Last week, with the help of an acquaintance of an acquaintance, I went to visit a place known as a tuberculosis kindergarten. All of the children who live there have been diagnosed with the closed form of tuberculosis (non-contagious), and also have many other long-term health needs. Most of them also come from socially vulnerable families, and many don’t even have parents at all.
As soon as the child has been diagnosed with tuberculosis, they are taken from their homes (or wherever they are) and whisked away to this building, where they will live for the next year or longer. The saddest part of it all is how young they are. I saw little toddlers there (the kindergarten ranges from ages 3-7 I believe) and I couldn’t imagine tearing them away from normal environments to put them here. How could a child possibly understand that?
The building is a very old soviet-style rectangular structure that is definitely in need of repairs. With the help of my new interpreter-friend, I was able to meet with the vice-director, who only spoke Russian. She was a very sweet lady, well under five feet tall, with a gray bun and twinkly eyes. She seemed to be very excited I was there to visit, kept rubbing my arm and smiling at me. As she showed us around the building, I was struck by how clean it was -- and how spartan. The medical equipment was definitely old, but they said they just work with what they have.
The kindergarten divides the children into groups of about 20 kids each, based on age. Each group has their own floor in the building. On each floor, there were 2 big rooms: a sleeping room filled with around 20 beds, and a play room. The play rooms appeared to have many toys and activities, but when I realized this was the only space for all 20 kids to play in and eat in, it seemed small and sad.
The building is sorely in need of new windows and doors. Even though this is a state-run facility, they are not given enough money for some of these basic needs. It’s been estimated that it will cost about $20,000 to replace all the doors and windows, so they’re looking for a private donor to give that money. The vice-director also gave me a list of some basic things they are in need of (when I asked) – and at the top of the list were vitamins. At this time of year, they desperately want to give the kids some extra nutrients since they were pretty deprived of them over the winter.
The international women’s club of this city donated some playground equipment to the kindergarten recently, so at least they have some things to play on outside. The morning I was there it was probably about 55 degrees, but all the kids outside were bundled up with heavy coats, hats, and mittens. And their little faces were so cute.
They appeared to be happy as they were playing, but all I could wonder about was how they felt at night, going to bed in this strange place without their families. Do many of them cry? And how would the staff handle that? And what do they do inside all day, in their one room?
I was very overwhelmed with emotions, and to some extent, helplessness, during my visit to the kindergarten. We are praying that the Lord will show us if there are ways we can help the children there… from what I understand, they don’t have many people come by or take an interest in them. So these are probably the kids Jesus would visit, as we’ve been learning in our study of the Gospel of Mark this Lent season.
I’ve also visited another home for hurting kids, which gave me more hope… I’ll write about that one in another post soon….
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