"Praise God" for all of man's ingenuity and technology.

Me and Alexey

What an awesome morning!

I coudn't sleep after 630 or so. So, I got up. As usual I first went to the computer and started my daily routine of signing in to all the various social networks email accounts, blogs, etc.

I had recently signed up on a social network called "vkontakte.ru" (vK.ru). It's sort of a eastern European Facebook. Many of our orphan outreach team's Ukrainian members are there. I can easily communicate with them in English (as they speak the language or several languages fluently).

Usually, if I communicate with kids it is through our team mentors (90% of the time). My Russian is "ochen ploho!"... very bad. I am so thankful for our mentors and the way they serve these children by helping us to teach and communicate. Mostly, i'm thankful for their patience with my poor language skills. Without complaining they take the time to translate and correct my English into Russian.

However, on vK.ru, I also found several of the kids that we spend time with each summer and December.

So this morning I added a few of the recent "graduates" - these are 16-17 year-olds that are typically in a trade school.

I found my friend Alexey and added him to my friend list. Within just a few moments I hear a "clack". I got a message from him!

Now, my browser of choice is Google Chrome and I have Google Translate (GT) functioning in the background. In an instant I see the Russian become English! I quickly opened a new tab and clicked my link to GT. I tapped a message and copy/pasted it to reply to Alexey.

Then I asked, "Do you see my response in Russian or English?"

He responds..."Russian, of course. ???" Like, "Well duh!"

Like me, Alexey is
a goalkeeper also.

All I'm saying is "Praise God" for all of man's ingenuity and technology. He has made it possible for me to stay in contact with kids that I know and love 5,000 miles away! God is good. Always. All the time.












P.S. he wants to know when we are coming back. ;)

Some of my favorite December trip photos from

Linda and Vika

Me and Yana

Arthur and Sasha in Saul's armor

King Arthur

Queen Sveta

Vika 

Akmed

Team Sim 12/2011

With Anya and Vika at the Central Internacht

Three old ladies

Nastya and Nastya

sasha and Kolya

Angelika and Sveta

Linda and I with Aida

My favorite "1"

Aida wanted a message written on her arm. (She's peeking)

Kolya, me, Akmed, and Sasha hangin.

Me and "Azhmed"

Violetta

Linda, Arthur and their group

I laughed so hard. Joseph's brothers roughing him him up.

Linda and her baby

Me and Violetta

Me and some of the group

Linda and Angelika

Nastya and some little ones

Me and Adile

Little ones

Akmed

zhora

Nastya's

Christy and Linda

Sasha and Sasha

Dear TeamSim friends:

The December 2011 team just returned from Simferopol a few days ago. What a blessing the trip was. My wife, Linda, joined me for the first time in this ministry. Along with Donelson Chuirch of Christ member Christy Blazer. Our 3-man team joined with some of our Ukrainian team members Anastasia (Nastya) Skovorodnykova, Sasha Lifentseva, Masha Yermochenkova, Violetta Alimova, and our dear friend and lead mentor Arthur Kazaryan. 

TeamSim - December 2011 (L-R: Nastya S., Joel, Linda, Sasha,
Christy, Masha, and Arthur Kazaryan.

Together we hosted as many as 42 orphaned children at the Simferopol City Children's Home (Gorodskoi Detskyi Dom) directed Mrs. Yelena Nabiyevna. We met each afternoon for a little over 2 hours. We taught lessons about the transforming power of God’s grace and love through Romans 12:2. We also played games and worked on crafts together.

Violetta with her kids

Stuck on the elevator

One of my "1's"

Nastya with some little ones.

We were blessed to see many of the same children that we have come to know and love at the children’s home. Hugs were being given everywhere as the unconditional love of Christ overflowed onto the children and staff from our team and mentors.

Linda and Arthur with their group

In addition we spent several hours visiting some of our past team members, Anya Goliakova and Viktoria Vdovychencko, who are now on staff at the Simferopol Central Internacht for Girls. The government-run boarding school is for orphaned, abandoned and at-risk girls ages 5-17. We were able to meet with the director and secure an invitation to work with the children in that facility. Please keep Anya and Vika in your prayers. Weekly suicide attempt is a common event there. Anya and Vika have a monumental task in showing these girls their value in Christ. It was a blessing to pray over them as a team.

