Orphan Ministry Shipment to Ukraine - August 2007
Tamara had been corresponding since 2005 with Nataliya Khomyak, Ukraine Representative at the Christian Broadcasting Network in Va., regarding a Christmas presentation of the musical, The Old Russian Shoemaker. A large group of orphans were traveling from Ukraine to participate in this musical and help raise awareness of the plight of orphans in Ukraine. We had a special interest because most of the kids who would be coming for this were from the Berdyansk orphanage, where we adopted our daughters, Brooke and Baylee. As Tamara shared with Nataliya regarding our burden to send donations to orphanages in Ukraine, Nataliya decided to connect us with Bob Fox, at CBN, in the International shipping department.
At first, we discussed with Bob ways that our group could ship donations to orphanages in Ukraine, by sending them to him in Va. After much discussion, Bob had the idea that we attempt sending our own shipment and load our own container.
Our group prayerfully considered this and agreed that God was leading us to ship our own container. We decided on a 20 ft. container at first, not wanting to overwhelm ourselves on our first try. We began working hard on acquiring donations. At first, it seemed filling a 20 ft. container would be difficult, but we kept praying and had faith that God would provide. Shortly after we began the search for donations, Tamara's sister, Cyndy James, contacted her and said her church, Fullness Christian Fellowship, had been blessed with a huge amount of good, used children's clothing from a Mom's group. The church had planned to go through the clothes and distribute them to those in need. She obtained approval from one of her Pastors to direct the clothes our way to ship to Ukraine! We rejoiced to receive our first large donation, but knew we had our work cut out for us, in that all the items had to be checked, counted, folded, and boxed.
Little by little, donations poured in, but we knew we had a long way to go to fill such a large container.
Bob encouraged us to include medical equipment in our shipment and explained that if we could do that, it would increase the value of our shipment. and he could try to get free shipping for us. This sounded great to us, and we prayed for God to show us where to get medical equipment. As an answer to prayer, God placed the burden for this on Paula Sullivan's heart and she began the search for good, used medical equipment. It was a happy day when Paula called to announce that she had located a used ultrasound machine, valued at $18,000. She said she was sure that she could help us acquire more medical equipment to increase the value of our shipment. We knew we were on our way.
Rebekah Blocher held a yard sale and purchased art supplies with her earnings. She personally sorted through the items and bought plastic containers to organize and store the supplies for the orphanages. Helen James contacted us and said she asked a mutual friend who owned several dry cleaning stores, if we could have some of the clothes that customers failed to claim. The dry cleaners keeps unclaimed clothes for a certain period of time, and then due to not having ample storage, are forced to get rid of them. They usually donate them to benefit the needy, but they decided to give us most of the clothes. This put us to work again, counting, folding, boxing. We were so thankful for the quality of clothes the Lord provided.
Over the months, we continued to received calls from churches, individuals, and schools, wanting to give donations. Tamara's Aunt, Jayne Hornsby, called and said she had a large donation of good, used children's clothing. Connie Allen, who teaches elementary school, called and said her school could donate good condition coats and sweaters that were left in the lost and found. We were amazed at the way God worked. Jill Rodriguez, who joined our group midway, was approached by 3 ladies on the same day, asking if she knew of anyone who needed their used clothing. Jill received many new items, some of which were high value designer clothes. She was amazed that these ladies approached her without knowing she was helping us with the shipment.
Paula brought in many medical supplies, such as bandages and children's vitamins. She also had a burden for the orphanages to receive a water system and was directed to a gentleman who had the desire to help us obtain one at cost. A member of our group, Dan Riviere, had the burden to fund the purchase of a brand new water purification system that would benefit two orphanages. He also purchased new soccer goals and many therapy tables to be used for the medical missions teams.
We approached our church, Church of the Highlands, regarding helping us purchase some other items we felt would greatly benefit the orphans, such as new blankets, towels, soap, new socks, underwear, and new pillows. The church agreed to help with these items. We praised God as He directed us to stores where we could purchase these at discount prices.
As we continued to work on donatons, We not only exceeded our goal of $75,000 value, to give us the free shipping, but ended up with a shipment value of almost $100,000. We quickly learned that in order to ship our container, we would have to undergo a very strict approval process. Since we were shipping through Operation Blessing, under the guidance of Bob Fox, there would be a team of workers in Ukraine waiting to receive our donations after it passed through customs in Ukraine. Without Bob's help on the U.S. side working with Counterpart (the agency responsible for approving free shipping and the Ukraine team's help on their end, this would not have been possible. We want to thank everyone that was involved in any way and mostly thank God for his bountiful blessings.
This page last modified on Wednesday, September 05, 2007
