Zhillin Brothers - Rovno, Ukraine

My name is Maxim. My younger brother and I were raised by a single mother in Ukraine. When she remarried we thought that we getting a father, but he started drinking alcohol and our childhood turned into hell. We still remember, with horror, the pain and grief he brought to us. Eventually, because of the poverty, fights and abuse, my brother and I were sent to a boarding school for orphans. I was 10 years old at the time. Living in the orphanage was not easy because of the feelings of loneliness, insecurity and hunger that accompanied me every day.

In 2001 I was in 11th grade and it was in that year that I met some Christians for the first time. Christians had come to hold a "Little Lambs Camp" at our orphanage. For the firsttime I heard about God and His love for me. All of us received material things: food, clothing and gifts. I never knew that such people existed in the world.

After graduating from the orphanage these Christians offered five of us the chance to live in an apartment they rented, as a way to help us. We accepted their offer and we were then introduced to the Church, where we found true friends and support. Through their testimonies and hearing the Word of God, I accepted Christ as my savior at the age of 18. One year later my brother joined us at the apartment. God opened the doors for both of us to attend Bible School. It was there I met my wife, whom I married a year later. After Bibleschool we spent two years as missionaries in a small village in Ukraine but then returned to the city of Rovno, where I had grown up. That summer my brother Kolya went to help at a Little Lambs camp. We started to pray about how we could help the orphans.

We helped to start a new church in our city, where I now serve as the youth pastor, and we also began to regularly visit the children who lived in the orphanage we grew up in. We took many of these children home for the weekends so that they could attend Christian Sunday school and make new friends who could have a positive influence on their lives.

With help from Little Lambs Ministry, we were able to provide these children with shoes,clothes and toiletries. We grew close to many of them, and two years ago we started a home orphans.

God has miraculously provided a house for us and He has blessed us with our son Timothy and six children from my old orphanage! My brother Kolya and his wife Julia have taken in three orphans and live in the other half of our house.

As our families continued to grow, we realized that we need two kitchens, two showers, and two toilets to accommodate this many children. Last fall we began to add a kitchen and bathroom to our house, but we ran out of money before we were able to finish.

We are praying and asking God to help us finish this addition
If you can help us to finish the addition on our home, we would be honored and grateful. We are trying to be as frugal as we can and do most of the labor ourselves.

We thank God that He has changed our life, our values and our priorities. Every day we try to be used by God for His purpose and to serve our neighbors.

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Media: Little Lambs Volunteer Experience

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