Chernobyl kids receive health care through Carolina church
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A UMNS photo by Bob Vernon Host families and children from Belarus enjoy a picnic at Kerr Lake in North Carolina.
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Host
families and children from Belarus enjoy a picnic on a dock at Kerr
Lake in North Carolina. The American Belarussian Relief Organization was
founded in 1991 to help children in the areas contaminated by the 1986
Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion. For more than a decade, members of
White Plains United Methodist Church in Carey, N.C., have been hosting
children from Belarus for a six-week stay full of fun as well as doctor
visits. A UMNS photo by Bob Vernon. Photo #06940. Accompanies UMNS story
#505. 8/24/06 |
Aug. 24, 2006
By Bob Vernon*
CARY, N.C. (UMNS) –– This year marks the 20th anniversary of an explosion
at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in what was then the Soviet Union.
Radioactive fallout equivalent to 150 Hiroshima atomic bomb blasts spewed
for 10 days over 77,000 square miles.
Most of the damage caused by the April 26, 1986, explosion was felt — and
continues to be experienced — by the 10 million residents of the Republic
of Belarus, which received 70 percent of the Chernobyl radiation.
Some of the land around Chernobyl will never be habitable again. Farther away
from ground zero, the effects of the radiation will be felt for generations.
It is the children of these areas that a group of Americans is reaching out
to help.
The American Belarussian Relief Organization was created in 1991 for the sole
purpose of helping children in the contaminated areas. White Plains United
Methodist Church of Cary, N.C., was one of the first churches to get involved
in the program. Each summer for a decade, it has brought children from Belarus
to North Carolina.
Money for the plane tickets and visas is raised by church members who operate
a food concession at the annual fall North Carolina State Fair. Other expenses
are covered by special offerings. Church members who are in the medical profession
donate their services to the children.
Judi Brettschneider, ABRO project coordinator for the White Plains church,
has made many trips to Belarus. The six children who are guests of the church
this year are all orphans. As Brettschneider describes the conditions in the
village where the orphanage is located, she sounds as if she might be talking
about a community from another century.
She says people in the area do not have indoor plumbing, and they line up
at a central pump to get their daily water supply. The quality of medical care
is no better than their water system, says Brettschneider.
“I appreciate what I have a lot more than I did,” Brettschneider
says. “I understand that life is not easy for everybody. My life is easy.
Even when I have a bad day, my life is easy.”
Medical care
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A UMNS photo by Bob Vernon Belarusian children and their hosts take a break from fun on the water.
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Belarusian
children and their hosts take a break from fun on the water at Kerr
Lake in North Carolina. The American Belarussian Relief Organization was
founded in 1991 to help children in the areas contaminated by the 1986
Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion. For more than a decade, members of
White Plains United Methodist Church in Carey, N.C., have been hosting
children from Belarus for a six-week stay full of fun as well as doctor
visits. A UMNS photo by Bob Vernon. Photo #06941. Accompanies UMNS story
#505. 8/24/06
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The children, ranging in age from 8 to 15, stay with church families for six
weeks. The days are filled with picnics and fun on area lakes along with trips
to seemingly magical supermarkets and shopping centers.
Visits to American doctors are the most significant
part of their summer experiences. While the most common ailments in the highly
contaminated villages of Belarus
are leukemia and Hodgkin’s disease, most of the children have suppressed
immune systems that make them vulnerable to other medical problems as well.
One of the children brought here for several summers by the White Plains church
has tuberculosis. Each year, she has been treated by North Carolina doctors
and medicine has been sent home with her. This summer she shows no signs of
the disease.
Another child is being treated by Dr. Steven Boyce, an ears, nose and throat
specialist, who is a church member. He says the girl has a condition that needs
surgery or she will soon lose hearing in one ear.
Boyce is looking for a way to make sure the child gets the necessary operation.
He says her best option would be to return later in the year for the procedure.
A transforming experience
The interchange between the Americans and the
children of Belarus is not a one-way street. Church member Patti Crane says
she has
learned much from 14-year-old
Vika, the teenager staying with the Crane family. “There are a lot of
things that make her happy, and material things aren’t necessarily the
things that make her happy.”
While many of the host families would like to
adopt the orphans, the Belarus government will not allow it. “I do worry and am concerned about what
happens to (Vika) while she is back in the orphanage,” Crane says.
“
Our church and our church members are transformed,” says the Rev. Kelly
Lyn Logue associate pastor of the White Plains church, “because we don’t
write a check to tend to these kids, we actually live out our commitment to
them. We all learn new ways of communicating and find that offering home and
shelter, friendship and love translates the same in any language.”
The church is already making plans to expand the program and to sponsor
additional children from Belarus next summer.
More information is available at http://www.abro.org online. *Vernon is a freelance producer in Cary, N.C. News media contact: Fran Coode Walsh, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5458 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.
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