A Family Again

CBN.com Terry Meeuwsen recently had the opportunity to present five orphans with a special gift… the gift of a new home. Here she tells her story.

To be together again is what these five children have all dreamed of. Today was the day it was going to happen.

Before they went to live at the orphanage,  Katerina, her two brothers and two sisters suffered abuse at the hands of their alcoholic father.

When Katerina and I walked through this broken down place in rural Ukraine – a place the children once called home, she remembered what would happen when they tried to help their mother.

“If we tried to protect her, he would throw us out,” Katerina recalls, “and we had to find a place to spend the night.”

Eventually, their mother died, and their father ran off. An orphanage took the children in.  There, under Katerina’s watchful eye, they all did well.  But after a few years, Katerina  was too old to stay at the orphanage and was forced to leave her  brothers and sisters behind.

When Katerina left, she found a factory job a few towns away from the orphanage.  She hoped to save enough from her small salary so that one day she could bring all the children to live with her. For the last year she’s lived in one room furnished with nothing but a single bed.  With rent to pay and food to buy, saving anything was virtually impossible.

Then Operation Blessing stepped in to help….

First, we bought Katerina and the children a simple house.  The cost?  About $2,000.

Then, with help from the orphanage staff,  we began to renovate and decorate until the little house became a home.  Katerina was the first to see it.  

Soon a van pulled up with Katerina’s four brothers and sisters. Katerina stepped up to greet them, and I had the chance to share the good news with all the children.  

“This is your new house. You are going to be able to live here with your sister. You are never going to have to live apart from each other again!  Let’s go see your house!”

As I watched their little faces, it is a moment I will not forget -- walking with the children as they explored their new home.  Of course, Katerina’s brother Costia couldn’t stop smiling as he thought about what this would mean for his sisters and brother.     

“It means we’ll be able to spend time together and get to know each other and have the joy of being a family,” he says.

Katerina adds, “My brothers and sisters and I thank you and the Lord Jesus and everyone who helped us.  We are very grateful. Thank you.”

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