L-R: Linda, Joel, Anya G, Christy, Arthur, Vika

One highlight for me personally was hearing from my old friend Igor. He was 14 when we first met at Camp Satera in Alushta. He was incorrigible. Over the next few years, we worked at the Gvardiskoi Village orphanage where he lived. I saw a growing and maturing in Igor. He is now living and attending trade school in Kherson. He regularly talks with Nastya by phone. Ironically he often encourages her when she is struggling by telling her God will handle it. I was so blessed to talk with him by phone. Fatyma Alimova showed me a recent photo on her cell phone. He looks so grown up at 18. God has his hands on him.

Return trip planned: In June 2012 I’ll be leading a team to return to Simferopol to continue and expand the ministry there. The tentative plan is to depart in early June for a trip lasting 15 days. The team will plan to minister to children in two facilities: The Gorodskoi Children’s Home (Detskyi Dom) and the Central Internacht. The team recruiting goal is 6 team members with 6-8 mentors.

Basics:
Team recruiting goal: 6 members (US); 6-8 Mentors (UKR)
Tentative dates: June 5-19
Approx. Funding needed: $3200 (per person)
Funding deadlines:

- Initial deposit ($250) Jan 15

- 50% - March 15

- 100% - April 15

Please begin prayerfully considering joining the team. The deadline for joining is January 15. Team training begins Janauary 15.

Please contact me for more detailed information. We’ll hold an informational meeting in late December or early January of which I’ll communicate the exact date soon. In teh meantime. feel free to contact me anytime by phone, text, or email.

You CAN make a difference in the life of an abandoned or at-risk child, today. Join us. Change the way you see and think.

In Him.
Joel
Joel Butts
Orphan outreach ministry volunteer
and partner with Donelson Church of Christ
and YouthReach International

prophet1961@bellsouth.net
615-429-3320

Websites:
http://www.donelsonchurch.org
http://www.youthreach.org

Update - 12 NOV, 2011

Anya Goliakova

The excerpt below comes from my friend Georges Carillet. He is President of Commonwealth International University in Simferopol, Ukraine (Crimea). Georges is one of the many contacts I've made there during the years I've spent ministering to orphans there. In fact Georges has indirectly impacted our team's ability to minister in Simferopol. He began teaching the Gospel many years ago through the university he and his wife LaVergne, founded. Several of our team mentors came to know Christ because of Georges and LaVergne.
Below, Georges speaks of two young women who work in a state run orphan facility. Our team worked in this same orphanage in December, 2010. These two young ladies, Anya Goliakova and Viktoria (Vika) Vdovychenko, are also members of our team and have served as YouthReach 12-3-1 Mentors. Please read Georges article and keep Anya and Vika in your prayers.

It is our hope that they will be able to join us this December as we journey to Simferopol.

From Georges Carillet - CIU Newsletter....

Vika Vdovichenko

"Another prayer request: orphans and those who work with them. Our two Disney interns that returned in the summer were looking for work with college students and children. Recently they found work in a state orphanage boarding school in Simferopol. Caring social work is always demanding and stressful, but add to that the corruption that they see and it is almost overwhelming. Allegedly, even the Ministry of Education is using the orphanage school to launder money and otherwise do financially corrupt things. Makes it hard for the kids to get the chance that they need. One of the results: they found most of the kids without soap and shampoo. Hopeful Hearts (Kathy Drane) found out about the need and bought soap and shampoo for the 80 to 100 kids.

By the way, these two young women exemplify the kind of fruit that CIU has been blessed to help cultivate. Disney invited them to become their employees but they chose to return to Ukraine to seek paid ministry positions, of which there are very few and are poorly paid. For several months they were -- as they were when they were our students -- unpaid volunteers working with college students and orphans. Then a "paid ministry" position came up for one of them and then the other at the same orphanage. "Ministry" because these young women understand that that is what God calls them to; "paid" because they are paid something as employees of the state, though not enough to live on. Pray for them and "their children."

