A Special Update for Our Prayer and Financial Partners
Your faithful support is creating opportunities for impact across Ukraine! Today, we’re thrilled to share how your generosity has enabled us to partner in bringing hope to some of the most vulnerable children in a nation still healing from war.
Blossom Cottage: A Haven of Hope Rising
Amid Ukraine’s ongoing challenges, a beacon of hope is taking shape. Blossom Cottage, a special initiative by our Transform Uzhhorod Alliance partner Shade for Children, will soon provide a loving home for 8-10 orphaned children with special needs.
What makes this partnership especially meaningful is that your support in establishing our social business STUD Frame Homes has enabled us to be hired by Shade for Children to construct the frame and roof of this life-changing facility. Our dedicated team has nearly completed their portion of the work, with just some interior finishing remaining.
This is more than just a building—it’s a promise of transformation for children who desperately need specialized care and genuine love.
The Heartbreaking Reality for Ukraine’s Orphans
Behind Ukraine’s orphan crisis lies a staggering statistic: over 105,000 children living in state-run institutions. These precious souls have been surrendered or abandoned due to overwhelming circumstances:
- Crushing financial hardship
- Parental addiction and alcoholism
- Domestic abuse and crime
- Disabilities that families feel unprepared to support
- Illness and lack of medical resources
For children with special needs, the situation is particularly devastating. Tragically, one orphan with disabilities dies every three months due to inadequate medical care—with some reports suggesting this happens as frequently as every three days.
Many parents surrender their children with disabilities not from lack of love, but from lack of resources and support. State institutions, while providing basic necessities, rarely offer the specialized care, therapy, and nurturing environment these children desperately need to thrive.
A Bridge to a Better Future
Blossom Cottage represents a crucial stepping stone in Ukraine’s child welfare journey. Shade for Children shares the vision embraced by many child welfare advocates—to see every child in a loving family. They recognize the reality that Ukraine isn’t yet positioned to move immediately to 100% family-based care. With Ukraine’s plans to eventually close most of its 740+ Soviet-era orphanages, transitional solutions like Blossom Cottage are essential bridges to that better future.
Shade for Children’s ultimate ministry goal remains family reunification. They believe wholeheartedly that children belong in families, and Blossom Cottage is designed with this truth at its center. For children who cannot immediately return to their biological families, this home will create a loving, family-like environment that offers a more “normal” childhood experience within their community—while actively advocating for their placement in permanent families through adoption.
By supporting Shade for Children’s Small Group Home model, they’re helping dismantle an outdated system while building the bridge to a better approach that honors the dignity and needs of each precious child.
Your Impact Extends Beyond Blossom Cottage
Your partnership is multiplying hope across Ukraine! STUD Frame Homes, formed last year as part of our Rebuild Ukraine initiative, has been constructing dignified housing in our Velyki Lazy IDP Community.
Already, three displaced families have moved into proper homes as they wait for the opportunity to return to their war-torn communities. Additionally, the team is building One Community Church—a vital spiritual center that will serve 13,500 residents across eight villages that currently have no evangelical presence.
How You Can Help Complete This Mission of Love
Shade for Children is now seeking short-term mission teams to assist with completing Blossom Cottage’s interior work:
- Electrical systems
- Plumbing installation
- Wall construction
- Ceiling and flooring
Would you prayerfully consider:
- Joining a short-term team to help finish Blossom Cottage
- Providing additional financial support for building materials
- Sharing this opportunity with skilled volunteers in your church or community
- Continuing to pray for the children who will soon call Blossom Cottage home
Visit their website to find how you can become a part of changing the lives of vulnerable children.
Your gifts of prayer, finances, and time are creating a future where Ukraine’s most vulnerable children will experience the love, care, and dignity they deserve. Through your support, we’re not just constructing buildings—we’re helping transform an entire system and changing the destiny of generations to come. Thank you for being the hands and heart of Christ in Ukraine!
Watch this video to see STUD Frame Homes at work on Blossom Cottage.