Smile therapy

For several years Medicos del Alma are visiting various hospitals and wards to offer prayer, encouragement and entertainment for patients, visitors and staff. Dressed as clowns with a puppet, balloons and appropriate tracts or magazines, our team goes from ward to ward, room to room, leaving behind smiling faces and thankful hearts. Sometimes friendships start and carry on when the patient is getting out of the hospital. We get to know their families and personal situations, and offer more help and counsel as the need arises.

One neat thing about it is that many young people here are attracted to this form of collaborating with us. It brings immediate fruit (smiles and thanks!) and leaves with this youth unforgettable experience of making someone's day!

Missionary outreach

There is no greater joy then to be able to help someone find the answers. We have heard so often, "God sent you today to me", or "I really needed to hear this!", or "God spoke through you to me", etc. Personal counseling, mentoring, praying is a great calling! When others look at us and say, "There is something different about you", or "Your eyes are shining! What is it?", or "You look so young and full of life!" to us it is so obvious -- it's Jesus. So simple!


Children love it, too! And the response to kids' reaching out and offering someone a prayer of salvation is never dry - people cry, give hugs, feel obliged to express their thankfulness in some form. How sweet!

Puppet shows

2007 Coming to Argentina

It took a string of miracles for us to come to Argentina. Our paperwork, finances, finding the team and actual traveling. A bus company granted our request for half-price discount - another miracle. We arrived here on March 2007 with our seven children and big expectations.

How does one describe Buenos Aires? Tango, asado, wine, theaters, night life, mate (national herbal drink), Maradona, passion for life, growing slum areas, many immigrants, acceptance, hospitality, rough exterior, salsa and Latin dancing, enjoying work and life, pleasant climate, gorgeous nature - just a few phrases that capture the spirit of Bs. As. for me. And its people - intelligent, laughter-loving, aggressive in reaching their goals, impulsive, expressive with their hands, family-oriented, self-efficient, inclusive.


There is a certain void in the spirit for true values that seem to be fading out. Maybe not a void for religion, but for spiritual truths. We found out that many are hurting inside, hence "Medicos del Alma" - a program designed to reach five objectives:

- personal counseling, support and encouragement;

- distribution and promotion of "Activated" magazine and educational materials from Aurora production for children and adults;

- gigantic puppet shows in schools, colleges, comedores;

- risoterapia or smile therapy in hospitals for patients and nurses;

- teaching young volunteers in all the above.

Lixao Mage, RJ

Brazil Photo Album

MAGIC PARADISE - a beautiful water park with several pools connected with each others. Perfect place to meet people!
Katya, Bia and Aggie enjoying the day!


Christmas shows and studio shots!




Niteroi TV program recording: interview with our show group



Singing to a friend from the ice-cream shop!





More pictures....

2004 Bon Voyage! We are going to Brazil...

It may sound crazy, but we started having dreams and visions of traveling. By then we had 5 children ages 6 to 1. We felt the Lord was calling us someplace else from our missionary center in Kiev. We just were desperate to find out where He wanted us.

He promised that we would find Him on the other side as we step out on the waters. The vision of us being surrounded by water kept following us. We just didn’t see Jesus on the other side. Until one day, somebody left a brochure in our home. As Adam picked it up and looked at it, he saw it, he saw Him on the other side. Without saying a word, he turned that brochure to me and asked, “Do you see what I see?” As I looked at the brochure, it had the same effect on me – it couldn’t have been clearer even if someone had screamed in my ear "That’s it! You are looking at it!"

There was our Jesus with His arms outstretched, welcoming us from the other side of the ocean – the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Seven ways to know God’s Will is a handy manual for anyone who reached crossroads in life. It is tried and proven and is a great help to me personally when I am making big decisions regarding traveling, jobs, relationships - anything big and significant to me. Here goes the magical divine formula in order of priorities.

0. Have no will of your own. You have to go into this with an open heart. That’s the prerequisite to get it right!

1. The Word. Look up the Bible and other devotional sources to find your general bearings.

2. The Voice of the Word. Be prepared for supernatural! You might experience a nudge in the spirit, or a particular verse might come to focus to you the way it never did before.

3. Direct revelations. If you are an active dreamer, that’s a good time to put your dreams to good use! Ask Jesus to speak to you through your dreams!

4. Godly counsel. God will surely speak to you about it through others. Seek the counsel of someone you trust and who is strong in faith and discernment.

