Hands of Hope has the amazing opportunity to travel to different parts of the world to visit our partner children's homes. Below is a story from our Hands of Hope trip to Ukraine by an amazing woman named Cara. We hope this inspires you to "share the love" by helping us with our upcoming supply drive, going on a future trip yourself, or even getting involved locally!
It’s time to catch our flights. It’s back to Ukraine again for me! What an amazing feeling of anticipation and expectation of the miracles I will see this year. You see, every trip, the Lord never disappoints me with a new example of how awesome and wonderful He is…how He orchestrates time and people to accomplish His plans. He never ceases to amaze me, and this year will not be any different.
We have an amazing team of eight this year. Four trip veterans and four newbies. Eight is a great number. It is the number of new beginnings. It is awe-inspiring how the Lord will create new beginnings in us during this trip both for the newbies and the trip alumni. New sights, sounds, experiences, and new miracles: faith and love. I love new love. Just when you think you can’t love more…there it goes. More love.
Love is powerful! Gods’ love is extraordinarily powerful. His love takes a team of eight people who really don't know each other that well and flies them more than 5,000 miles to meet three other ministry teams in order to serve the least of these.
Who are the least of these that the Bible talks about? Is it the special young men abandoned and sent out to Romaniv orphanage so many years ago or the people from all over that the Lord has sent and continues to send to serve them? After serving for just a few days, one of the new team members said, “These young men have taught me how to love.” Mind blowing isn’t it? One thing I have seen is that God is in it all and chooses who He uses. He sends teams from the US and Ukraine to minister to the young men at an orphanage out in the middle of nowhere, and He uses orphaned young men in the middle of nowhere to minister to us. One of many, many miracles.
Miracles. What miracles! My first trip to Romaniv was in 2008. I was a part of one of the first teams to go into Romaniv. I had never seen anything like it before. The conditions were deplorable to say the least. Fifteen or more boys would die every year, just from lack of heat or medical care…the young men were stuck here just because they were born with a disability. It's crazy to think that this is still happening in the world today. I left that year with a heaviness that I had never experienced before. I felt so hopeless–I started praying and asking the Lord to somehow help them. I didn’t know what that would look like, but I just kept on praying. I have seen so many miracles over the years. Teams of people going into the orphanage to help. Americans selling everything and moving there to help bring these young men out of the orphanage. I have seen some of these young men be adopted. It's amazing! I never would have dreamt back in 2008 that this would be happening.
Now we have returned home to America carrying this great new love to our family and friends. We're continuing to tell the boys' story, so that love will continue to flow in Romaniv. Miracles are still happening thanks to our wonderful Lord and the calling of Hands of Hope. I am so thankful to Hands of Hope for continuing to champion these gifted young men. I can’t wait until our next trip so I can see all the new miracles and new love that the Lord has in store!
-Cara Fry
Hands of Hope holds a supply drive during the month of August to collect items which we distribute to local foster care children and our partner orphanages, both at home and around the world. A collection bin is located at Grace Church in Noblesville, Indiana or you can email us to arrange pick up. Click below to learn more!