One of these 'ministers' came to Christ at CIU and was baptized by me just two years ago (featured in our October 6, 2009 newsletter). Pray for CIU's unique ministry in fulfilling the Great Commission in Ukraine -- making disciples of Christ who make disciples of Christ."

Grace and Peace.
Joel

Update 9/30/11

Me and my old high school
friends Amy, Bob, and Twila.

September has been sort of milestone month for me. Namely, the 27th marked my 50th birthday. I remember as a kid trying to imagine being 50 and trying to calculate what year it would be when turned fifty. I remember watching the old 1970 Charleton Heston classic movie, “Planet of the Apes.” I wondered about the idea of me turning fifty. It was so far in the future that surely the scenario in the movie would come true before I turned half a century!

Happily the planet was not overrun by apes in the early 21^st century. Instead, Linda conspired with several of my life-long best friends to surprise me for the weekend prior. We showed up at my folk’s house to drop the kids and the dogs. She had me believing we were going to a B&B for a weekend together (she’s so sneaky). Apparently my folks house in Hartsville WAS the B&B. We had a great weekend. She totally had the drop on me.

Viloetta, Arthur, and Masha
at the orphanage

The team continues to prepare for the December mission. We meet every Monday night to discuss plans for lessons, kick around ideas for crafts and gifts and spend some time in prayer over the work to be done. Tom Zvirgzds has been teaching us the Russian language for which we are eternally grateful. Linda and Christy are slowly getting it. I am finally beginning to understand verb forms and personal pronouns. And refresh my memory on vocabulary.

Funding for the December trip is a little slow, but getting there. The team is working diligently to raise awareness of the need for support. Plans for lessons are coming together week by week. Linda nd Christy are coming up with great ideas.

Arthur Kazaryan (YouthReach International) traveled to Simferopol on the 28th. He arrived the next day to provide a September birthday program at the children’s home. Many of our mentors joined him including, Nastya Skovorodnykova, Violetta Alimova, Masha Yermachnkova, Sasha Lifintseva, Anya Goliakova and Vika Vdovichenko. It was great to have nearly all our mentors back in one place. They brought several new friends with them. Arthur took plenty of photos (See photo album SeptemberBirthday Program - 2011).

Anya and Aida

Anya and Vika have returned to Simferopol after a one year internship program at Disney in the U.S. Anya has a new job teaching English at the Central Orphanage in Simferopol. Vika is volunteering with a local Christian student outreach organization and seeking funding. See the link to her blog, “Jesus Inside”, at the right.

Fatyma Ametova was visiting with friends from Kentucky.

One of our mentors, Nastya Dudenichenko, is now in Germany working as an au pair. Please add her to your prayers as she adjusts to life in that country and a new job.

Kids from Feodosia

Masha Yermachenkova sent a photo from the orphanage in Feodosia.

Please continue to pray that our needs are met, that plans will continue to come together, soil will be prepared, and lives will be changed. As always please keep our mentors: Nastya S, Nastya D, Masha, Violetta, Fatyma, Anya, Vika, Sasha in your prayers

To donate to the December mission team, visit our team funding website:

http://www.youthreach.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=993793&lis=1&kntae993793=6A212B4006364A1AA3161C608D14FB62&supId=0&team=4826230&cj=Y

Peace and grace.

Joel

143 Million orphans worldwide …you can help.

TEAMSIM

Mission to Simferopol, Ukraine

Team update

Dear family & friends,

According to UNICEF, it is estimated that there are over 143 million orphans worldwide. An orphan, by definition, is a child who has lost one or both parents. Add to that number the millions of social orphans and abandoned children.

Seems over-whelming doesn't it? Almost immobilizes you, right? The numbers are too big to imagine. Seems like a problem that's so big it can't be fixed.

You might even ask yourself, "What can I do? How can I make a difference?" Well, just keep reading….

During the last six years I’ve been partnering with YouthReach International and  traveling to Ukraine to minster to orphans and abandoned children. I've witnessed ONE CRITICAL MISSING ELEMENT in their lives — RELATIONSHIP!

For them, relationship means the difference between life and death; between hope and hopelessness.

In Ukraine, at the young age of 16-17, children "age out" of the orphanage system. Every year during the spring following their 16^th or 17^th birthday, teenagers are ceremoniously turned out on the street with “great pomp”.

