is your love in action, inside the former Soviet Union

A report from Doug Brendel to all who support or follow our New Thing ministry in Belarus...

And now for sports...

Ding-dong! Ping-pong!

There is just no way I can think of a ping-pong table as “humanitarian aid.”

A ping-pong game just doesn’t seem to be “the work of Christ in the world today.”

But it is fun.

I grew up in a ping-pong-playing family.

My mom, at 80, is still really good at it.

So I found myself sympathetic, last year, when I received the most unusual request in the history of New Thing....

Our Response of the Heart team provides support to large families.

Valentina Mamontova is the mother of TEN.

She and her husband, Pastor Sergei, had 3 children, then began taking in foster children.

They’ve had a total of 19 kids so far — “only” 10 at the moment.

We provide clothing and other donated goods to help this family make ends meet.

When “The Great Kozovaya” asked them how else we could help them, Valentina grinned.

What the children really want ... and what they could never buy for themselves ... is a ping-pong table.

Well, I wasn’t going to come to our New Thing family and ask for funding for a ping-pong table!

But then came Kozovaya’s birthday surprise. Remember?

Friends gave in honor of her 65th birthday, and we were able to provide three commercial freezers to a boarding school in her home region, for children with respiratory ailments.

But friends were so generous, we had a surplus.

So Kozovaya had the pleasure of telling Valentina that a ping-pong table, with paddles and balls, would be delivered to their house!

Ding-dong! Ping-pong calling!

We were in the vicinity, after visiting the Association for Support of Families with Disable Children, so we made arrangements to drop in and check out the new equipment.

Lydia Danielevna, Response of the Heart’s second-in-command, was keen to thrash me. But I hung tough.

Then came Kozovaya. Lydia sensed a rout, and came to her friend’s aid.

Even photographer Oleg tried to beat the champion. But I was invincible. I feel certain I was impressing my wife!

Until the children got home from school.

It’s clear that the ping-pong table has not been sitting unused.

Oleg and his camera went into Sports Illustrated mode.

I do believe Dima, Sasha, Danik, Nadya, Denis, Karina, two Vikas, and two other little guys whose names I can’t remember have been practicing.

Maybe with the deliberate intention of humiliating me.

Which they did.

It is really unfair when a Belarusian kid puts English on the ball.

Broke his wrist playing soccer last week. Beat me left-handed, with one hand behind his back.

Creepy little showoff.

Harrumph.

Eventually, the slaughter ended, and we headed to the kitchen for lunch.

It’s like a small military operation getting 10 kids fed.

The house was once a school. The government turned it over in terrible condition.

Over the course of six years, Sergei and Valentina have remodeled it bit by bit, room by room, with very little money, using gracious donations and lots of elbow grease.