|
Cullowhee Baptist helps homeless children in Ukraine
By Justin Goble
The small town of Bucha, Ukraine, is the last place one would expect to find people from Cullowhee.
But members of Cullowhee Baptist Church have been working in the town for two years to build homes for homeless children throughout the area. Called Village of Hope, construction is almost complete, and workers are starting to house kids on-site.
According to Cullowhee Baptist’s pastor, the Rev. Jeff Vickery, who serves on the International Board of Supervisors for the Village of Hope, the church’s work is part of a much larger, multi-national effort.
Cullowhee Baptist Church pastor Jeff Vickery, right, spends time with Sasha, one of the first children to find a home at the Village of Hope camp in Buccha, Ukraine. The camp was leased by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship more than two years ago to provide housing for homeless children in the nearby city of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital and largest city. Vickery said construction at the camp began in 2003, and is nearing completion. Once the site is fully operational, officials hope to house between 80 and 100 kids.
CBS has been involved since 2003, and so far has sent two mission teams over, Vickery said. Along with those teams, he said Sylva First Baptist Church has sent two as well, and they’re planning to send their third in August.
“There’s also workers and contributions from Germany and the Netherlands,” Vickery said. “I would say this is a mission project done with integrity, since no one person or group is trying to control everything.”
Initially, officials from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, who are overseeing the work, wanted to concentrate their efforts within the city of Kiev, the capital and largest city in Ukraine. However, Vickery said problems with the government caused them to look elsewhere.
“We’ve leased a camp 45 minutes West of Kiev,” Vickery said. “We wanted to buy a building in Kiev itself, but they don’t have private ownership over there. The government told us we could renovate buildings and use them how we saw fit, but they could revoke our lease at any point. Basically, that would have been a way for them to get a renovated building for free.”
Originally built and used as a Communist youth camp, the 14-acre site in Bucha was leased with money donated by Christians from Ukraine, North Carolina, and the Netherlands.
“The interesting thing is that, during Communist rule, the kids went to a certain camp according to what their parents did,” Vickery said. “I was told the kids that came to this camp were the children of bakers. It was kind of like a Boy Scout camp.”
The CBF’s global missions efforts helped connect Cullowhee Baptist with the Village of Hope. Though it would seem like a huge undertaking to get the pieces to fall in place, Vickery said things went as smooth as possible because of the mission network .
“We had contacts among Ukranian Baptists,” Vickery said. “The N.C. Baptist Association’s mission group got together and wanted to do something in that area. We were told there was a problem with street children, and the government wouldn’t recognize it. A German missionary got us in touch with missionaries in Ukraine, and we went from there. Baptists have been good about developing partnerships. Things like this have been going on for a long time. It’s not that unusual.
“Cullowhee Baptist has a long history of missions involvement here and overseas,” Vickery said. “A church can only learn to care about children far away if they have ministered to those close to home. It takes a healthy vision of what God is doing in the world to know that God is as interested in ministering to those in need in Jackson County, as well as those in other countries.”
Though much of the groups’ work has been dedicated to construction, Vickery said mission team members began to see the fruits of their labor this May mission team members began to see the fruits of their labors as the first two residents, young brothers named Sasha and Misha settled into their new home, safe from the streets.
“Everyone was looking forward to the first children coming to the camp,” Vickery said. “The most exciting part of this whole thing was when the missionaries over there called and told us the first children were coming to stay in the main house, which we call ‘the lighthouse.’ That was on a Saturday. We weren’t at home, so they left a message. My wife was so excited she took the answering machine to church the next day and played the message for the whole congregation. We continue to hear back from groups about Sasha and Misha.”
Now that the buildings are almost ready, missionaries can expand their efforts and start making the camp a home for the children coming in, Vickery said.
“This summer is the last summer where our focus is on construction,” Vickery said. “Once we have the lighthouse fully operational, we will be able to do other things. There might be a team that goes over to do construction after this, but we’ll have others that will go over to do Bible studies, teach sports, music, sewing, and other life skills. Cullowhee Baptist is hoping to go every summer, and if we can’t do that, then we’ll shoot for every other summer. We’ll also be sponsoring some of the expenses of the children in the lighthouse.”
When completed, the camp will be home to 80 to 100 children from the streets of Kiev. The next four children to find a home there have been placed in a temporary housing facility.
“Once all of the buildings are completed, we will still support the camp financially,” Vickery said. ”It costs $225 per month per child to operate the Village of Hope. As the money is available, more children will have a new home.”
Funding isn’t the only challenge workers will have to face, Vickery said. One big obstacle will be getting in touch with the kids that are still without homes.
“Most of the kids are still on the streets, and they’re hard to get to,” Vickery said. “While we were over in the Ukraine, they would come out at night, and we would go into town and see them. After a while, the kids started to feel like they were in a zoo and on display. So we had to be respectful of that. What we do by supporting the camp is support a coalition of workers in Kiev who help feed kids on the street every day.”
Though their efforts have had some benefit, Vickery said he and the other workers want to do more for homeless children in Kiev.
“I’m surprised that, as many times as I have been there, I continue to have this visceral reaction to the children as I watch them leave a day shelter where they ate lunch and head back into the streets,” Vickery said. “We want to give them a lot more than that. We want to give them a place to stay until they’re 17. That way, they won’t have to fight for survival.”
|
