And This One Matters......: March 2012

Saturday, March 10, 2012

And Were Off On A Mission To Ukraine!

Dear Friends & Family,

As you know reaching out to the forgotten, neglected or lost youth is near and dear to our hearts. We love serving with the youth here at the local skatepark and reaching and ministering to them but we also know God has called us much further out and that is to serve and love the orphans of Ukraine.

We are so so blessed that our son, Kolya would want to take this awesome leap of faith and return to the country he left to start a new life and go back into what was once his life and minister to these children. He is chomping at the bit to go back to Ukraine to help the orphaned children with me, so it time!

Kolya and I will be heading to Yevpatoriya in Crimea to be joining a ministry team with NLM (New Life Ministries) July 30th to August 14th, 2012. On this mission trip we will be working with orphans and local children that live with their families in the poorer villages. The age group we will be working with is 10 to 14 years old. Remember the good old days of CHRISTIAN CAMP? This is what we will be doing! We will be digging into the word of God with these children at a deeper level, explaining it more thoroughly. We will work with the children on memory verses and even homework. Yes we will do homework. We will have skits (drama) to give the children a deeper physical understanding of bible stories. The team will lead small groups to get to know the children better individually. And free time to have more one on one time with these children in hopes they will feel free to open up more. And of course LOVE ON THEM, LOVE ON THEM and LOVE ON THEM!

We ask that you would pray for Kolya and I, the staff (leadership) and the children on this mission trip. Our prayers for this trip is that God would use Kolya and I in any way he needs us. That he would put us specifically where he needs us at any given time. That we would be a light and reflection of him in everything we do. That Kolya returning to his home country his heart would be protected and he would continue to have the same drive and passion he has now to return there so badly to share Christ with these children. That God would grow both of us spiritually and have a deeper more intimate relationship with Christ. For the wisdom and guidance of the leaders of the camp that Christ will speak through them to reach into these childrens and our lives. For the children that they be willing to come with open hearts to learn Gods word and be loved on. For the stubborn ones that are closed that God will use whomever he calls to help reach into their closed hearts and minds so that they may find him. For the protection of our "Camp". Serving with orphans I have seen Satan at work more then ever. We have recently experienced this by Sergiy not returning home with us that there is nothing Satan will not do to destroy and orphans chance of hope, life, love and knowing Christ. I ask for your prayer in our "Camp" meaning the whole entire camp and ministry that we are all protected under Gods umbrella to reach into these childrens lives. Prayer that there is no division with any families serving together on this mission trip, division with the leadership, division with the kids, staff and volunteers. THAT THERE IS NO DIVISION PERIOD! Prayer for the heath and safety travels of the team. All of these children have a different story, but there is one fact that remains......they are Gods precious chosen children. They are His!

We are in need of raising $5150.00 for both of us to go to Ukraine on this mission trip. We have seen God make the impossible seem possible and we are excited for Kolya to witness this as we put our trust in the Lord to not only meet our financial needs but the needs of this specific mission. Oh how I love seeing God at work!

All donations are tax deductible. If you would prayerfully consider helping support us financially all checks can be made out to NLM (New Life Ministries). I have been asked to have all checks mailed to my home address so when all funds are raised I can send it all in at one time to the ministry. Please see below my home address. Or you can donate through paypal to my email at diveshark@yahoo.com. Please know that should you donate through paypal it will go directly to Kolya and I and not through the ministry for tax purposes.

If you would like to read and learn more about NLM the ministry we will be serving with please visit:

http://www.nlminfo.org/

There is nothing more precious to me as a mother to be able serve my Lord and Savior with my awesome son, Kolya he has blessed us with. Amen to that!

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

In Jesus,

Nicole & Kolya

DONATION Thank You's!

Brian and Melissa Macy

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Can You Help Us Launch "Camp Friendship" In Order To Reach The Orphans From Kolya's Hometown?

We are so excited as a family because this is going to be a Ukraine summer! Kolya and Nicole are in prayer about serving in Ukraine with orphans and children from the poorer villages with one of two different ministries we are looking at. Then Nicole will be heading out in August/September with NHFC on the team trip to interview the kiddos! Can't wait! Then yes another then.....I know I love it, a Ukraine summer. Then a friend of our that runs a local orphan hosting ministry Kolya and I this year will help out again in any way we can with the kiddos while they are here. Total blessing! Love it!

No matter which camp the Lord leads us to we want to we want to get the word out to help our dear friend, Anton Marchenko that is trying to launch "Camp Friendship" again. Camp Friendship is near and dear to our families heart. Not only because it was held in the region in which Kolya was raised but because he went there yearly and accepted the Lord in to his life at the camp. This camp is so near and dear to him. We have met many folks that have served at the camp and heard and saw all the fruitful photos of our son and all the kids and their experiences. While in Ukraine adopting Kolya, Joe and I walked the old campus of Camp Friendship with Anton and it tugged at our hearts to see it closed. You could feel the memories there. Camp Friendship closed last summer and Anton is on the move to get it back up and running again. He is almost more then 1/2 there to getting the supplies and funds needed to launch this camp this summer. I am so excited! So please take a look at all the work he has done and time he has poured into building this website and all the details of the camp, mission and the needs to launch this puppy this summer for a month.

