The Kohtla-Nomme Orphanage

When we arrived late on Sunday evening, most of the kids were already in bed. We were shown our rooms and then several of the counselors wanted to know more about us. They had only been told that some “English” people will be staying with them for a week. We told them about ourselves and what we would be doing. Everyone was friendly and hospitable.

The next morning we waited until the kids departed for school so we wouldn’t interfere with their morning routine and then we spent the morning planning our day and having another meeting with the head counselor. She called the orphanage director in Sillamae to coordinate our times with the kids. It was arranged that we would work with the orphans in Sillamae from 5pm – 6pm, travel the 45 minutes back to Khotla-Nomme, eat at 7pm and then at 7:30pm begin our work with the orphans there. All orphanages have fairly rigid schedules with kids in school, homework time, and special activities or clubs like dance, music, and other interest classes that we have to compete with. So scheduling work at two separate orphanages is often difficult.

The first two days in Kohtla-Nomme was difficult as the kids had never had anyone stay with them. Many didn’t want to have anything to do with us. They had had groups in there before that would “preach” to them for an hour, pass out some small gifts, and then leave. The kids didn’t want to be preached to. However, our approach has always been to do games and activities with the kids relating to the Bible truth we were wanting to share. It took a couple of days, but by Wednesday we had a group of core kids that would participate in what we were doing and would listen to our story after an interesting game.

Thursday was an interesting day. When it was time to be with the kids, most of them were out walking, sitting on a picnic table out front smoking and listening to music on a cell phone, or poking the fire where they were burning brush. There was only a handful in the room to begin our activities. So, I had the others start the craft activity and I went out to stand with them to see if I could encourage them to join us. The head counselor and her sister who lived nearby was there along with some fo the kids. The translators were upstairs, so I used my limited Russian skills to tell about my family, where I was from and to ask them about their lives. After about 20 minutes I told the head counselor that I was discouraged that more kids didn’t want to be with us. She seemed to understand and I left to return back to our group. She must have rounded up the kids and strongly encouraged them to come be with us. So, another 8-10 kids came in and I told a Bible story. It led to some questions and we had a heavy discussion about faith in God.

One girl named Karina was a believer and several older boys in our meeting were atheist. She passionately defended her faith and this led to our lively discussion! With the help of our translators, I let the discussion go on so that questions could be answered. Several conversations were going on at once and even the translators were having difficulty giving me bits and pieces of the general subject of discussion. We were amazed when Karina went to her room and came back with her Bible. She read the chapter we were discussing in the Estonian language! This all set the stage for our final day.

On Friday evening, I wasn’t sure what would happen. It seemed that on Thursday the lines were drawn as to who believed in God and who did not. I’m sure the discussion of religion had never been brought up before in a group setting. But now it was Friday and the moment was set to share the gospel. We played a game, and then I sat them down to talk about it and how the game related to faith in God. They listened as I made the short comparison. The moment was right and created a perfect lead-in to share the Gospel. Tony Leone was ready with his EvangeCube. It was amazing to see how they listened quietly and were intrigued by the cube. It was also amazing that there were no interruptions!

The seeds of Gospel truth were planted that week and I’m sure there will be more lively discussions as they think about their relationship with God. That evening we gave them some small gifts bags that we had prepared for them. We also gave them Bibles of their own that were donated by the local church we were working with. I encouraged them to discover the truth inside that book, but that it was their choice and decision. Knowing how youth keep things private, I told them that if they prayed to God and asked Him into their lives… even while lying alone in bed at night… He will hear their prayers. I may never know if those words encouraged them to choose Christ, but I do know that there are orphans at Kohtla-Nomme that now know how to have eternal life.