Chernobyl Children’s Program of Greater Chattanooga was formed in 1993 to meet the spiritual and physical needs of the Belarusian children whose lives have been impacted by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Although many years have passed since Chernobyl, we still feel that a new opportunity was opened to us in Chattanooga when the first Belarusian children stepped off that plane, and our mission continues today, despite all of our respite and activities being in country since 2008. We have chosen to keep our name Chernobyl Children’s Program, not so much in a way that reminds us of radiation and all the fallout, but because that reminds us of the way that God brought blessing out of tragic circumstances. One “fallout” of the disaster was an opportunity to minister to and share with Belarusian children who are either directly affected by the disaster (like the children in Mozyr and Zhitcovichy) or indirectly in other areas of the country.
We are thankful that we’ve been called to this work. While we have joked about ‘Why couldn’t we minister in Italy or France instead, we LOVE Belarus and are so happy when our feet or our shipments hit the ground in country (our hearts are there already) to go to work with our incredible partners. As long as the doors stay open, we will walk through them!
Read more… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
TED Talk about the Grandma’s who refused to leave their homelands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93hbqLBp_HI
Because of the suspension by the Belarusian government prohibiting relief trips for the children in 2008, the Children of Chernobyl Program was no longer able to carry out its main function of bringing children to the United States. While many other Chernobyl relief organizations have either fallen apart or frozen, CCP of Greater Chattanooga has chosen to build on the long term relationships that we have formed and nurtured with Belarusian Christians there. In 2009, we began two major initiatives per year that are organized and implemented in Belarus by Belarusians. One is summer camp which allows orphans and other children in Belarus to know that Jesus loves them in a summer camp/health respite setting. The other is a Christmas celebration that includes gifts and parties for 300+ orphans, visits to abandoned baby homes, and excursions to the theatre to see productions such as “The Road to Bethlehem” (you could never imagine that this production would be shown or be so popular in the USA, but it is a very fantastic story…). We have learned that when you begin working with orphaned children while they are young, that they grow into young men and women who want to serve and live in very different ways than is common for grown orphans. In response to this need, we are working with two incredible homes, the Minsk Family Home for young women and The Timothy House for young men. We have built some strong relationships with these youth and are honored to call them friends.
Our role is to facilitate these initiatives working with our partners there. We invite you to be part of this far reaching and eternally significant ministry!
CCP of Greater Chattanooga 