March 16, 2004

Dear Friends,

Life has been very busy, and I have only today found the time to tell you of a joy-inspiring event that is more than a month old. But the wonderful memory has not faded. Narnia Center conducted a training seminar for children’s ministry leaders working in churches and orphanages just outside Moscow from February 9-13. The theme of this seminar was the use of children’s literature as a means of Christian education. The 32 participants came from churches and Christian organizations in central Russia, Siberia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Highlights of this seminar for me were Katya Celinina’s (Katya is the Russian director of Children’s Hope Chest) lectures on how children’s books speak to the special needs of orphans, the social and academic learning difficulties of orphans and street children, and the nature of dyslexia. I was astounded to hear that dyslexia in rural areas of Russia is as high as 70 percent!

Another high point of the seminar was hearing Anna Godiner (who edits our children’s books) share how to organize and conduct the work of a children’s library in a church or orphanage, various ways to encourage parents and children to engage in reading good books, and her list of recommended books. Other presenters included Olga Kolesova of St. Petersburg who spoke about the gospel in Russian classics, Sveta Panich who helped us look for and discover a sense of goodness, truth and beauty in fictional works, and myself, who gave a presentation on the Bible and children’s literature as well as my personal pilgrimage into the world of books.

At the culmination of this seminar, with the help of generous donations many of you made last year, we offered the participants the opportunity to order a number of children’s books at no charge to begin or to enrich a children’s library in a rural church or in an orphanage. I was deeply moved by the expressions of the people who requested books.

• Katya Ronzhina of Kirov, who with others in her region is involved in full time ministry in eleven orphanages, said to me: “We have been dreaming of starting libraries in the orphanages, and we have been praying about it because we did not see where we would find the financial resources to buy the books.” Now they have begun setting up those libraries.
• Lilia Stelyukova, who heads children’s ministry for her church and region in the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine, told me the books she requested would be used by missionaries working in the remote mountain villages of southern Ukraine. These missionaries can be stuck in those villages for long stretches in the winter when the snow falls, making the mountain roads impassible. They have been looking for books to read with children. Lilia has written me that the books have already been put to use.
• Masha Kolbacova, who is a nurse in the wing of a hospital for children with diseases of the nervous system in the Tula area, will be reading the books we gave her with the children who are her patients.
• Larisa Sigaeva, who has organized the children’s library in the Baptist Church in Smolensk, told me that she has had to keep children’s books in her own possession and only lend them to children she knows personally because they would otherwise disappear permanently from the church library. Meanwhile, missionaries who are organizing churches in the outlying villages of the Smolensk area have been complaining to her that they have no books for ministry with children. Now Larisa has a library of books to lend to missionaries.

Thank you to all who contributed to this effort to provide books for rural churches and orphanages. I was deeply moved to read of the generous donations so many made. With your help we have given away about $3000 worth of books. I am grateful for the opportunity to extend your generosity. You have blessed many.

We will continue to give away books for orphanages and rural churches as funds permit. If you would like to receive a photographs of children in an orphanage in the Kirov area who received the books, please drop me a note.

Grace and Peace,

Donald Marsden

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 340