Picture source: pdphoto

PAINTBALL

I love this story; Ukraine in sights of paintball group. It starts off with:

You don't see too many grandmothers playing a rollicking game of paintball. But you've never seen Marci Anderson, a 44-year-old grandmother from Clancy.

"I started that about five years ago, leading a group of young kids," she said. "We started doing it quite a bit and had a lot of fun with it."

It's so much fun that the group is taking the sport to Ukraine.

From: Ukraine in sights of paintball group

Anderson is working with a charity named Saviors Homes via her church. She will take a paintball team to Ukraine to teach the sport. And these Ukrainians will teach some of the homeless and/or orphanage children.

She is trying to raise money to buy $3,000 worth of paintball equipment to leave in Ukraine. She can be reached via her church's web site.

I am curious enough that I may contact her. I wonder what city she is going to. Homeless children are numerous in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk. I am curious what orphanage Saviors Homes works with.



CLEAN WATER

Many folks (me included) take clean water for granted... But traveling internationally opened my eyes to the value of good roads and clean water.

Recently the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship pay $6,000 for a new water well at the Village of Hope.

Owned by Ukrainian Baptists, the Village of Hope is a partnership between several organizations, including CBF of North Carolina, German Baptist Aid, the Fellowship and a Netherlands-based Little John Foundation. Unused since 1986, the Village of Hope site was formerly a communist youth camp that continues to be renovated for new use as a foster home facility and Christian camp.

...............

Currently 10 people – six children and four adults – are living at Village of Hope in the Lighthouse building, which will eventually house up to 30 foster children.

From: Fellowship helps to provide for clean water at Ukrainian foster home

HOSTING UKRAINIAN CHILD IN THE UNITED STATES

Friends Of Our Orphanages charity is hosting 11 children from Krivoy Rog in Gainesville Florida.

The charity is very clear that the hosting is a cultural exchange program. That is good to see. As I mentioned in my blog on the negatives of hosting a child, sometimes the hosting programs are promoted as a way for older children to be adopted. And sometimes the older child's heart and ego get hurt because they weren't adopted.

"It's good to take them from living with 300 people (in the orphanage) and let them be with a mother and a father," Boyd said. "We're only allowed 21 days, but it still helps their self-esteem and self-worth, so they can have goals and aspirations. We want to expand their minds."

From: Touring orphans

Hosting a Ukrainian Child
Negatives
Postives
List of Hosting Programs