Kyrgyzstan trip is well into the planning stages! My husband, Pastor Ken & Jackie Day and myself are preparing for two weeks in Kyrgyzstan. We will be leaving on April 1st and returning on the 15th. We are in for an adventure!
Pastor Ken & Jackie have never been out of the country. We get to experience international travel with newbies first hand! Our trip will include a 6 hr layover in New York followed by a 9.5 hr flight to Moscow, 12 hr layover there, then a 4 hr flight to Bishkek – and back home with a similar schedule two weeks later. I am looking forward to the cultural hodgepodge of people we will get to observe in Moscow. I will never forget my first realization in the Amsterdam airport that there is a whole other world outside of Ohio!
So why Kyrgyzstan? Well, my mom and step-dad along with my aunt & uncle Don & Johanna Buchman started LAMb international over six years ago. Over time their hearts for missions has taken them to Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan (and beyond). They are changing the destinies of the children in orphanages from having a bleak future on the streets of drugs, prostitution, and sex trade to a future full of promise with loving families, education, and realized dreams.
It seems that their hearts yearn for Kyrgyzstan. As they did in Ukraine, Mom and Lynn spend many months there serving the people, the orphans, and reaching out to government to help organize their version of Family Services with training programs for foster parents, orphanage staff, and others. This is just the start to make a difference in the lives of the orphans!
LAMb is opening up a home called Dayspring Family Life Resource Center! This is a one-of-a-kind home that will house 10 young girls whose families have abandoned them or removed due to abuse and/or neglect. Instead of them living in a dormitory like house in an orphanage where essentially they are just a number they will live with a loving family who will love on the girls, educate the girls, and give them hope for their future. These girls will be available for reuniting with their families if possible, adopted by a Kyrgy family, or remain in the loving home until they are ready to venture out on their own to university or the big expansive world that awaits them.
The home is purchased thanks to a VERY generous donor; the house has been renovated with beds, kitchen, furniture thanks to many other donors; the house parents have moved in; now it’s time to finish the paperwork with government to bring the children in! We hope to be there as this is happening!!
We are also looking forward to serving the seniors, loving on the disabled men, playing with the children in the orphanages, holding the babies in the baby hospital, and meeting the needs of those we see around us.
Are there anxieties? Yes! Long travels, keeping track of luggage, first year anniversary of the revolution, what kinds of foods do they have, etc. BUT this is our appointed time to be in Kyrgyzstan and I am so excited to see first had what mom and Lynn have been doing these last six years in these foreign countries and meet those whose lives they have changed! With all of that in mind, the anxieties turn into excitement of what lays ahead of us in April and beyond . . .
Join me and the others as I try to blog what we are thinking, feeling, and experiencing up to, during and after this amazing trip to Central Asia!
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