell me that she had pushed out her first tooth.

If you did not see it at first look, don't be ashamed. I did not get it at first either, but few days later she bit me to my finger and I understood the meaning behind series of pictures of her mouth. She is just more technically advanced than I thought she was.

This little clown has won the hearts of many. Even her doctor at the hospital is wrapped around her tiny pinky and came to coo at her three times during our last visit. "It is good to have friends in high places", comments Eva. And she is right.

Because of her special interest in Eva, this doctor went out and talked to Eva's mother about getting back her custody and giving it to us, so we could take her home and to another, privately owned hospital, where she could possibly get the heart operation she needs. They could also help to diagnose why she is not growing. The princess is already year and a half old, but barely weighs 10lb. The doctors here have determined that without more advanced medical help she may not live to see her 3rd birthday. Unfortunately the orphanage refused to grant the custody back to Eva's mother. Now we are trying the longer route, a couple from Netherlands, serving with our ministry, will try to adopt Eva.

We are asking for a huge favor from God attempting this, for Ukrainian adoption system will not allowe people to choose a child the future parents already know. This generally prevents orphanages from displaying and selling children (like we hear happens in Russia) and gives all the adoptable orphans the same opportunity to be adopted. Unfortunately it makes harder for us to intervene for a spesific child. We, and especially the couple from Netherlands need special guidancein who to talk to and what to reveal about their relationship with Eva, so that her name would appear on the list they will be given to choose their child.

We ask you to join with us in prayer, that when Eva looses the tooth she is now so happily sporting, she can take a picture of the hole and thank God for being a healthy six or seven year old. Or maybe her proud daddy will take the picture and she can smile at the camera surrounded by family and lots of adventures ahead of her.

- Sylvi -

Teacher

The wrinkled piece of paper above your crib
was all we ever knew of you;
Daniel, 4 months, Down syndrome.

We never saw you smile,
never took your picture,
never learned your story,
not even your last name,
because we thought there was tomorrow.

We never heard you give a speech,
you never said a word,
just burped few times really, really loud ;)

Still you taught us;
the fleeing of time,
the importance of today,
the importance to say "I love you" now,
for tomorrow we may not be.

Thanks Danya!
I'll see you someday by Jesus' side,
I'm sure you'll teach me more.

-Sylvi

Hi,
I am sorry for not keeping you up to date on our babies. First I thought of blaming it on having thumbs in the middle of my hands when it comes to technical things, but now that I look at this picture of Marina writing with her only four fingers my excuse seems not so good...

So this is Marina, when she visited us in December. Her custody was changed so that Sonya could continue her life in Ukraine. The whole process of changing custody took only a little over week and Marina and Rebecca returned to US. Praise the Lord!

This fall we learned that Marina has a very rare blood disorder that was causing her extremities to die. Now that that is under control we can continue to work on getting her prosthetics and fixing her cleft pallet. Some surgery plans were already made for January. We appreciate your prayers for our fighter pilot! - Sylvia -

Marina in America

Marina is in America! She is growing stronger every day. She is learning new things, and experiencing all sorts of new things she never experienced, having lived her whole life in a hospital ward. Here are some of her firsts:
First balloon and boy does she love it!
First ride in a car and was she fascinated!
First ride in an airplane and that was not fun! Ten hours in a car seat breathing dry air. No fun.
First dinner party. It was somone's birthday, but Marina was the hit of the party! She is winning more hearts in America every day!
First time to have a bath every day! Yuck! She does not enjoy it yet, but she will more when her feet are all healed up and she can splash around in the water. We can't do that yet.
First taste of something strawberry, and many other new flavors she is really enjoying. No more just having milk kasha three times a day. She is addicted to Pedia Sure! She loves it!
Please pray that the hospital situation will be worked out soon so she can have the cleft pallat surgery done and other problems taken care of. Two hospitals are interested in helping her, one offering a full grant if they examine her and think they can help her.
Pray also for Oleg, Nikita and other children from the orphanage who are still waiting for their chance to be in a home and receive the care they need.

Fighter Pilots

Ready to Fly

Marina is tiny even for a three year old and she may not resemble even remotely your idea of fighter pilot, she does not even have feet. Nevertheless, she is getting ready to fly and for her to be alive in her condition, proves us that she indeed is a fighter.

Marina has spent her entire life in a hospital, but now she is making headlines all the way in Texas and Arkansas; People all over are coming together to support this fighter. Marina has a cleft pallet, four fingers in one hand and sort of five in the other. The reason she is making news is that she is very ill and right at this moment loosing her limbs for some mysterious disease. Her feet were already amputated earlier this year, the stubs of her feet never healed and now the same deathly stuff is creeping up her little hands. The tip of her left pinky fell off few weeks ago, rest of the fingertips in her left hand are already dead (black and shrunken). The hospital has done all they can, except amputated again. This will possibly happen on Monday, June 5th.  They have given up on her ever being able be healed of this disease.

