Today in the Mission Yearbook - Faith of the heart

Hope for ‘перемога’ inside a blue and yellow heart

Olya Balaban displays some of the artwork contributed by children
cared for at This Child Here in Ukraine. (Photo by Jim Nedelka)

In the sanctuary of Avenue Church NYC, Olya Balaban is unpacking small sandwich bags containing adjustable blue and yellow wristbands — friendship bracelets in another vernacular — each adorned with a unique metal decoration. They are mementos brought from the Center for Creative Activities and Center for Sports in Izmail, Ukraine, supplementing a presentation by Balaban’s colleague, the Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble. His validated ministry, This Child Here, was initially founded to work with, and care for, many of Ukraine’s children abandoned to “the streets” in the wake of the severe economic turmoil of 2008–09; the Center, as it is more commonly known, is one outgrowth of his efforts.

All went well for most of Gamble’s first dozen years in country. Then, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine, widening his open hostilities begun following Ukraine’s 2014 revolution and the early stages of war; Gamble would later say during his afternoon presentation, “When war comes, you pivot.”

Seven days a week, This Child Here finds itself challenged to meet the needs of the expanded definition of “children of God.” The Center provides a safe space for families:

A girl named Diana created this piece bearing the message “hope for
victory.” (Photo by Jim Nedelka)

Grandmothers, aunts, sisters and mothers holding down the home front — many displaced by the war — caring for their young children and, sometimes, also those orphaned by the fighting.

Teens and young adults, many of whom once toughed it out on the streets as children now being called up to tough it out fighting for their country, if they didn’t “go over the hill,” as the saying goes, abandoning their homeland and families.

Those of all ages with special needs because “every person matters.”

Six of those seven days are devoted to programs designed for children; on the seventh day, instead of resting, the Center devotes its primary focus to programs and discussions, offering a shoulder to lean on to the women of the area.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble speaks at Avenue Church NYC in
Manhattan. (Photo by Jim Nedelka)

Life in Izmail, located in Ukraine’s western region, is relatively “quiet,” yet the battle action raging in the country’s eastern regions directly bordering Russia is omnipresent. Seven nights a week, the Center’s cellar becomes a bomb shelter-dormitory, protection against the roar of drones loudly rocketing overhead being met by the “ack-ack” of the AK-47s returning fire from the defense installations. “Comfortable” sleep is difficult.

Far away from the storm of war on this Wednesday afternoon in New York’s avenue church, one with a long history of outreach to those in need beginning from its founding in 1877 as a congregation for Czech immigrants, Balaban opens a large, thin cardboard box revealing “hope” displayed in a triptych of snapshots from life in and around Izmail and the Center, all framed by children’s drawings. Among the masterpieces in crayon, the viewer’s eye is drawn to one along the bottom left. Its colors are not quite as vivid and strong as the others, but this drawing by eight-year old Diana still provides a strong pull for the viewer: under a yellow sun in a bird-filled sky sits a small brown and tan house with a red heart on its roof. A small dog stands in the side yard facing three red flowering plants spread out along a pathway leading to a blue and yellow heart, the color scheme in the manner of Ukraine’s flag.

Inside the heart’s yellow portion, Diana has emblazoned the word “перемог;” Balaban translates as she points to the Cyrillic: “Peremoha – Per-eh – MO-ha,” she helpfully pronounces. “Victory. Hope for victory.”

Gamble, an eloquent storyteller, describes the catharsis of people helping people, often strangers comforting the grief of other strangers.

Unlike other efforts by unnamed organizations that seem to parachute into Ukraine with supplies and goods then depart, Gamble vows that This Child Here will remain in country, continuing their years of efforts to build communities. Balaban, who was born in Russia when it was spelled “CCCP,” echoes the sentiment. “I see hope with the generation that has grown up with 30 years of Ukraine freedom.”

