Somewhere A Child is Waiting for You!

News from Georgia: Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown Visits Tbilisi, Georgia!

Source: http://www.cnn.com

By Anthony Bourdain

(CNN)I was late to Georgia.

My flight was stuck in Istanbul and we’d had only a small window to shoot in the off season resort city of Batumi, so a last minute substitute was called in.

Like John Shaft, he’s a complicated man.

Like Wolf Blitzer, he’s got the credentials and experience to tackle any subject.

Like Bambi, a struggling medical student, he WILL pole dance if no other employment options exist.

Read more.

Moral of the Story: Eat Your Matson!

Check out this TV commercial filmed in Georgia in 1977. It is the first American TV commercial filmed in the Soviet Union. "Moral of the story? Eat your matson!" 

Click here to watch.

News from Georgia: Pilgrims seek wish fulfillment at monk's tomb

found by BBC Monitoring

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25639381

Father Gabriel - who died in 1995 and was later canonized - was rumored to have made the promise in a vision to a local nun, a story that spread through social media and word of mouth.

Two wishes would supposedly be granted to those who arrived at the tomb before Orthodox Christmas - which falls today.

Priests were quick to denounce the "vision", however. Hegumen Kirion Machaidze took to Facebook to accuse the visitors of "idol worship" and of treating Father Gabriel like a "genie".

Church leaders were finally forced to release a statement which declared "The notion that everyone will have all of their wishes granted cannot be true, as those requests which are pleasing to God and which are in line with the will of the Lord are fulfilled, not just any desire."

Read more

News from Georgia: Georgia's disabled 'locked in a box'

By Rayhan Demytrie
BBC News, Tbilisi

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25575094

Georgia has become one of the first ex-Soviet republics to abolish state orphanages in favor of foster care. But disabled children continue to be marginalized and face the prospect of life-long isolation from society.

Vano (not his real name) is 18. He lies curled in the fetal position in his bed. He is thin and has the body of a 10-year old.

The only sign to show that he is alive is the grating sound he makes with his teeth.

"This is his life. This is all he does," says Eric Mathews, a researcher from the Washington-based group, Disability Rights International (DRI), sitting by Vano's side.

"The staff here told us that he has not left his bed except to get washed for five years. This bed is his home."

Vano has cerebral palsy. He is one of 22 children living in Kojori Institution for Children with Disabilities on the outskirts of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

Read more

Youth Dance and Songs Ensemble "Golden Gates" Concert in Raleigh!

We are inviting you to Family Cultural Program with Dances and Songs from Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan!

Wednesday, July 24th at 7:30pm
All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church
520 Buck Jones Rd., Raleigh NC
Concert is Free but Free Will Donations are welcome!

Become friends to know about future tours: https://www.facebook.com/vitnet

Like us: Golden Gates: https://www.facebook.com/russiandance

Teach & Learn with Georgia

Teach and Learn with Georgia (TLG), a progressive education movement initiated by the Georgian government, recruits native English speakers to co-teach English alongside local English teachers in public schools throughout the country of Georgia. TLG aims to improve Georgia's nationwide English language proficiency in an effort towards further globalization.

Teach and Learn Georgia is now recruiting new TLG volunteers for the academic year 2013-2014. Please check out our extensive benefits and apply now!

Amazing and productive trip!

Dancing Crane's Georgian Theater of New York Performs "Sarke"

Dear Friends,

This Wednesday, December 19, following their several very successful performances last year, Dancing Crane's Georgian Theater of New York will perform "Sarke". Please take a look at the announcement below for more details.

Sincerely,

Nino Aduashvili
Executive Director
Georgian Association in the USA, Inc.

Dancing Crane’s Georgian Theater of New York is pleased to present Lika Bakhturidze Sirelson’s “Sarke” at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Manhattan’s lower West Side. Sarke premiered in 2010 and performed in 2011 at the Midtown Theatre Festival in Manhattan and in Toronto’s York Woods Theatre.

*A Mother and Daughter's Face Off Over The Future*
in Dancing Crane Company’s presentation of the Georgian Drama *SARKE*

written by Lia Bakhturidze Sirelson
performed at The Cherry Lane Theatre

38 Commerce Street, Manhattan, NY
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2012
8:00 p.m.

For tickets ($30) please call 347-257-2741 or visit our website http://www.dancingcrane.org

Our production is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.

