doug1 is your love in action, inside the former Soviet Union

 

A report from Doug Brendel to all who support or follow our New Thing ministry in Belarus...

 

 

Kids struggling? Maybe itÕs time for

MOM Power!

Children and young people with mental and physical disabilities were getting too little help ... treated too much like second-class citizens ... in the Dzerzhinsk district of Minsk Region.

 

So the moms got together, 14 years ago, and established the Belarusian Association for Support of Disabled Children and Young People.

Today, 42 families are involved, with disabled children from 3 to 35.

 

We hardly notice if someone with Down syndrome, for example, is working in a store.

But disabled people havenÕt been integrated into society here as much as in the West.

 

The mothersÕ association is dedicated to communicating one key message:

Our kids are human beings too. Equal. Part of your world.

 

Mikhail, a local Executive Committee official, put it this way: ÒIn these young people, I see unlimited potential.Ó

 

Our little ÒResponse of the HeartÓ delegation got to witness some of that potential.

Shy young Artuom, for example, turns out to be quite a brilliant artist.

 

The young people had prepared a small concert for us.

Eugenia, too disabled by cerebral palsy to stand up, sang for us from her front-row chair.

Irochka read a poem she had written herself.

 

But the star of the show was Valeria. She had prepared something special for the American visitor.

She wobbled to the front, controlling her cerebral palsy as gracefully as possible.

Then the music started — the background track to Bobby McFerrinÕs 1988 hit ÒDonÕt Worry Be Happy.Ó

 

Valeria started to move, somewhat awkwardly, to the music, and I confess, I thought,

ÒWell, it will be interesting to hear this song in Russian.Ó

But then she started to sing — and wow!

 

Valeria was singing in perfect English — my interpreter Katya and I both cried out in surprise.

Valeria had mastered every word, every inflection, of Bobby McFerrinÕs original.

 

She even nailed the hand gestures.

HereÕs my 3:45 iPhone video of ValeriaÕs ÒDonÕt Worry Be Happy.Ó

 

ValeriaÕs c.p. was so severe, she was never supposed to be able to even stand on her own, let alone perform Bobby McFerrin!

But her mother has devoted her life to ValeriaÕs therapy — and the results are pretty amazing.

 

Afterward one of the moms sang Belarusian folk songs, and some of the young people got up to dance.

 

YouÕll see about 10 seconds of their joyful celebration at the end of the Valeria video.

 

It was great fun giving out toys and gift boxes. (The three performers got wind-up dancers.)

 

Masha was transfixed by a rubbery animal: squeeze one way, its eyes bug out; squeeze another way, it lights up!

(Thank you, Green Elephant toy store in Ipswich!)

 

I also brought our New Thing books and KristinaÕs Chernobyl zone photo album for Alla, the association director.

 

But I came away feeling like these people had given us greater gifts than we could ever give to them.

 

Thanks for journeying with us!

Much love,

Doug Brendel

 

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