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Orphans Touch Heart of Martell Woman on Tour in Eastern Europe
By Carol Doeden
Reprinted here with permission from the VOICE News.
In the two weeks she spent touring Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Russia with the Orphan Grain Train, Gracie Bohmont, of rural Martell, had one inspirational moment after another.
Inspiration came when Gracie got to hold a baby in an abandoned babies orphanage outside St. Petersburg, Russia. Watching a couple from Connecticut arriving to pick up the child they were adopting was another such moment.
Seeing the semi trucks arrive, filled to the brim with needed supplies, and helping them unload, was still another.
Gracie usually spends her days watching her granddaughter, Lani. Her two sons, Brent and Matt, are grown and live in Lincoln. The widow of Monte Bohmont, Gracie still lives on the old Ralph and Amelia Drake place that the couple bought in 1979. She enjoys her time on her farm east of Crete, with Mr. Griffin, a yellow Labrador, and Molly, a beagle and two shy cats. She spends time with Princeton Countryside Church activities and her extension club.
But for two weeks in October, Gracie joined the director of orphanage and prison projects for Orphan Grain Train, Rev. John Reehl, his wife June, their daughter Karen Tiedeman, of Hickman, and several others, to tour eight orphanages, a women’s prison and two hospitals in Eastern Europe.
“Karen and I met when our kids were little, twenty or so years ago,” Gracie said. “We’ve always been friends.” It was Karen who encouraged Gracie to make the trip.
Gracie explained that Rev. Reehl and others try to visit the areas where aid is given about twice a year to verify that the money is being used as intended, and that the needs of the people receiving the aid are being met.
“Having other interested people come along allows them to see what’s being done. As the sponsors visit, they see needs for different things and find someone to fund it,” she said.
Her trip began October 4, 2006. The group arrived first at Riga, Latvia, a city of 700,000 people on the eastern edge of the Gulf of Riga, off the Baltic Sea. The land is very flat, with weather similar to that of Nebraska.
It was fall and the changing leaves were very pretty.
“We were immediately picked up by our driver extraordinaire, Juris. He never left our side all the while he was driving us. He speaks Russian, Latvian and German,” Gracie said.
From Riga, they quickly crossed through Latvia to St. Petersburg, Russia.
After purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables at the markets, the group visited hospitals, orphanages and a women’s prison, delivering the fresh produce along with supplies, and distributing Bibles.
Outside St. Petersburg, in the town of Vsevolozhsk, Gracie and the group visited an abandoned babies orphanage. “We toured the orphanage, saw all the babies and got to hold some of them, she said. “It was clean and well staffed. At one point we saw what we privately called a ‘potty-party’; a room filled with lots of kids sitting on toilets. Apparently they are toilet trained as a group, and fairly young.
“The orphanage sponsors also bought the children some outdoor play pens, so the children could have a way to get out and get some fresh air,” she said.
In addition to the orphanages, the group visited two hospitals, a children’s burn unit and one that cared for the elderly. McDonald’s restaurants have reached Russia, and that organization sponsored a playroom for the children’s burn hospital. Many of the children are badly burned from scalding, Gracie explained, because the whole nation drinks so much hot tea.
“The eldercare hospital was awful, Gracie said. “It had only two nurses for 60 patients on weekends. It smelled bad. But, I know it takes time for sponsorship to work,” she said.
In Sablino, Russia, Gracie and the group visited a women’s prison that housed nearly 1,000 women. Since the Orphan Grain Train has taken the prison under its wing, the prison is much improved. There is now a functional medical clinic, although Spartan by U.S. standards, that is run by a woman doctor, Dr. Galena. The clinic appears to be supplied at about the same level as the field hospitals the Americans have set up for triage and emergency surgery while occupying Iraq.
Gracie said that the incarcerated women loved having their photographs taken. They were eager to meet us and they all listened intently when we gave them the message of Jesus Christ and passed out Bibles and new underwear,” she said.
The final place they visited in Russia was a women’s initiative in Tassana, Russia, meant for women who have been released from prison, to train them to do crafts. While there, the group purchased some of the handmade dolls, intricately painted wooden apples and other handicraft items.
“It will take a long time to rebuild Russia and for the people to learn what freedom really is,” Gracie said. “When the Soviets took away their freedoms, the people lost hope.”
Upon reentering Latvia, they saw orphanages in Cesus, Valmera and Medona.
Traveling on to Tallinn, Estonia, to the north, Gracie was impressed with a children’s shelter for street children, called the Bethel Centre of Pastoral Care. Various groups co-sponsor this mission. The church had been used as a movie theater in Soviet times.
“It touched my heart,” Gracie said. “Kids from villages outside Tallinn, whose parents have no work; some of the kids have been neglected, while others are runaways.
“What impressed me is, the kids can stay at the Centre if they go to school, keep their rooms clean, and so on. They are learning accountability. And we reach out to the children with Russian Bibles. The passion in the heart is what came through from the people running this center, a passion to help people, especially kids, who have no hope.
“The hard part is accepting that it’s going to take a while,” she said.
In addition to visiting the sponsored services, the group went to a couple of Orphan Grain Train receiving centers in Latvia and Lithuania. “We got to Medona just as a semi-truck was coming in,” Gracie said. “We helped them unload. I found out that in each container there always is a stuffed animal, that is then given to a child.”
In Siauliai, Lithuania, Gracie had her breath taken away by a hill that is completely covered with crosses. While the Soviets ruled, they leveled the hills and buried the crosses they found there, over and over, and still, the crosses reappeared on the sacred hill. Finally, the government gave up and let the people have their hills. Now, millions of crosses are heaped onto these hills.
Before they headed home, the group returned to Riga, Latvia, and visited the Rumbula Holocaust Memorial Cemetery outside Riga. During World War II, the Germans rounded up all the Jews they could, took them out into the countryside and shot them. The bodies were then dumped in mass graves. There are five mounds, with many Stars of David naming each family buried there.
“Whole families!” Gracie said, still shocked.
Finally, somewhere in the woods of Latvia is an orphanage of kids who literally live in the woods. Their building had been sold and they found themselves with nowhere to go. Finally, someone sold a country retreat to the orphanage for half price. “It has indoor plumbing and everything,” Gracie said.
“The cap to the trip was to find these children out in the woods and to know they are okay,” Gracie said. “The people who run the orphanage have become guardians to some of the kids for their safety. The goal of the orphanage is to keep the kids out of the mafia, or away from prostitution, “I had never been overseas before,” Gracie said. “This was an incredible experience. But, it was the people who made it special, the people who have a passion for children, and for the work that they do.”
In all, Orphan Grain Train has either adopted or sponsored 40 orphanages in Eastern Europe, each housing from 80-90 children. The relief effort supplies the orphanages with such basic items as vitamins, diapers, baby wipes, blankets, clothing and shoes.
In addition to the work Gracie sampled in her two-week trip, Orphan Grain Train has sent relief and supplies all over the world. They respond to disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, the southeastern Asia tsunami, and needs in every continent of the world.
Now that she is back home, Gracie is doing what she can to spread the word about the Orphan Grain Train and what it does for those in need. She has already made presentations to the Home Service Extension Club, and for the Christian and Missionary Alliance. In the spring, she is planning more talks.