Lena's Burning Ears

WELL, how lovely is this. Just last week I post about wanting to hear back from the kids, and today I heard from Lena!

Lena wasn't at camp when we went to Sovietsk because the doctors didn't want her to leave the orphanage. Galina specifically planned activities with her in mind, wanting to give her a memorable summer. It was a joy to get to know her!

Here you see her helping me make my pillow and kukla (d0ll). She also went mushroom hunting with us, helped me in the kitchen, and taught me a lot about the orphanage.

Lena is an excellent leader at Sovietsk. The caregivers count on her and the kids look up to her. When we needed to get the older boys involved, all we had to do was ask Lena to talk to them! Lena knows this is her strength, and she would love to be an event planner. She organizes different activities for Sovietsk and hopes to find a way to make a career of this. In her letter, she shared that she got to go to a 3 day camp to learn about planning events and organizing people. This is thanks to funds from KidsFirst Foundation. How wonderful that this bright young woman can start to fulfill her dreams!

Lena also showed a natural knack for guitar. With funds from Bethlehem Lutheran, we purchased one to leave at the orphanage for Ben to use when we visit and for the children to use during music lessons. Ben helped her learn a couple of chords, but she needed no instruction for strumming. She has great rhythm, even though she giggled through most of the lesson.

(Sergey took this picture of Lena's guitar lesson with Ben.)

I wanted to share with you some words from Lena's letter. They belong to you as well as to us.

I am happy that you and Ben don’t forget me and I hope that we’ll continue our correspondence and will get to know more about each other. By the way thank you very much for the guitar you’ve left us. Our mentor told me that he would ask older boys who are students to teach me (and perhaps somebody else) to play it.

So I end up with writing for now. I miss you very much. I hope that will meet again.
We love you very much.

Lena, we love you too.