SARKE SYNOPSIS: A mother determined to provide for her child and a daughter who wants to follow her heart. This tale of generational differences and perceptions is brought powerfully to life in Lia Bakhturidze Sirelson's family drama *Sarke*, (The Mirror) as performed by Dancing Crane's Georgian Theater of New York, New York's only Georgian theater company. Directed by Ramaz Zurabashvili.

Cast: Khatuna Ioseliani, Tsitso Kapanadze, Lika Bakhturidze Sirelson, Natalia Goderdzishvili, Irakli Shengelia, Giorgi Potskhveria, Nika Muradeli, Natia Nebunishvili, Mari Mredlishvili

Veriko, an elderly woman living in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital city, has fallen upon hard times. She is determined her daughter Tako marry a Georgian immigrant she believes to be rich, and who has just returned from America to seek a bride. If this comes to pass, Veriko reasons, her child will never know the fear of poverty, a fear she herself has lived with all her life. Tako however loves another, but is so cowed by years of her mother's steamroller-like domination she lacks the courage to say how she really feels. As mother and daughter prepare for a fateful dinner party, the guests including a gossipy neighbor, an unemployed alcoholic, a political activist and a poor relation from the country, secrets are revealed and words which cannot be taken back are heatedly exchanged. It falls to the most unlikely of wise men to truly put things into perspective.

Ensemble Basiani - 2012 US Tour

Lovers of Georgian polyphonic song, get ready!

Ensemble Basiani is coming to the US!

For any of you who haven't heard them, Basiani is one of Georgia's finest men's ensembles.

Learn more about them here: http://www.basiani.ge/en

And be sure to come to a come to a concert if you can!



Gainesville, FL
Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 2:00pm
University Auditorium
University of Florida Performing Arts
http://performingarts.ufl.edu/events/2012/ensemble-basiani/

Hanover, NH
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 7:00pm
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Spaulding Auditorium
Dartmouth College
http://hop.dartmouth.edu/performances/ensemble-basiani-of-georgia

Berkeley, CA
Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 8:00pm
First Congregational Church
Cal Performances, University of California
http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/performances/2012-13/world-stage/georgias-ensemble-basiani.php

Santa Barbara, CA
Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 4:00pm and 7:00pm
First United Methodist Church
UCSB Arts & Lectures
https://artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu/Details.aspx?PerfNum=2420

New York, NY
Saturday, October 27, 2012 at 7:30pm
Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 145 W. 46th St.
Lincoln Center, White Light Festival
http://www.whitelightfestival.org/ensemble-basiani

Tourism in Georgia

The Tbilisi Chalice Goes Home

Archbishop Songulashvili (L)
and Rev. George Reed

The church of which I’m a member, Pullen Memorial Baptist in Raleigh, has had a partnership for many years with First Baptist Church in Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union). The pastor with whom we’ve had the closest contact, Malkhaz Songulashvili, has now become the Archbishop for Baptists in Georgia. (You did not read that wrong. Baptists in the Republic of Georgia have bishops and an archbishop!) Malkhaz was at Pullen on November 13 to preach and lead in the celebration of Eucharist.

Malkhaz has been courageous in his advocacy and practice of nonviolent action as Georgia has gone through its “Rose Revolution,” which moved Georgia away from authoritarian government and toward democratic reform. The Church of England honored his leadership in September 2005 when he was awarded the Lambeth Cross by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Sunday’s service was a deeply moving one, which he and Pullen pastor Nancy Petty had crafted to focus on the liturgy of the church in Georgia, but also in ways accessible to Baptists in North Carolina. So, we had incense, but no wine!

