Andrey Bondarev, a volunteer from Covenant Church of Novosibirsk has been participating in the 'Angel’s Christmas Tree' project for 6 years. This year he shared his story:
“Every year we bring presents through the municipal guardianship and custodianship agency. When we visit children during holidays, we inform the head of the agency in advance, then receive children’s addresses and only after that we go to them to give presents. This year our trip didn’t seem to begin in a good way. Our car broke down, and we spent three hours trying to fix it in conditions of Siberian winter.
When we continued out trip and called the head of the guardianship and custodianship agency, the phone appeared to be turned off. We decided to get there and we were very surprised when the head of the agency came to meet us, though nobody noticed her. She helped us with the addresses and talked to a foster mother of one of the children, who was against such visits. She agreed to let us visit her foster child!
We gave presents to the girl, and told her that her mother who is in prison remembers and loves her. Nobody could prevent us from saying the words of love to this girl. I have never seen such miracles in six years of participating in this project!
One of our purposes is expressed with the Bible verse: “And he shall turn the heart of the children to their fathers…” These words came alive in the life of this child so powerfully! Besides, that day we managed to visit 14 more children and for many of them it wasn’t our first visit. They invited their friends, knowing that we would come. From their experience of previous years, they said that joy comes with us. We are grateful to God for such an honor to be participants of the work of God.
Read more about the 'Angel’s Christmas Tree' project: angelproject.ru/
The Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith based on the Covenant Church web-site