Some of these kids won't survive to see the next summer because they will choose to end their own lives out of despair. Many will be homeless, jobless, helpless, hopeless, unskilled and unprepared for life with no one to turn to. Most will be addicted, prostituted, turn to crime, go to jail, or become a statistic in the human-trafficking industry. Many will die from exposure, disease, violence, or suicide before age 21.

As you may already know, I'll be leading a mission team this December and we'll be returning to Simferopol, Crimea in Ukraine. My wife Linda and I, along with Christy Blazer, are currently preparing to depart on December 1, 2011.

Imagine a child who has no family with which to celebrate the holidays. Imagine no gifts or Christmas treats. Imagine there is no one to share the story of Christ' miraculous birth on a cold winter's night. Our mission is to teach and provide life-giving relationship to 50 or so children in a day camp setting living in a local children's home.

Our goal is to continue the work we began 4 years ago in developing and maintaining relationships with institutionalized orphaned and abandoned children in Simferopol, Crimea. We will partner with local Ukrainian Christians we call 12-3-1 Mentors. We work together to share the story of our hope in Jesus Christ and connect them with a local young adult mentor who speaks their language. Our team mentors will continue teaching and discipling our kids throughout the year.

Help us share the story of salvation and bring hope to the hopeless. Help us bring relationship into the lives of children who desperately need your help.

We currently have travel costs of $2700 and mentor costs of $900 totaling $3600. We will host a holiday party and provide each child with an age-appropriate Bible of their own and a gift bag (see “Support a Child at camp” below).

Funding Deadlines:

$1800 (50%) due Sept 30

$1800 (100%) due Oct 31

To donate securely on-line: visit our funding website hosted by Blackbaud. Click the link or copy/paste the URL into your browser.

http://www.youthreach.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=993793&lis=0&kntae993793=179E92BE63D54C4EB948E4BB29A09B80&supId=0&team=4826230&cj=Y

Find the list of names on the right and click the name of the team member you wish to support. You may also click “General Team Donation.”

To support a child at camp (Check Only): Make a check payable to Donelson Church of Christ. Attach a note stating Ukraine Winter Camp Child Sponsorship. Individuals, families, classes or study groups can support each of our 50 children at winter camp for just$20/child. Your donation will cover art/craft supplies as well as a Christmas gift bag for each child. Mail checks to: Joel & Linda Butts, 2221 June Drive, Nashville, TN  37214.

Thanks for prayerfully considering supporting our effort.

Peace and Grace,

Joel

A Message from Linda

with YouthReach International

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1:27

After six years of putting Joel on an airplane and sending him overseas to work with orphans, God put it on my heart to join him this December.

I take this leap of faith because of what I don't have control over.  I don't know where all the funding will come from.  I don't know what kind of reception I will get from the children.  I don't know how I will handle all the traveling. I have to leave what I do in God's hand, and I don't know how God will use me.

What I do know is he "adopted" me as his own which means I was a spiritual orphan.  We've been studying on Sunday mornings to "be the church" which is the Body of Christ, so, I am going as his hands and feet to do
his will.

I'm asking for prayers that all will be done for His glory.

I have travel costs of $2700 and mentor costs of $900 totaling $3600. We will be working and sharing the hope of Christ with 50 or so orphans in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine.  We will host a holiday party and provide them with a gift (see “Support a Child at camp” below). 

Funding Deadlines: $1800 (50%) due Sept 30 / remaining $1800 (100%) due Oct 31.

Donate Online (Secure): TeamSim Funding Website
Click:
- Current Teams (on the left)
- Team Funding Pages
- Sponsor a Team Member
- Enter a team member name in the fields

Support a child at camp: Make this check payable to Donelson Church of Christ. Attach a note stating Ukraine Winter Camp Child Sponsorship. Individuals, families, classes or study groups can support each of our 50 children at winter camp for just$20/child. Your donation will cover art/craft supplies as well as a Christmas gift bag for each child. Mail checks to: Linda Butts, 2221 June Drive, Nashville, TN  37214.

Blessings and many thanks.

Linda

For He chose us . . . he predestined us to be adopted as his sons . . . Ephesians 1:4