Young Nikita gave away his Christmas gift . . . trading it for something even greater

SGA-Supported Orphans Reborn Team
Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Editor’s note: SGA-supported churches are quickly preparing Christmas outreaches to orphans across the former USSR, in Eastern Europe, and the other nations where we serve. Friends and partners like you allow us to reach children with Jesus’s love—and their hearts and lives are transformed. Our Orphans Reborn team in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, shared this remarkable story:

Every year, our team prepares a new play about Christmas. The children look forward to it with such excitement! Last year, we held 25 performances—certainly a record-breaking number! Some of the locations were 300 miles away. We were also able to give about 700 gifts to the orphans.

One orphan named Nikita gave away his greatest gift last Christmas! He’d been in the orphanage for about two years. Sadly, he has a skin-related illness that gives him pain and discomfort, and because of this, he felt insecure. But then, he came to Christ at an SGA-supported camp outreach. He is now growing into an open, confident young man.

Last Christmas as we were collecting Christmas gifts, one person donated 150 expensive wireless headphones to be used as gifts for the children, but there weren’t enough for everyone, and we didn’t want to offend anyone. Finally, we agreed that we would give the headphones at the end of the school year to children who actively participated in Bible lessons. Nikita still lived in one of the orphanages, and it so happened that we missed one for another boy, who was very upset.

Our Nikita gave that boy his gift! We told Nikita that he acted like Jesus and like a true man, and promised to bring him another gift. Nikita said that for him, the most important thing was not the gift itself, but our friendship and love that we gave to all the children.

Two hours later Nikita wrote to me, saying that he was upset to learn that the boy to whom he gave his gift sold it for nothing. He was very ashamed of the boy for treating our gift like that. This gave us a chance to talk with Nikita about the most valuable gift God gave us for Christmas—His Son. I asked Nikita to talk to that boy about what Christmas is about and that the gifts that we brought were from our hearts and someone paid a high price for them.

God is working in the lives of Nikita and other children, changing their character and values, and is delightful to see. Of course, we did bring Nikita another gift, but the very story of his generosity and care for his neighbor touched our hearts!

Thank you for being a blessing to our children and to us through your continued support of our ministry to orphans. Thousands of children and hundreds of adults have now heard about the Lord, His love, and mercy—but there are millions who still need to hear the Gospel. Please continue to pray for our upcoming ministry this Christmas!