Please visit: http://friendship.lg.ua/project_camp/camp_needs/

Here are videos of Camp Friendship and the impact it had:

Here are some pictures of Kolya at Camp Friendship so you can see what how awesome it was for our boy!

Yup that my boy biting his lip zoning out! (:

Kolya at the bottom right


John Grimes his teacher hugging on the boys!

Poor little guy!

After 2 years of LeAnn founder of New Horizons For Children going to Kolya's boarding school and always seeing him smiling at her in the background but never interviewed she knew she had to to ask his director for an interview with him. THANK HEAVENS SHE DID! We will forever be grateful to LeAnn to taking the chance on asking his director and on Kolya. This one mattered and matters!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Changing "And This One Matters" Purpose

As I sit here and re-vamp the entire blog I made for Sergiy I am going through our hosting photos of Sergiy. It is a bitter loss but I feel joy when I see the smile on his face knowing he got to experience love, Christ and I can only pray hope for his future. Oh how I love and miss him and to know God loves him even more. I know in my heart we did all we could for him so I cannot and I don't live in the "what if". I try to live my life in such a way that "what if" is never a factor. That is why we returned for him. With all this "And this one matters" does not end with us not adopting Sergiy it is only the beginning of what is to come. Do I know what is to come, have no clue but my God does so I rest in that. The title in itself reminds me of all the little ones I interviewed while in Ukraine for Sergiy that asked for me to find them a family, would yell at me "I want to go to America", would cry during the interview, would grin ear to ear at me, that are surviving and hoping for a better tomorrow or don't even know there is a "better". This is for all the ones I met on my trips to Ukraine, each and every one of them matter to God. They matter to me. They are the star fish on the shore and just need someone to care enough to show them hope and love. So this website is now being dedicated to all the orphans that matter to God. This blog will now be our NHFC adventures, our missions trips to Ukraine, stories of the children and folks we meet, hostings we do, any future adoptions the Lord may lead us to. It will just be an open blog of what all God will lay before us with these children he calls "His"!

May God bless you all and thank you so much for all your support and prayers!

What Does Nicole Mean By Advocating For Orphans?

So glad you asked! In Ukraine many hosting programs are shutting down. The reason being is boarding schools (orphanages) are being condensed the more the foster care system grows in Ukraine. This leaves the school Directors in fear of losing their jobs if they do not hold a specific number of children in their boarding school. Then the threat of shut down looms over their heads. The second reason is with hosting programs that means many children will find their forever families which means again the number of children falls under what is required for the school to remain open. It is a double edge sword. You have many Directors that want their children adopted but then they know if they loose their job they cannot support their family. It is not easy in Eastern Europe to find a job in a couple days. Especially with the current climate Ukraine is in with war at hand.

5 years ago Nicole started to notice the decline in hosting programs being allowed to continue to bring children over to America. With the adoption of their children, especially their 2 littles ones Nicole & Joe knew they did not have the allotted time needed to dedicate to volunteer with NHFC and not be able to give it their all like they had done in the past. They did not want to fail the NHFC team. So they resigned and Nicole went freelancing in Ukraine. On Gods timing, when she was able, wherever God lead and with the team God put together. On these trips Nicole, her son Kolya and/or the team would teach children English, teach them about Jesus, love on them and then fight for them. Meaning if a child or boarding school staff came to Nicole and said this child wanted a family Nicole would interview them and spend as much time with them as possible to get to know them personally. Nicole would do this in an effort to learn as much as possible to help advocate for the child in hopes their forever family would come forward. Nicole would learn the good and bad in an effort to be upfront and honest with a potential adoptive family.

Nicole is not an adoption agency, a hosting agency, nor a professional and she does not work for anyone accept God. She is a gal after God's heart and children, a stay at home Mama that has worked with teens for 20 years and this is her heart and passion.

Why Ukraine Nicole?

