Five years in a row, friends of New Thing have done it all: Providing all the basic meds and medical supplies for 70 or so children at Osipovichi, Belarus. (That’s oh-see-POE-vee-chee, if you want to try saying it out loud.)
These are children with physical and mental disabilities. They live in a boarding school there because their parents can’t or won’t care for them. The state supplies the most sophisticated medications for the children’s unique conditions... But there’s no budget for the basics, like what you find in your own medicine cabinet at home. So every year, as our own Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we have this tradition: Offering a “Thanksgiving gift” ... funding for an entire year’s worth of meds for the kids. This year, we’ve received a matching challenge of $3,000 against the $,5000 need. So we need to raise $2,000 ourselves ... and every $1 given becomes $2.50. As I write this, 7 generous friends have responded with a total of $897.37. God bless those 7. (You know who you are!) We only have $1,102.63 to go.
Maybe there are 10 friends who could give $110.26. Or 20 friends who could give $55.13. Whatever any friend gives will really help.
I know it’s not anywhere close to Thanksgiving.... Here in the U.S., we haven’t even gotten to trick-or-treat yet. But Ukraine-related sanctions have led to intense inflation inside Belarus. One side-effect: The workers giving their lives to these children are looking at a fast-diminishing supply of meds and supplies. Every year, for the past 5 years, I’ve been able to send good news to Osipovichi by Thanksgiving Day. This year, it can’t wait that long. November 24th is too far off for these kids. So I hope you can help, if you haven’t already. Thanks for considering it. In any case, thank you for journeying with us! More adventures to come! Much love, Doug Brendel (Photo by Oleg Yarovenko)