Stefanie de Wildt (29) lives in one of the poorest regions of Ukraine The 29-year-old lady from the Netherlands works on behalf of the Dutch Christian missionary organisation Kimon for a family of ten children De Wildt regularly visits the poorest in the region and encounters distressing situations there Vast fields of sunflowers brighten up the rolling landscape of the Ukrainian Kirovograd province This region is somewhat desolate in the middle of the Eastern European country The landscape is monotonous regardless of the sunflowers with only a few trees and hardly any houses Stefanie de Wildt (1992) grew up in the Dutch village of Oud-Alblas After secondary education at Wartburg College she studied to become a nutrition assistant she worked for two years at the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam In 2017 she quit her job and went to Ukraine she has been working on behalf of the Kimon Foundation The Kimon Foundation is a Christian missionary organisation focussing on distressed children worldwide De Wildt is both a member of the Reformed Congregation in Alblasserdam and of the Baptist congregation in Pomichna and the cars driving there are almost exclusively Soviet-era Ladas The main roads are full of potholes; the minor streets consist of round cobblestones and sand The high walls are made of yellow-orange stones The building belongs to the local congregation of Evangelical Christian Baptists On the church site are two other buildings that are also owned by the Baptist congregation One is a former kindergarten severely damaged by the ravages of time; the other is a large and well-maintained house The Ukrainian couple Andrey and Alona Vovk live there with three children of their own and seven foster children One foster daughter teaches herself to play the piano; another is busy with crayons and a fourth kid is engaged with a jigsaw puzzle Stefanie de Wildt is standing at the counter in the open kitchen she is cooking a well-known regional dish: borsch “Andrey and Alona are today at Kropyvnytsky That’s why I have to make the food on my own this time,” she explains When the beetroot soup is ready and simmering on the stove How does a young woman from a rural region in the Netherlands end up in Ukraine I had a desire to take care of poor children I experienced a personal calling from Proverbs 31 He says in verse 20: “She stretches out her palm to the afflicted one and she stretches out her hands to the needy.” I felt that the Lord spoke and that He would have me to stretch out my hands to help the needy I kept quiet about it because I was afraid that I would immediately have to put that calling into action that verse from Proverbs kept coming back to my mind Then I felt I had to respond to this calling.” That is why I first tried to answer that call with a working holiday to South Africa We took care of children in a hospital in Beregowo “Why don’t you stay here?” That question got me thinking I hardly slept and kept praying that the Lord would clarify my questions I read in the Bible about Jacob wrestling with God and saying “I will not let you go unless You bless me.” Then I realised: I can only stay here with the blessing of the Lord that text from Genesis 32 kept coming back I called my parents to tell them that I was going to live in Ukraine.” When I later told other people about my plans they also often responded: “We already knew that.” In the weeks before I decided I had emailed family and friends about my experiences they tasted how much I had come to love those children.” you moved to Beregowo to work in the hospital “I did volunteer work in a ward where foundlings and children evicted from home were kept Babies whose mothers simply dropped off were there as well The parents often had no money to feed their children and thought: at least they get free food in the hospital They did not think that a child could not do without a mother’s love The hospital paid no attention to the children Their muscles were flaccid because they were not using them They could not talk because nobody said anything to them I saw it as my job to give them love and attention Caring for a severely handicapped gipsy girl And through children who were transferred to a children’s home that department was abolished because the Ukrainian government had amended the legislation Children who were not ill were no longer allowed to go to the hospital They immediately had to go to a children’s home I wanted to start a shelter for disabled children myself I got to know all kinds of people through the church were asked by the church in Pomichna to start a family home with foster children A German Christian organisation had sponsored a house They asked me if I wanted to help them with that De Wildt drives to the other side of town by car She is on her way to one of the troubled families she visits regularly Families are living in extreme poverty and under child protection supervision “The church is in contact with the Pomichna Child Protection Agency and we offer help to those families where possible.” “Here it is.” De Wildt parks the car next to a dilapidated house There is no father because the children were probably all fathered by another man Their mother drinks a lot and regularly wanders through the village drunk There are two crumbled concrete steps in front On the sidewalk in front of them is an old buggy with a toddler in it The girl is wearing an old diaper and a smeared shirt De Wildt takes the child out of her cart and greets the boys The oldest child now also comes out through the front door a fourteen-year-old boy who has difficulty moving and speaking He clarifies that visitors are not allowed to enter because it has not been cleaned up inside “His mother probably told them not to let anyone in the children have been left to their own devices because their mother is not at home The woman turns out to be in a nearby village but is on her way home She is walking because the family has no means of transport Among the withered weeds lies a great deal of junk: an empty soda bottle The thing speaks wordlessly of dull misery the eldest two boys have to go back to the public school in the village “They still need decent clothes and school supplies for that I want to buy it for them tomorrow,” says De Wildt “I want to ask their mother what exactly is needed.” And so Shoeboxes with toys are in the trunk of De Wildt’s car The American organisation Samaritan’s Purse has sent it to the Baptist congregation to distribute to these families The oldest boys help to lift the packages from the car The bright ten-year-old boy visibly enjoys the visit He speaks Ukrainian; she responds in Russian the language spoken in Ukraine until 1991 because the country was part of the Soviet Union until that year With a woman who only spoke Russian,” says De Wildt who speaks the foreign language almost fluently I didn’t get the hang of it until I moved into the family home the mother of the lonely children comes home The tired woman walks through the rusted gate in the garden fence The enthusiastic Sascha rushes up to her to show his latest acquisitions When he demonstrates how high he can throw his new ball She starts talking to him in a loud voice and sends him inside “Sascha and his older brother are such sweet boys They feel very responsible for their brothers and sister and each other They want to make the best of the situation,” says De Wildt when we are back in the car She drives to the home of Baptist minister Pavel Shapoval and his wife The tiny house of the Shapovals smells lovely There is a set table in the room next to the kitchen after which the pastor says a prayer in Russian This is followed by an extensive three-course menu No expense has been spared to spoil the guests “This is typically Ukrainian,” says De Wildt The sausage on that dish is very expensive I think they borrowed money for this food somewhere.” a family living in one drafty room and only one bed It was very good for me to be confronted with that you can be happy if they have one in your size I would not want to go back to the prosperity of the Netherlands I see how happy people are when they can get what they need realising that they get everything from God’s hand “I would like to take in disabled children on a small scale in the old school next to the church such as in the family home where I now live It still has to be refurbished or even tossed down and rebuilt but it remained on the shelf due to corona and setbacks in the family home The same applies to this enormous project: if it does not have His blessing This article was translated by CNE.news and previously published in Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad on November 9th