Overview of Ministry Activity The Past
From Simple Beginnings...
Rachael Hughes first went to the Russian Far East as a short-term missionary in November of 1997. During her time there, she was surprised at the number of children begging on the streets and the conditions that they lived in. Her heart was touched at seeing their plight. She was driven to action one day when she turned to confront a pickpocket and found herself facing a homeless child. Instead of anger, Rachael felt compassion. She bought him food and sat with him. The look of shame visible on his face as he ate in front of her changed Rachael’s life, and the lives of countless street children in the Russian Far East.
The next day Rachael walked the streets giving sandwiches and fruit to street children. Within one month, she was meeting and feeding up to thirty children three times a week.
In April 1998, Rachael began cooperation with a local cafeteria to provide street children with hot meals. In August she initiated the founding of a state run shelter for street children. Staffed initially by volunteers from local churches it then became a fully operational state-run live-in social rehabilitation centre. However there were still children that slipped through the cracks that only Rachael and her organization would help. In April 1999, Living Hope was officially registered as a Russian charitable organization for the rehabilitation of homeless children. Today the work continues.
See an interview with Rachael Hughes as posted on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLwUwDWQKM
The Present
Mobile Soup Kitchen
The mobile soup kitchen is Living Hope’s outreach programme for meeting children who are living on the street. Every night Living Hope staff and volunteers from local churches give out meals at several locations throughout the city, provide on-the-spot counseling and let the children know that someone cares.
Day Centre
Every month Living Hope’s day centre caters to more than forty children. These children are offered a place to shower and a clean set of clothes. They are taught educational lesson and bible studies and are given a hot meal. Children who attend the day centre are encouraged to go back to school for a full education and, where possible, Living Hope staff seek reconciliation between children and their families.
Children’s Prison
Many children have been abandoned by both State and Society. Struggling to survive, some of these children turn to crime in order to seek out an existence. As young as eight years old, they are sentenced for such things as theft, vagrancy and street fighting. Living Hope supports the boys through their sentences and aids in reintroducing them to society after their release. This can include helping them find work and a place to live.
State Cooperation
Living Hope works alongside a number of local state-run shelters and rehabilitation centers, assisting with humanitarian aid, medications and excursions. These centers have also helped our children from t he streets and worked alongside us in their rehabilitation.
Summer Camps
Children living on the streets spend their childhood learning how to survive. Because of this, they have never learnt how to swim or ride a bike and have never had the opportunity to attend a camp and participate in special activities. Living Hope runs two camps every summer for children who are living on the street. Often this is the first experience these children have had of discipline, security and routine. The children can find it hard to adjust to these regulations but by the end of camp they are thriving on them.
At the camps children make decisions to give up drugs, return to school or to their families or to look for work. However, despite their good intentions, the children find their dreams and their circumstances hard to juggle and often give up. This is why Living Hope believes it is important to have round-the-clock services available for the children living on the street so that their rehabilitation may be effective and final. | 
