Finding Purpose

by Jaimee Langeland - Co-Director of Operation Lazarus, Sevastopol, Ukraine

I was so excited that day when I saw the light bulb go on in Vanya’s head. After a year and a half of investing in his life he finally began to get the picture and he didn’t even realize it. It was a Tuesday afternoon and Vanya had called Andy asking if he could come and talk to us. Our first guess was that he needed money, since he had been out of work for quite some time. As we sat around the table drinking tea, as we usually do, we soon realized that this visit had nothing to do with money and everything to do with Vanya’s purpose in life. Vanya began to explain to us that he wanted to do more with his life than just work at a job and die someday.

He then began to expound on his recent idea of helping older kids from the orphanage in which he had lived. He explained to us that since these kids grow up in an institution they don’t know how to live successful lives when they graduate. He wanted to come up with ways to help these kids. It was as if Vanya was reading directly from the Operation Lazarus website!

We asked him, “Vanya, do you understand that this is exactly why we came to live here?” He replied, “No.” I could hardly keep myself from laughing. The greatest part of the entire incident was that I still don’t think Vanya has any realization that he has been an essential part of the “pilot program” of Operation Lazarus. Part of me wondered how Vanya could be such a part of our lives for over a year and still be so oblivious as to why we live here in Ukraine. The other part of me was thrilled that Vanya has become one of our greatest success stories and yet never knew it and therefore never felt like a “project.” It brought my heart great joy to realize not only has Vanya captured the vision to do something important with his life but that he also captured the very heart of our vision and the very heart of God, to care for orphans.