What caught me off-guard and deeply affected me was Malkhaz’ telling of the purpose of his trip to the United States. It seems that the Baptist church inTbilisi, the capital of Georgia, had had a communion chalice dating back to the time of the church’s founding in 1868. (It was the first Baptist church in all of what would be the USSR.) In 1928, the church inTbilisi gave the chalice to a Baptist congregation in Moscow as an expression of their oneness in the faith, even in the face of differences between Russians and Georgians. Shortly after the end of World War II, a delegation from the United States visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet leader Josef Stalin. The delegation was invited to visit the Baptist church in Moscow, and the church gave the Americans a treasured possession, the chalice from Tbilisi, again as a symbol of the power of faith to overcome differences. So it ended up in the United States, was labeled the “Chalice of Peace” in some circles, but then pretty much disappeared.

Archbishop Songulashvili is completing his doctoral dissertation at Oxford. In doing research on the history of Baptists in Georgia, he came across information about the 1946 American visit. Further research found a reference to the chalice, and he was able to trace it to Mercer University in “our” Georgia, the US state. Someone there in the Mercer library had a vision of a chalice in a little-used room in the library (Malkhaz noted that she was not a woman given to visions!). When she went to the room she had visioned, there was a chalice, but it was labeled as Russian, not Georgian. It turned out to be the missing Tbilisi chalice, mislabeled because the Americans had gotten it in Moscow. Mercer has given it back to the Baptist church in Tbilisi, and Malkhaz is in the States to receive it. He came to Raleigh to celebrate communion, using the chalice, with his brothers and sisters at Pullen.

Are you still with me? Why was this particularly moving to me? Malkhaz mentioned in telling this story that a letter which led him to the chalice was from a “Dr. Newton.” My mind went spinning.

One of my grandfathers was a Baptist preacher in Georgia. He died at a relatively young age, almost twenty years before I was born, from an infection that antibiotics would cure today. I don’t know much about him, though I was given the name “Joseph” – the “J.” in “J. George” – as a tribute to him. One of the few pieces of his history that I have is an obituary noting that my grandfather’s funeral was preached by his close friend from seminary, Dr. Louie Newton. Louie Newton went on to be president of the Georgia Baptist Convention (the one in the US), president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and vice president of the Baptist World Alliance.

Could it be?

You know I wouldn’t be going through this story in order to tell you that the “Dr. Newton” was somebody else! I can’t tell you the emotions I sensed as I put my hand on the chalice to receive communion. The tangible, physical tie to someone who was a close friend of the grandfather I never knew . . . Well, it was a moment I’ll never forget.

But, wait, there’s a little bit more. Special music Sunday morning featured a piece for violin and handbells that included the hymn It Is Well with My Soul. Though I had grown up in a church with a large music program, I had not known that hymn until I came to Ridgecrest (the Baptist assembly near Asheville) as a high schooler and heard it for the first time. I loved it. Still do. When I returned home from Ridgecrest, pulled out a hymnal, and played the hymn for my parents (this “new” hymn I had “discovered”), my dad was quick to say that it had been his father’s favorite hymn and had been sung at his funeral. That would be the service Dr. Louie Newton had led.

The inscription on the chalice reads “Drink from it, all of you!” In addition to these poignant reminders of my dad and of his dad, Sunday’s service was a powerful witness to our oneness in Christ, stronger than barriers of language, distances of geography, and differences in styles of worship.

–George Reed, Executive Director

Flashback 2006: Hopscotch Adoptions FIRST Adoption Completed!!

As we enter this Holiday Season..Our family will be remembering, and giving thanks for our Thanksgiving in Armenia five years ago. It is amazing that it has already been five years...Time flies once your child comes home.

We are blessed to be the parents of two beautiful little boys. Our oldest son Nate came home from the Republic of Georgia in September 2002. After 13 years of waiting we were finally parents! He was beautiful, precious and perfect in every way.

In the summer of 2003 we sent off our dossier for baby number two..This time around things did not go as planned. We spent the next two plus years waiting. With many disappointments, ups and downs...Ending with losing a referral.

All of which, lead us to Robin, Hopscotch and our beautiful, precious, perfect in every way, Armenian Angel! On December 1st, our little guy Chance will turn six years old. His birthday also marks the day we returned home five years ago as a family of four. Tim and I are blessed and thankful for each and every day we have with our boys. They are gifts from God!

Thank you to Robin and her amazing team...Hopscotch. We were blessed to be the first Hopscotch family!