In Eastern Europe it is very different then America. In America if a child is in the foster care system they can remain with their family for care until they are 18 years old. In America there is opportunity for just about everyone even if it is working at McDonalds. You are not labeled as an "Orphan". In Eastern Europe an orphaned children is basically wearing a stamp his/her their forehead that says "Orphan". It is like a permanent tattoo that is with them for life and never washes off not only in their mind but to others. They are not wanted or welcomed in many cases. On a trip to Ukraine a sign was spotted that stated "No orphans allowed" that was posted up on the door of a store. At the age of 16 these children age out of their boarding schools and have a choice of trade school or the streets. Most of them have no family to turn to. So just imagine a 16 year old child left to their own with NO accountability. With the economic crises and war in Eastern Europe the children that have extended family like Grandpa, Grandma, a sister or a brother cannot afford to take in the child so they only visit. If the child should choose to go to trade school it generally consists of coal mining, hair dressing, etc. Even with that in school the kids again are accountable to themselves and if they do not hold up their grades they are on the streets. If they graduate they still are stamped "Orphaned". So should they apply for a job with many other folks they will be the ones tossed because of this label. So their chances of graduating trade school and then getting a job are slim to known unless they are one determined child. The trade school housing for the kids is old hospitals that are now used as dorms. If a child is not back to their dorm by 10PM they are locked out for the night and they will call the streets then bedroom. Many children have been noted to say that they are scared to be in the trade school dorms because of the violence, rap, prostitution, drugs and alcohol. One child was noted to say that he would find kids shooting up drugs in the hallway and passed out. He bought a gun illegally in order to be able to protect himself of the unknown there. Then you have the rebels that take the world on by themselves that either at this point in their life want to live independently and not report to anyone or just cannot handle the trade school life and want nothing to do with it. So they take the streets to make it. They generally fall into becoming thieves, go into prostitution or commit suicide in order to survive. No matter how you flip this coin the statistics are grim from these children. They are all survivors doing just that.......surviving.

There is such a significant need all over the world even in America. Joe and I were foster parents and have served with youth in the US for our entire marriage and Nicole prior to marriage. God steered Joe and Nicole on a different path when they were introduced to NHFC and adopted their first son, Kolya from Ukraine. God has continued to call them to Ukraine in an effort to reach the voiceless and give them a voice, hope and love. God calls each of us to a specific place, time and season to do His work as Christians. God has shifted their call to Ukraine.....for the time being. Again they go where God leads where ever it may be.

Meet The Dewberrys

The Dewberrys came together as a family after hosting their now 18 year old now son, Kolya from Ukraine during Christmas 2010 through an International hosting program called New Horizons For Children, Inc.

In the midst of hosting Kolya, Joe and Nicole felt the Lord was going to lead them through more then just hosting in Ukraine. Nicole and Joe was were blessed to work with NHFC as a volunteer Regional Directors in North Carolina for the orphan hosting program. Nicole realized that in time there seemed to be a decline to host children from Ukraine with all the politics that was abounding in Ukraine. So she felt a lead to break away from hosting and go where God leads to travel to Ukraine and be wide open to God to lead her to orphanages to met children that could no longer be hosted and advocate to find them forever families that were aging out. For the last 6 years Nicole has been traveling to Ukraine several times a year to teach English in orphanages, teach the children about Jesus, show them the love of Christ and advocate for true orphans that want a forever family. Nicole brings aid to the Ukraine military, visiting the military in the hospitals as well as meeting active duty and on the field military and serving with mission teams the local folks that remain in regions that are devastated by war with her oldest son Misha. The Dewberrrys children have returned with Nicole to Ukraine on many occasions to serve the people of their country.

Kids are Joe and Nicole's love and passion. Nicole has worked with teens for 22 years. Joe and Nicole together have done mission work with youth and have specifically worked with at-risk youth and in church youth ministry for 17 years. The Dewberrys arms are wide open to show the love they have for the lost and forgotten youth.

The Lord lead them back to Ukraine in 2012 to adopt Tania, 10 years old & Stopha who is 8 years old and are HIV+. In 2014 the Lord lead the Dewberrys back to Ukraine to adopt Bogdan 12 years old who is HIV+ and Angelica 19 years old and Kristjan 16 years old. Then in 2015 the Dewberry's returned for Vova 16 years old and Viktor 12 years old. None of the Dewberrys children would not be home without the prayers and the hands of feet of Christ of folks coming alongside their family to see their children home and also all the mission trips Nicole has been on.

Nicole and her children continue to return to Ukraine to do mission work advocating for orphans that want forever families, teaching them about Jesus, teaching them English as well as doing doing mission work with the military and regions of devastation by serving those left behind.

With the greater increase in adoptions which is amazing there is also a greater need for support for adopted children and their families. Nicole is now working with Hope Connection International holding classes and support groups to teach pre-adoption classes, connect families that have adopted within the US and abroad and work with families in crises to help prevent disruption.

Our family prayer is to go where God leads.

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

About This Blog

This blog is dedicated to our heart and soul, the orphans that cannot speak out of Eastern Europe. This blog is about our journey of the adoption of our children, the mission work we do in Eastern Europe, advocating for orphans and wherever God leads our family.

This blog is also about the trials and tribulations we have faced with hosting, adopting, missions work already and yet to come. The grace, mercies and restorations of our hearts and minds. The incredible friendships God has provided along the way. About our missions trips to Ukraine working with orphans. The blessings of when Nicole volunteered with New Horizons For Children as Regional Director. All our crazy stories & adventures we have had along the way here in America and in Ukraine. And oh how we have adventures and stories! This blog is a dedication to our Lord and Savior encompassing the one thing he treasures more then anything, His children.....the orphans.