Day Four

Vladimir Children's Hospital

With Barskoe's door closed, we now had the gifts we needed for the sick kids at the hospital!  Believe it or not, this is the second time we purchased toys for one location only to have them redirected when we arrived in Russia.  The first time were going to the women's prison to give Christmas to the children of prisoners.  In Russia, a mom is allowed to have her child in prison with her until age 6.  We brought almost 100 toys for kids all ages to take to the prison. These were toys we would have given to our grandchildren.

Bam!  Did you hear that?  The Orthodox church slammed the door in our face, we were told we could have the homeless and the orphans, but the prisons were theirs.  Undaunted we called the Vladimir Children's Hospital and asked if we could come visit.  It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  We are on our SECOND Christian administrator who loves Treasures.  They have allowed us complete permission to give Bibles, share Jesus, and pray for the kids and parents.  There is no way to express how rare an opportunity this is in a state run hospital in the heartland of Russia.

We were scheduled to visit the hospital on Friday, but on the way back from Murom the administrator called, "Could we come Wednesday instead of Friday?"  On Friday we were going empty handed, but now we had super toys for the young ones, watches and jewelry for the older kids.  Each child was given a Bible along with their toy.

We were invited into a 5 bed ward where a 15 year old girl's head was completely bandaged.  She had received an electrical burn to the side of her face.  Tanya was able to share with her as she smiled through the bandage.  We visited and prayed for each child and told them about the truth in the Bible they were given.