Group getting ready for mission trip to Ukraine

The trip -- organized through World Hope Canada – will have the Yarmouth group lending a hand to Kerry and Carole Allison, former New Brunswickers who run the drop-in centre and are involved in other facilities designed to help children and youth.

MacLeod says the ultimate purpose of the mission is to try to show the young people that someone cares about them.

There are more than 12,000 homeless children in Odessa, according to the World Hope Canada website.

“They’ll start at age five living on the streets, mainly because the drug trafficking in Odessa is so bad that kids would rather live on the streets, homeless, than live with their parents, who are addicted to drugs and alcohol,” MacLeod said in an interview.

A precise activity schedule for the Yarmouth group’s visit hadn’t been drawn up, but he indicated that the idea is to let the children enjoy themselves, describing it as hopefully “just a fun time for these street kids to be kids.”

MacLeod – a Wesleyan Church pastor and the leader of this particular mission – says there is also a need there for various supplies, including Band Aids, Tylenol and shampoo, and so the plan is for the group to take with them items such as these.

They also intend to bring articles of winter clothing (including scarves and mittens) that were collected through a local church campaign.

This will be the first overseas mission for all of the group’s members, including MacLeod, who, at 30, is the youngest of them.

That the children in Odessa turn to the street so early in life is difficult to fathom, he said.

“My oldest is almost four and I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how he could live on the street and I just can’t,” MacLeod said. “I think this trip is going to be a huge eye opener to us who live in North America, because we can’t imagine.”

Likely by necessity, Odessa’s children tend to be quite grown up, he said, and it can take awhile to gain their trust.

The city, meanwhile, is a tourist destination, he said, noting that police there have been known to put street kids in jail when they know a cruise ship is coming in.

Mission workers like the Allisons are building a good reputation there, he said.

“The last time they put the kids in jail the Allisons went down to the jail and said ‘listen, we’ll look after the kids’…and I think they did let them out of jail for the Allisons to take (care of),” he said.

Mission workers from all over spend time assisting the Allisons in their work.

“They have a group for about two weeks and then it takes about two weeks to get ready for the next group to come, so usually it just works out that every month they have a new coming in, which is really great,” MacLeod said.

As for the cost of the Yarmouth contingent’s trip to Ukraine, it works out to about $3,000 per person and fundraising activities have been organized to help them out.

Translators are provided to help overcome the language barrier while the group is in Ukraine.

The group is scheduled to leave June 8 and return a week-and-a-half or so later.