On June 15-17, 2022, Sr. Ola Stanislavenko and Lina Olenchuk from the Kiev parish took part in the seminar of the children’s program “Healing Spiritual Wounds”, held in the village of Zolotonosza near Cherkasy. The main organizer of the event was the Ukrainian Bible Society. The underlying premise of the program is that healing must take place in parallel with getting to know Jesus, His healing Word, and psychology is only an auxiliary element. Therefore, the training should not be conducted by a psychologist. The children’s program is designed as part of a summer camp, everyone can participate, believers and non-believers alike, and the age category is not limited either, just adjust the method of presentation.
The presenters managed to conduct a mini-camp for us so that we could experience the healing effects of the program ourselves. It was an extraordinary experience to cooperate in training Baptists, Anglicans and other Protestants, Greek Catholics and representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. Among the 40 participants there was only one religious sister – our sister Ola.
The participants listened to conferences, performed tasks and even passed written and oral exams to confirm their achievements. To confirm the result of the exams, one of the proposed lessons had to be carried out.
Sr. Ola graduated from the seminar with the title of first class facilitator.
New knowledge, experience and children’s textbooks helped the parish quickly implement the project. Sr. Ola together with Sr. Veronika and co-workers: Kateryna and Lina, organized a summer camp for children “Way to the Heart” based on the children’s program “Healing Hearts Club.” The project took place in the Kiev parish July 18-22, 2022, and was attended mainly by children between the ages of 8 and 14, although younger brothers and sisters of the participants were also present.
Sr. Veronica also contacted more than 50 refugee families who have children of this age and gathered a large group to join the children of the parish. The camp program was very dynamic: gymnastics, prayer, conferences, group work, teaching new songs and competitions. If we recall that among the participants were children from completely non-believing families, it is all the more touching that all the children, without exception, knew how to recite the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” by the third day, prayed spontaneously out loud and sang children’s worship songs.
The Lord helped us every day and led each child by hand, a fact that their animators – the sisters and Katya and Lina – experienced every day.
The small groups became so close that they created their own chat room and correspond to this day.
Sr. Ola Stanislavenko, Kyiv