—The Locker Family

Redjeb Jordania's "Concerto Classico for Percussion Solo" and "Symphonic Winds" New Edition Released

The Georgian Association in the U.S. would like to share the following information with you:

In honor of Redjeb Jordania's 90th birthday, Driftwood Press
is releasing a new edition of his seminal
Concerto Classico for Percussion Solo and Symphonic Winds
Russian Federal Orchestra, Vakhtang Jordania conductor,
Alexei Amosov Percussion Solo

Also included on the CD is Redjeb's 

Perkiomen Suite
Original 1963 recording with the composer at the piano
(to hear samples, go to Amazon.com below or download attached)

About the Music       
Loosely inspired by Prokofief's Classical Symphony, the Concerto Classico for Percussion and Symphonic Winds is written in an accessible musical idiom within a traditional four-part format, while the percussion part is limited to instruments commonly used in classical times. Paradoxically lyrical at times, it displays high virtuosity throughout, particularly in Part 4 with its Georgian dance rhythms as well as in the cadenzas and the intricate concluding sequence.

Master-percussionist Evelyn Glennie writes: "Your Concerto Classico for Percussion looks wonderfully exciting and fun! The performance given by the Russian Federal Orchestra and Alexei Asomov is wonderful. The writing for the winds is challenging and effective, as is the percussion."     

The Perkiomen Suite is named after the eastern-Pennsylvania village  where the composer landed coming practically straight from Paris in 1960. It is comprised of eight light-hearted sound-sketches depicting people and events of the locality, not forgetting the HEX signs so ubiquitous in the region.

Availability

• CD and/or Mp3 download: Amazon.com (Music/Redjeb Jordania) 
• CD Only: Create Space, Producers

Further Information
DriftwoodPress@aol.com or Redjeb@aol.com

Benefit Concert for Children's Cancer Center in Georgia - November 19, 2011

The St. George Foundation and Princess Diana Bagrationi Foundation are organizing a fundraiser concert in New York to help the Children's Cancer Center in Georgia. You are cordially invited to attend.

For more information about the concert, please refer to the brochure below.

Sharing Safety - Two Triad Women Join Forces to Help Improve Conditions for Mothers in Other Countries

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 
By Lisa O'Donnell JOURNAL REPORTER

Robin Sizemore and Medge Owen felt a bond the first time they met. And it wasn't just because Owen was administering an epidural that eased Sizemore's labor pains.

In June, while Owen looked for a good spot to place the epidural needle, Sizemore mentioned that she had two adopted children from Georgia.

Owen asked: "The Georgia beside Turkey?"

Sizemore was delightfully shocked. Most people would have asked: "Oh, you mean Atlanta?"

The women soon discovered that they were deeply involved in humanitarian projects in neighboring countries.

Owen, an obstetric anesthesiologist, is founder of Kybele, a nonprofit group working to improve obstetric anesthesia in Turkey, among other countries. Owen first started working in Turkey while a medical resident.

Her husband, Can Unal, a molecular biologist, is Turkish.

Sizemore helps coordinate relief projects for orphans in Georgia.

"I got excited," Sizemore said. "I said that I was taking a medical team to Georgia the first two weeks of October. And she said, 'Oh, really?' I'm taking a team to Turkey in September.'"

Sizemore asked her to come over to Georgia when she finished in Turkey. She hoped that Owen could introduce modern anesthesia techniques to doctors.

"I'm on the plane," Owen said.

Their chance meeting could result in improved childbirth conditions for Georgian women, many of whom deliver children without pain relief.

She brought by some material about her organization to Sizemore's room. They talked more and realized they had much in common. Sizemore is 40, and Owen is 42. They both gave birth to children when they were 40.

"We found out that we had similar life stories," Owen said. "We had young children yet we were traveling back and forth every three months or so to countries that are side-by-side."

"Essentially, we've both become convinced that divine intervention brought us together for a greater common purpose," said Owen, who is an associate professor of anesthesiology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The two women recently returned from Georgia. With Sizemore acting as her guide, Owen spent four days meeting doctors and learning how they use anesthesia.

Sizemore, who lives in High Point with her husband, James, and children Karina, 8, Kelley, 5, and Reese, 5 months, worked on several of her projects while in Georgia.

