What a great way to start the New Year! 18 generous households responded to the need of the caregivers in Rudensk... Kitchen workers using battered, broken, decades-old equipment to prepare and serve 400+ meals a day for 130 orphans, many with disabilities. You gave so generously, you’ve provided all of the following: industrial 1400-liter refrigerated cabinet industrial 700-liter freezer 50-liter boiler with work surface electric bread-slicing machine electric meat-grinder e

The orphans at Children’s Village in Kobryn, Belarus, send you best wishes for a Happy New Year! So do the orphans at Rudensk, the homeless of Vileyka, the children with disabilities in Osipovichi... And many, many others touched by the compassion of the New Thing family this past year. God bless those who have given so our “Response of the Heart” team can help people in need all over Belarus. Thanks for journeying with New Thing! More adventures to come! Much love, Doug Bren

Just a note to thank you for journeying with New Thing this year. I speak for all the orphans, foster families, children with disabilities, the homeless and poor, the sick in hospitals... ...the caregivers helping them, and our “Response of the Heart” team working every day to help them. Not many are even looking in the direction of Belarus, but you are, and I’m grateful. In this season of celebration, I wish you a wonderful week of joy, of health, of peace. More adventures t

We say “Oh, just whip something up,” but cooking isn’t always that simple. Especially if you’re feeding 130 kids... Using ancient kitchen equipment and supplies. So friends of New Thing are trying to provide new kitchen gear as a Christmas gift for the dedicated caregivers in the boarding school at Rudensk, Belarus. They’re feeding 130 orphans 3 meals a day (sometimes more, depending on a child’s unique medical condition). Total need: $5400. I’m grateful to report that as I w

I imagine you would love the orphans at Rudensk, in Belarus. All 130 of them. But you wouldn’t want to feed them. You couldn’t. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, multiplied by 130 ... so we’re up to 390 meals a day. And some of the kids, because of their medical conditions, have to eat 5 times, not 3 times, every day. But there’s a small, dedicated team of (camera-shy) workers at the boarding school... And this is their life’s work. Sadly, they’re laboring with decades-old equipment

You know how it is. Today your little one is learning numbers. Before you know it, you’re wiping your tears at graduation. It’s the in-between years when love does its good work. When we first started helping the orphanage at Rudensk, this little fellow wasn’t even born yet. But when he lost his parents, there was a place of love and safety waiting for him. Thanks in part to generous friends of New Thing. God bless all who respond with such compassion to those in need in Bela

Just a quick note to sincerely wish you a beautiful Thanksgiving. I often say “Thanks for journeying with New Thing,” and I mean it literally. Journeying isn’t always easy or fun. Journeying means staying on the path regardless. I’m truly grateful for so many friends willing to stick with this journey. Whether you give to a project or not, whether you’re inspired by a project or not... I’m thankful that you’ve kept going, kept looking and listening, to see what comes next . T

We've loved the children and workers at Osipovichi in Belarus for a long time. This photo was taken on my first-ever visit, almost 10 years ago. When we learned they had no money for ordinary medicine cabinet meds and supplies, friends of New Thing started helping. The American Thanksgiving holiday became our time each year to meet this simple but very real need. This year, with a $6500 need, we received a Matching Challenge: Give half the total by Thanksgiving Day, and every

Quick update: We’re so close!  The goal is $3,250. The deadline is Thanksgiving. Make them both and a Matching Challenge kicks in — so every gift already given doubles . You’ll provide a full year’s worth of medicine cabinet meds and supplies  for all the children with disabilities at the boarding school in Osipovichi, Belarus. THANK YOU to the 24 households who have already generously given to bring us this far: Just $438.55 to go. But it’s less than 100 hours to the deadlin

They’re smiling because of a friend like you. They’re children with disabilities at the boarding school in Osipovichi (pronounced oh-see-POE-vee-chee), Belarus. They’re happy and healthy, but they need our help to stay that way. Their loving professional caregivers need things like: B6 and B12 and multi-vitamins Gauze and cotton balls Medical gloves Hydrogen peroxide Amoxycillin  And more than 50 other medicines. Basic medicine-cabinet meds and supplies. New Thing is their on