5. Open/closed doors. Where God guides He provides, and where God leads He opens the door. Fair enough! Just like driving to McDonald's you should be able to see signs and props if you are on the right way.

6. Burdens and feelings. You should have a gut feeling about it. You won’t be able to shake it off easily.

7. A special sign. Ask for one, ‘If such-and-such is the way to go, then, God, do such-and-such’. Just don’t bet too much on this card. It’s the last one and of the least importance.

May I recommend an excellent magazine “Activated” with the full article “Seven Ways to Know God’s Will”? Actually, these magazines are chalk-full of amazing helpful info! Nowadays with information overload you have to be selective about what you read. “Activated” is a worthy investment of your time and money. Here is where to find the magazine www.activated.org

Subscribe to it, and see your life change for the better!

1992 - 2004 Europe and ex-USSR

At first as singles and then as a couple, Adam and I share many happy and fulfilling moments living a missionary life.

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This is a brief overview of what we have done during this time in dozens of cities in several countries across Europe and through Russia from Moscow to Novosibirsk:

- cooperative living in missionary training centers; set-up of housing facilities for missionary families;

- ongoing experience in volunteer service; helping underprivileged and elderly; community outreach and charity work;

- editing and publishing, proofreading, lay-out, translations; graphics and design;

- home economics, management, home decor, human resource management;

- chef, culinary arts, raising support, supply agent;

- inter-cultural exchange, international experience;

- missionary outreach, personal evangelism, urban ministry, organizational communication, field evangelism, youth lab outreach;

- Christian and professional enrichment courses;

- child rearing, early and primary childhood education, classroom management, childcare lab.

How did it start?

For me, being born into the family of communist/Orthodox tradition, religion was boring. A little reserved by nature, I liked studying and reading, music practicing and enjoyed the company of a couple of friends.

How does one find God in their life? I found him in moments of inner search, when something seemed amiss in my life. My parents were doting and loving, my relatives and acquaintances understanding and supportive of my successes. How can something seem amiss in a seemingly happy life? I couldn’t quite explain it myself, and it was puzzling for me. I felt there was something else that I should know, something more that I should do. My career seemed predictable enough – university studies, a job of a teacher or a translator, personal life, social life… Yet, as I was growing up and reached my late teen years, I felt more and more out of place.

That was a time when the Iron Wall fell, and the Cold War was over. The borders were opening up and more western influence was allowed to flood the former USSR. With first Pepsi and Cola, bananas and frozen pineapples (exotic!), porn and pirate videos also came many missionaries and church representatives from about any denomination there was under the sun. The land opened up in a vortex of voracious consumption of anything and everything different, non-Soviet, formerly forbidden.

My University buddy happened to come back from Poland with a stack of colorful posters she picked up from somebody on the train station. Being a Christian, she felt it was her duty to immediately dispatch her possessions with the rest of us, heathen. Mine was called “The Signs of the End’ with some ominous drawings and a picture of smiling Jesus (odd to the Orthodox/communist mentality).

The poster belonged to the missionary group and was in need of serious proofreading and correcting. Having read half of it and getting somewhat captivated with the message, yet lost in statistics, the idea came to me to write on the address and offer my help as a translator. It was accepted, and thus began communications between me and a couple of sweet people who were handling productions back then. Later on I was invited to one of the Christmas events hosted by the group in my city, and suddenly, bingo! The chemistry! I found what I was looking for. I felt it inside, I got peace and the feeling of belonging to something even greater then the little team of dozen sincere, kind, principled people that I got to see on December 1990 Christmas show.

Little did I know that among them and their colleagues I would find my friends and mentors, brothers and sisters, God-mothers and God-fathers, and soul mates. I had no idea that one day I will become one of them, singing from stages, holding seminars and events, reaching out to the lowliest of all, and speaking in the halls with authorities and more! My fate was sealed! My life was bought with a price, and the meaning of it didn’t even begin to dawn on me. Sweet mystery called ‘future’! I felt that I would be able to peek into it and know where my life was heading! It was great!

Welcome

Join us on our voyage through life! We are Adam and Natalia – professional volunteers with The Family International. We live to serve and share simple message of love and encouragement, hope and faith found in Jesus. Seventeen years of adventure, great happiness, rugged paths, challenges and achievements, discoveries and personal lessons, – we share the log of our mission with you, dear viewers!