When Dima, with his two older sisters, came into the care of the Hope Now foster program he was just two years old. He had been rescued from an ugly situation but came into the home of Vladimir and Larissa Kusin. Vladimir is the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Cherkassy. He and Larissa already care for three of their own boys, an adopted boy and another older girl rescued from homelessness.

Recently, the family went through much pain, temptation and despair when Dima, now 6, was rushed to the hospital in Kyiv, 120 miles from Cherkassy, with a serious kidney disease. He had emergency surgery on one kidney while the doctors struggled to save his life. Larissa spent 5 weeks by his bedside caring and praying for him, while Dad looked after the family at home.

Larissa recalls, "In the hospital nobody believed in God, but Dima and I read the Bible and prayed. The first two days they watched us silently, then asked questions and soon everybody from the ward prayed with us. I asked my friends from Gideon's to come and they brought me Bibles for everyone in the ward and we then read it together. Dima is an amazing, faithful child. He never betrayed me for this month of illness. He was never capricious, never cried and was very patient. Courageously and with great trust he looked at me with his big eyes. He lost so much weight.

I had no doubts about God's will. But on one of the most difficult five days, when the temperature was 40 degrees and, in spite of all the efforts, the doctors could do nothing to help him; I thought that God might want to take him. 'What if he grows up and become a bandit or a thief?' I tried to send those thoughts away.

In the evening Dima went to sleep and I hurried to a church.  I didn't know that church and got to a youth meeting. That was so amazing. I prayed without ceasing: "Lord, show me your will concerning Dima." And there the Lord clearly spoke to me through a young preacher: "it is not the will of your Father, that one of these little ones should perish". That was an answer to my question. I ran to a hospital confident Dima wouldn't die. "