- Scenes from Belarus
Medical Exchange Program
How Could a
Meeting in a Kitchen
Change the Lives of More Than Fifty Children??
It did!!..and the following is a “behind the scenes” story of how God used a simple cup of tea and a conversation to change lives. A Project Restoration employee tells about a meeting in a flat in Minsk during a trip in spring of 1996. She was in Minsk to oversee the distribution of two containers of humanitarian aid.
“Three of us were there...crowded around a tiny table. We were sitting on stools in a kitchen in my rented flat on Varvesheney Street... having tea and cake and some “good talk.” Why this meeting? To decide if it would be more beneficial professionally for two Belarusian physicians to attend a European conference...or to participate in a medical exchange trip to the US.
Predictably, the trip to the US was the first choice! Shortly after, I returned to Kansas City and immediately began to make contacts with physicians, medical centers, the airlines and potential donors to help sponsor their trip. Amazingly, everything fell into place and by the end of August we met them at KCI...ready for their five-week stay.
It was a whirlwind trip and visits to hospitals in five cities were extremely beneficial. However, one visit and one connection proved to be more than “beneficial.”
Why? Because we introduced the visiting doctors to a pediatric cardiac surgeon. As a result of this connection, he brought an open heart surgical team to Belarus a year later...and then two more time. As a result of this new relationship with the organization, two Belarusian physicians from the Minsk hospital where the surgeries were performed participated in an exchange. They were invited to the US for a six-month exchange to learn under the tutelage of the cardiac surgeon who organized the teams to go to Belarus.”
And it all began in a tiny kitchen while having a cup of tea!!
These happenings alone would be very significant when you consider the many children and their families who benefited from the surgeries. But that’s not the end of the story. The Project Restoration employee continues on:
“Five years ago I was at a boarding school for disabled children and was introduced to a little boy named Volodya. He was brought into a room to “meet the Americans” by his friend, Tanya, one of our “Circle of Love” children.
His smiling little face was “crooked” because his features were off center. He had to lower his head to the right in order to make his world “level.” I could see he had no right ear and there was a big crevice in the side of his face because of the absence of his jawbone. Some time later we were told it would require 4-5 surgeries to correct all of his problems.
Yes...he touched my heart and I was smitten. Unfortunately, final decisions to help a child cannot be made on emotions only. So the following year I requested his medical records. If at all possible, Project Restoration was going to help him!!
Upon return to the Kansas City area, Dr. Michael Kasper reviewed his history and read that Volodya not only had facial abnormalities but had a disease affecting his heart. He told me that “no surgeon will do elective surgery until his heart is checked out.”
The next step was to contact a Belarusian doctor I knew to discuss having a cardiac evaluation for Volodya. Arrangements were made for him to be brought to the same Minsk hospital that hosted the cardiac teams. This happened at exactly the right time because it was determined that Volodya needed immediate surgery.
Of course, by now you can probably guess who operated on him. Yes...it was the surgeon who went to the US for training under the pediatric cardiac surgeon!!
Volodya’s surgery was in February. In June, he arrived in the Kansas City area with a group of children for the summer. We had already been searching for both a surgeon and a hospital to provide charity services. During the next two years, Volodya received three cardiac evaluations by American cardiologists. They stated that the results of his heart surgery in Belarus were excellent and that he is a candidate for craniofacial surgery.
What is happening in Volodya’s life now? Nothing but good things!! In 2002 Project Restoration was notified by the World Craniofacial Foundation in Dallas that they had accepted him as a charity patient.
Papers for his adoption are being processed as of this writing. In addition to knowing he will now have his long awaited surgery, he will also have his new “forever family.”
It is truly amazing what has happened since the meeting in the flat on Varvesheney Street a number of years ago. Lives have truly been transformed!
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the SCCF for the grant given for the development of this site.
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