Dear friends!
The children I wrote about in January still need our help:

Artem Leicht 3 years old, is diagnosed with a spastic paraparesis of a 3rd grade and the left side of his body is atrophied. The child can’t walk, but manages to get up. For a 3-week rehabilitation course in the clinic of Ratingen it is necessary to collect 4665€.

Igor Senatorov from Ekaterinburg, 10 years, neuroblastoma of the 4th grade. His treatment in the university clinic of Cologne costs 150 thousand euros. The family managed to collect 70 thousand, another 80 are still needed.

Maxim Duhnov from Kiev, 7 years, medulloblastoma. The child is getting treated in the German clinic Asklepios. The operation to remove his tumour has been completed successfully. For the necessary chemo therapy afterwards 77 thousand euros are needed. Foundations have agreed to contribute 15 thousand. Another 62 thousand are still to be found.

In February we have three new children:

Dana Aganesowa from Moscow, 8 months, heart failure, shunting. In order to survive, Dana needs to go through a series of operations. The baby has been in the Munich heart centre for months now. Because of unforeseen complications, it was necessary to perform a higher number of operations. The initial cost doubled. The money collected from friends and family is only enough for half the sum. The rest – 47.995 euros – have not been acquired yet.

From a letter by her parents: “We are stuck in an impossible situation: there is no money to pay the bills, but we can’t leave either, as our daughter simply won’t be able to survive that.. Please help us.“

Misha Pavlega from Odessa, 4 years old, sarcoma of the lower jaw, neuroblastoma of the adrenal gland…Within a couple of months a happy, active, healthy boy Misha turned into a severely ill child, who was transported to an Israeli clinic with great difficulty. When the doctors saw the results of the analyses, they recommended to not have the child suffer. All bones, from skull to the toes, were stricken by cancer cells…The chances of recovery were minimal. But the mother believed and didn’t give up.

Already after the first block of chemo therapy Misha has shown unusually good results. Within one year, the child endured 8 blocks of chemo therapy, an operation to remove the tumor and adrenal gland, an auto transplantation of bone marrow, 14 courses of laser therapy, many injections, IV lines and general anesthesia. At the moment, Misha is in a remission, but continues to take chemo in tablets. His life depends on continuing the anti-relapsing treatment with antibodies, so that he doesn’t fall victim to this terrible illness again! The German clinic in Greifswald, which provided this kind of treatment, has set the bill for 143 400 euros.

Varechka Shelyagina from Kazakhstan, 3 years, retinoblastoma (cancer of the eye retina). The child has gone through many chemo therapies, removal of the eye, laser therapy, recidivism and remission. The parents are fighting for their daughter´s life and her remaining eye. It has been two years now that she has gone through a successful treatment in the clinic of Essen. Every 4 months she needs to fly back to the clinic for a check-up. For the next journey, on the 15th of March, the family, where only the father works and earns 90 Euro per month, have no money left. The cost of the tickets is 800 Euro.

Apart from volunteer work on helping ill children, the Diakonia also holds different types of educational and pedagogic programs.

Last year the Diakonia has organised an apprenticeship for the sisters of mercy from the Moscow Svyato-Dmitrievskoe community in Germany, now there are plans to go to Russia.

The Archbishop Panteleimon (Shatov) has given us the blessing to conduct a week-long trip to the Marfo-Marijskaya monastery in Moscow. The programme contains getting to know the work that the sisters of mercy are doing in the monastery and outside (care homes, foster homes, etc) as well as contributing to that work, getting to know the work of the Svyato-Dmitrievskoe community, excursion/ pilgrimage to the holy places of Moscow and outskirts and meeting Archbishop Panteleimon.

All those who are interested are welcome. Favour will be given to our volunteers and to people who have or are going through a social worker, nurse, doctor, etc education. Maximum number of people is 10.
More information as well as registration is available over the email viki_klim85@mail.ru or by the phone number +4915901095717 from out coordinator Varvara Klimova.

You can also visit our site www. orthodiakonia.de, where you can get to know the report about the journey from the sisters from Moscow as well as finding out more about helping your neighbour, if you have the desire to help other people!

HURRY TO DO GOOD!
Yours Alina Titova

PRAYER LIST FOR FEBRUARY:

For the health of:
Ioan, Olga, Elena, Elisaveta, Elisaveta, Valerija, Artemiy, Michail, Varvara, Ioan, Dimitriy, Maksim, Ariadna, Dimitriy, Igor, Viktoria, Daniil, Ilya, archpriest Sergii, archpriest Nikolai, Vladislav, Natalia, Aglaida

For the repose:
Archpriest Vassili

Please also pray for their parents and relatives!