More on Nativity Inn

A friend of the blog has some personal connections to the apostolate in Magadan Russia, as do we in a certain way. There is a way to donate to Nativity Inn and sponsor individual families and the mission in general. Here are some helpful links.

Contributing to this apostolate would make for great Lenten almsgiving. Our children are collecting change to put in a jar for these children for our Lenten almsgiving.

• Home page for Nativity Inn, the name of the apostolate caring for Russian women and their children.
• Here is the page for donations and a wish list of needed items. The catch about sending actual goods is that Fr. Means would be obligated to pay a tax to receive items valued above $90. Follow instructions on this page if you'd like to send goods to Russia. You may also make a credit card donation or mail a check to an address in St Louis. All information on the link I provided at this bullet.
• If you wish to sponsor a particular family, go to this page.
• Read about the families that Fr. Means et al are helping in Magadan and Ola.
• Brief background on these areas of Russia, focusing on abortion during the Soviet era and life afterward. Life is Russia is very coarse, frankly. We met many very kind and warm people where we were (Tomsk, Siberia), but the quality of life and often many people are pretty coarse. That's the best word I can come up with. I imagine the mutual distrust and effort to survive during the godless Communist era left quite a void of love and human warmth in the culture. That was the sense I had when we were in Russia in 2004.
• This mission is under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Anchorage Alaska and the diocese of St. Joseph. [You really can see Russia from many places in Alaska.]
• Home page of Church of the Nativity. You can click around and see photos of the church, its stained glass windows, etc.
• Here, however, please read the history of the martyrs to the Soviet revolution--at the bottom of the page is an address from which you can order a book on the history of the martyrs of Soviet communism. Magadan was one location of the infamous work camps of the Soviet era. The priests work with the survivors, God bless them. The sufferings of these people are not talked about nearly enough. I read--most of--Gulag. After about 3/4 of it, I got the idea and just had to put it down. This kind of life and the struggle for survival are horrible to ponder. The sense of hopelessness for the individual and society pervaded the book, and presumably, the whole of society under the iron rule of the Soviets. By the grace of God, we are free here in the U.S.