Already since Marina was ten months old Rebecca and Andy Smith, our ministry leaders, have been trying to adopt her. There were long brakes in the process due to political changes in Ukraine. Then, as the situation grew more critical, the Smiths tried for the custody, in order to get her to America to see some experts. Still they ran into great amounts of red tape here on Ukrainian side. Nobody really seemed to know reasons, but after knocking on several doors it was clear that they were not trusted enough, because they were foreigners. Finally our Ukrainian team member Sonya Yakovenko stepped up to take Marina in her name and if all goes according to the script, Rebecca, Sonya and Marina are leaving to the States on Saturday next week. The Smith’s supporting churches have arranged for them a place to stay, payments for the hospital visits, and plain ticket for Marina and Sonya.

Marina is a pilot in a sense that she is the first one, hopefully in a long line of children that we can help to get the medical attention they need and would not get here, because of their poverty or their status as orphans. Please be praying for traveling mercies for our pilot flight, and for her stay in the States and plans to be made what comes next in a story of fighter pilot Marina.

Fearfully made

Katarina, body stiff, gasping for air, hands reaching towards me. All I can do is to rub her back, sing to her, pray for her and assure her that the God of the Universe is in control of whatever scary things may be happening in her little body. He knows, He cares for her and He loves her. He hears her cry, however weak. "The angels are around, just for you my baby…" I sing over and over.

I turned my back to the bare and white room and rested my head on the side of her crib. There are no monitors to tell if this child should loose her battle with death, if she should get tired, if she should close her beautiful dark blue eyes forever that are now so filled with terror and pleading. There would be just six beds with five little sleeping bodies to witness. "But the angels are around, just for you my baby…" All the noise in the world is her breathing. All the world is Katya and me in the hands of the Almighty.

Gently I twist one of her short brown curls, matted with food and saliva. I begin anew the verse, telling of the work of the angels when my child is ill. My child is very ill. This is my child. I slide my finger down her hugely swollen cheek. If she really knew what awaits her in this world, would she fight? Her body may always be stiff. She may never walk or talk, she may never see more than this white, bare room. And there is nothing I can do about it. Am I being selfish wanting her to fight?

I came to Ukraine excited and with grand plans of what I wanted to do for these hurting little ones. I wished I could deliver them the best there was of everything and I knew I was called by God to do so. I wanted to make connections, tell the world of them, rescue them. But at this moment of helplessness I realize I cannot do anything. It is in His hands. I have to trust Him to tell me His plans, this day, trust Him with Katarina, trust He is good. He had made her and He had made no mistakes.

Katarina's Song (taken from Psalm 139)
You hem Katarina in – behind and before;
You lay Your hand upon her.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
it is so high that I cannot attain it.

For it was You who formed her inward parts;
You knit her together in her mother’s womb.
I praise You for she is fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are Your works;
that I know very well.

Her frame was not hidden from You,
When she was made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld her unformed substance.
In Your book were written
All the days that were formed for her,
when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them – they are more than the sand;
I come to the end - I am still with You.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
(adapted from Ps. 139:5, 6, 13-18, 23, 24)

This does not mean I will give up dreaming big for these little ones. My God is super-sized and I am asking for His dreams for them! As I reluctantly get up to go home, I whisper , "Fight, my baby, fight!" And I am sure all the heavenly hosts are joining my quiet cheer.

Who are we? Our staff:

The Mother's Care team is made up of volunteers from several countries.
Rebecca Smith and Andy Smith are from America and have lived in Ukraine for seven years. They have two children of their own, Sarah, 17 years old, and Joshua, 7 years old.
Inge Skjolstrup is from Denmark. She has a heart full of love and compassion for abandoned children and has ministered to them faithfully in Ukraine for three years.
Sonia Yakovenka is the newest member of the team. She finished her Discipleship Training School with Youth With a Mission last year and came on Mother's Care staff in the fall. She is from Kyiv, Ukraine. Her joy and energy are a blessing to the children, as well as to the whole team!
We also have many volunteers from Kyiv, and from America who join with us in ministering to these children as they can. We are so thankful for them. We couldn't do this work without them!
Our partners and volunteers: Marcus, Joke (pronounced Yoke), Oksanna, Ludmilla, Rachel, Leslie, Julie, Elaine, Pastor Hart, Cynthia and Rev Russell Griffin, Elaine, Lillian, Nadia, Tanya, Kristina and all of our sponsors.
We are a large family from many nations joining together to be family for children who don't have one. Thank you!