She helped bring over a team of orthopedists from the United States who performed corrective foot surgery for orphans. Another team helped renovate a dentist's office in one orphanage.

Sizemore became involved in the plight of Georgian orphans after adopting her daughter, Karina, in 1995.

The country, a former republic of the Soviet Union, was reeling after years of civil strife. The infrastructure was collapsing. Heat was so scarce that people ate their meals wearing mittens. Chickens and dogs roamed the hospital where the Sizemores adopted their daughter.

Karina was an undersized 3-week-old infant when the Sizemores first saw her. She was kept in a dark room and was rarely held.

"She truly suffered. My God, it was awful," Sizemore said.

Several Georgians rallied to help the Sizemores adopt the girl. They offered lodging and helped them wade through bureaucratic red tape.

This generous spirit, in the face of such bleakness, inspired Sizemore. She quit her job as an account executive at a local TV station and eventually became the Georgian liaison in charge of relief projects for Carolina Adoption Service, a nonprofit international adoption agency.

Later, the Sizemores adopted Kelley, who is also from Georgia.

She visits Georgia every two to three months to develop and manage projects for orphans and other children in need.

Sizemore and her team visit orphanages, hospitals and government officials. They have installed generators, built running water systems, renovated parts of orphanages and supplied clothes and school supplies for children.

Owen's work fits perfectly with Sizemore's vision of how to improve the overall quality of life for Georgian children.

"My work is humanitarian relief for the children of Georgia, but obviously that care begins at or before the birth of a child," Sizemore said.

She talked to several women in Georgia about pregnancy and was surprised to learn that they did not have epidurals, a regional anesthetic injected into the spinal column that relieves pain during childbirth.

"It shocked me to imagine a general population being fearful of epidurals," Sizemore said.

Though epidurals have been widely used in the United States for about 30 years, doctors in many countries are unfamiliar with how they should be administered, Owen said.

In Turkey, Owen discovered that doctors used general anesthesia for women undergoing Cesarean sections. The result is a high maternal death rate.

According to Owen, the number of deaths during a C-section is 17 times greater with general rather than regional anesthesia.

General anesthesia also denies the woman the chance to see her baby at delivery.

Doctors in developing countries are eager to learn about regional anesthesia, Owen said. They have been to conferences and read about it, but they don't get the chance to practice it.

"I use the analogy of swimming," Owen said. "Just because you go to a conference about swimming doesn't mean that you're able to get in the water and swim. It's the same with this technique. It really takes someone getting in the water with you and showing you how to swim."

During her four-day visit in Georgia, Owen discovered a different set of challenges from those in Turkey.

Women are afraid of C-sections and know little about epidurals. As a result, they suffer through childbirth without any option for pain relief.

Sometimes, the women forgo epidurals for cultural reasons, Sizemore said.

"Women feel that if they don't experience the full depth of pain they feel less of a woman," she said. "I could take being less of a woman."

Other women have even been convinced by doctors that epidurals will harm their babies. Though complications are rare, side effects include headaches, backaches and nausea.

Epidurals cost about $42 in Georgia, an exorbitant amount to pay when the average monthly wage is $15.

"You do epidurals primarily for comfort," Owen said. "Women have a right to be comfortable."

Owen visited a hospital in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that about 30 percent of pregnant women get epidurals (by comparison, Owen said that about 80 percent of women at Forsyth Medical Center receive epidurals).

Their methods were outdated and the epidural kits they used were "bare-bones minimum," Owen said.

Owen said she hopes to train more doctors in Georgia how to administer regional anesthesia, much as she did in Turkey. Next year, she would like to return to Georgia with a team of doctors that would include an obstetrician, a neonatalogist and two obstetric anesthesiologists.

Owen and Sizemore also plan to learn more about the kinds of equipment and drugs hospitals need to increase the availability of epidurals.

"We're not there to force epidurals down everyone's throat but to teach techniques and safety," Owen said.

"We're in 2004, and the technology is there, and women can make a choice." 

Post script: Fast forward to today, Kybele, Inc, now has active programs in  Armenia, Croatia, Egypt, Ghana, Georgia, Romania, Turkey and Mongolia