Blogging, what's that?

anyway,
this is it.
i've decided to try this.
blogging.

and i'll try to keep this up to date.
no promises, though.

anyway, to start out, i've been living in kyiv, ukraine for the past...close to two years now.
(typing without capitals is normal, it's not something that i've started doing since adapting to simpler english)

i work with an orphan's ministry called Key of Hope, under the larger missions organization known as Youth With a Mission.

So far, we have been working mostly around kyiv, visiting orphanages, with the greater vision of starting an orphan graduate home to give orphan graduates the possibility of a better education and environment and future. We have seen where the average orphan graduate ends up...in trade schools that are ill-equipped to properly train students for careers.

Back up, what is an orphan graduate?
an orphan graduate is a child who has grown up in the orphanage system, who finishes our equivalent to...10th grade, and then is released from the orphanage at age 15 or 16. Statistics commonly quoted, although i can't actually tell you where they come from, say that many of the orphans end up as prostitutes, involved with crime, and up to 10% commit suicide by the time they are 18.

So the vision of our ministry is to see some of these kids have a hope and a future by providing them with the material needs--a home, food, clothes, a big brother/sister, funding for their education--in order to give them an opportunity to gain the skills they will need for their careers.

Exciting, huh?
It is.

But my adventures will take me a slightly different direction.
in march, some women and i went to a small town called Uzhgorod, in ukraine on the border of slovakia. there i met for the first time, the orphanage there, in that town.

i heard the stories of how the girls were treated there.
i saw the girls.
i thought they were boys.
and my heart just cried.

so, next year, i am planning to go with a team of people, to see the possibilities of starting a home there in the future. specifically, my vision is to give girls there, from the orphanage, a safe environment for them to grow up, into young women, without having to fear becoming a woman, or despise being a woman.

so, you're catching me at the beginning of this vision.
it'll probably take quite awhile before it's realized.
there will probably be problems along the way.
and i'll probably get discouraged.
but i think i'll keep going.

i myself was an orphan.
i was given a great gift: parents, a loving and supportive home, family, a positive environment, and value as a child, as a woman.
well, that's many gifts.
i was always told i could do anything.
this is what i want to do.
to help others.
to give them a chance at doing whatever they want to do.
to chase dreams.

idealistic, i'm sure.
so what?

see you soon.