Jim Nedelka, Special to Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

James Carey, Director of Investments & Portfolio Management Services, Presbyterian Foundation

Tim Cargal, Director of Mid-Council Ministries, Office of the General Assembly

Let us pray:

Sovereign Lord, empower us as we pursue your truth in your Word, and fill us with your transformative Spirit, that we might work to overcome discord, injustice and division through our peace, justice and reconciliation. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - PC(USA) pastor brings stories from Ukraine to a U.S. audience

The Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble, executive director of This Child Here, visits Mid-Kentucky Presbytery

August 2, 2024

This Child Here is an organization that ministers to families affected 

by the war in Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of This Child Here)

In a presentation that featured a Zoom conversation with three people on the ground in Ukraine, the Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble, executive director of This Child Here, recently spoke on the topic “The Lamentations of Ukraine” with clergy and members of churches in Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. Gamble and others illustrated ways that This Child Here, a ministry validated by the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, works with families, mostly women and children, displaced by the war in Ukraine.

Near the end of Gamble’s talk, an app on his smartphone sounded, indicating another Russian drone attack on Izmail, where This Child Here operates in southwest Ukraine near the Black Sea. Among the warnings the app issues during a drone attack: “Overconfidence is your greatest enemy.”

After three visits to Ukraine, Gamble established This Child Here in 2006. Eighteen years later, “after working with street kids, working in orphanages, training foster families and teaching peacemaking techniques to teens, Ukraine is at war,” he told people gathered for his talk and for lunch at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Louisville, “and we now work with families displaced by this war.”

Olya Balaban hugs a child in Ukraine. (Photo 

courtesy of This Child Here)

“Everyone I meet has a story of pain, loss and lament,” Gamble said, citing these passages in the Book of Lamentations: “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she,” followed later by, “Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets.”

“This is Ukraine,” he said. “Bodies in the dust of the streets.”

Gamble said This Child Here “just started with what we knew to be the right thing: meeting families at grocery stores, paying for what they needed, gathering a list of names and faces.” Then, “we organized a summer camp at a retreat center near the beaches of Bulgaria. People bonded. We rented buildings and opened centers for sports and creative activity. … I did not know that so much care could be given without words. I didn’t know there is a therapy of belonging, a therapy of place, a therapy of recreation which could also be worded ‘re-creation,’ and a therapy of lament.”

Participants heard from three people at This Child Here’s facility in Izmail, including Olya Balaban, the ministry’s program manager. A recorded clip showed Balaban and Gamble enduring a drone attack together.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble

“It’ll take some victories on the battlefield before Ukraine can prevail,” Gamble said of the war. “Families come to us with their lamentations. Each story I hear is its own howl of pain, often unbearably beautiful in language and honest, brutal in detail. We get the whole searing account of the siege and destruction of Ukraine.” Gamble borrowed from the book “A is for Alabaster: 52 Reflections on the Stories of Scriptures,” written by his friend, Anna Carter Florence.

Asked how youth served by This Child Here make their plans for the future, Balaban replied, “It’s hard to plan even for today. We try to support mothers and children every day” and plan camps “on the sea every summer.”

It can be difficult, Balaban said, for staff and others to find out what’s going on in other regions of Ukraine. “We get our information from our president [Volodymyr Zelenskyy], from the government and from people who write about it,” Balaban said.

Operating This Child Here since the war began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, is “our evidence of grace and power,” according to Gamble.

“Surrounding these families and their stories, holding each lightly yet firmly, is a structure I can only define as a healing community of love and trust. It is our life together,” Gamble said, quoting Florence’s book. “It allows the words to pour out without bleeding out.”

“There is a rhythm we enter into each day and week, in our gatherings in Izmail, Ukraine, in our talk, and in our play, by which, with our vessel — namely, the community itself — we gently guide these families toward speech and hope when the wilderness of grief has taken both,” Gamble said, again referencing “A is for Alabaster.”

Click here to learn more about This Child Here.

 Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: The Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble, executive director of This Child Here

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Betsey and Eric Moe, Mission co-workers serving in Guatemala, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Diane Moffett, President, Executive Director, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Great God, bless the hearts and hands of those who work in your name. Give us heart to live as witnesses in all the places where the presence of faith shouts hope despite all the chaos of our world and its disasters. Amen.