Visiting Stara Basan Graduates

On June 11 (Pentecost), after a two-month break, Oksana (and her husband, Serhiy) finally had an opportunity to meet with our Stara Basan graduates.

Artem B. and Nastia M. live in the Kobyzhcha village in the Chernihiv region. It’s about 150 kilometers from Kyiv. Since we couldn’t meet during the whole period of quarantine, we did our best to communicate by phone. However, Nastia’s phone was out of order and we couldn’t communicate with her at all.

Oksana regularly tried to support and help the teenagers when they had a need, but not everything can be resolved over the phone. These young people are from poor families and this time of quarantine has left them and their families with no work.

Oksana really wanted to see the conditions these young adults live in, but couldn’t get to their homes. Artem’s home is on a dirt road with large puddles and our car couldn’t drive through it with the long rain period we had. Nastia didn’t want us to come and visit her home—probably because she’s very sensitive to her family’s poverty. We decided to meet them both on the lawn near the bus stop.

Oksana says Artem and Nastia did not talk much about themselves. During our time together, they told us that their mothers work in Kyiv as cleaners. Artem’s mother cleans buses and Nastia’s mother works in a shopping mall. They didn’t have work during the quarantine, which means they didn’t have earnings either. Artem’s mother has a cow so they sold milk and dairy products and lived on that money. Artem lives with his mother and a younger brother. They have a lot of housework so Artem helps his mother with housekeeping, but he wants to find a job in Kyiv.

I think Nastia had a hard time financially, although she doesn’t talk about it. Her family doesn’t have any kind of farming (although, it’s common in many villages). She told me that she lives with her mother, father, and a younger brother (while studying, he lives in a boarding school). Her father is unemployed and he doesn’t help with housekeeping. He spends time with his friends (apparently drinking). Her older sister lives at her friend’s house because she has bad relationships with her family. Some time ago Nastia’s mother had a broken leg and now her leg swells and hurts after any physical exertion, which is why she needs to have rest after her workday.

Nastia studies and she’s rarely at home. There is no one to take care of their house. The family lives on the mother’s earnings. Nastia has a desire to find a job in Kyiv during her holidays, but it means that she needs to find a place to live there too. We pray that God would support these children.

Before our trip, I prepared Bible lessons for Artem and Nastia with questions at the end of each lesson. We talked about those lessons briefly and I gave a home task to read lessons and to give answers to those questions. After that, we will call each other and discuss their understanding of the lessons.

To make our meeting sweeter, we treated the children to ice cream. It was a very warm and pleasant meeting! Glory to God that we can serve these young people and support them in times of need.