‘Elizabetha is 5 years old. We had to work hard to convince her parents to allow Elizabetha to come to Little Friends. She is from a very poor family and her parents survive by taking garbage from dumpsters for food to eat or for things to sell. Elizabetha used to go with her family each day and help them, climbing into the bins and rooting out useful items. We are so happy she doesnʼt have to do that anymore and can come to kindergarten. She is a happy person and loves making jewelry as well as colouring and drawing.’
I have spent most of this week thinking about and working with or on stuff for the child support/kindergarten project known as Little Friends in Shutka. Regular readers of this blog will know how much I enjoy hanging out at the kindergarten. Some of you will also know that Misty and I have been asked to serve on the board and help the team as they enter a new season of growth.
I believe with all my heart that God loves the kids we love and work with in Shutka and we will see transformation of that place, the largest Roma town in the world over in 2 generations. By following the incarnational model of Jesus Christ; sitting with and getting to know families, listening to their stories and loving all of them especially the children we are already seeing counter cultural children who respect one another and know the name and love of Jesus being released in one of the poorest suburbs in Europe. At the graduation of 6 year olds from the kindergarten (they graduate from the pre-school but we continue to support them and their families throughout their school lives) my friend turned to me with his smiling face and whispered “this is the army of God in Shutka”. He’s right. These kids are affecting and will over the course of their generation transform their community with the love of Jesus.
Its easy to get enthused and enthralled by the big ‘end game’ project type stuff. Misty and I will work hard over the next months to establish a ‘skin and strategy’ that will enable sustainable growth of the work. These last few days I’ve been writing emails and putting together a pack to send to potential supporters and sponsors. Then as you read something like that which started this piece, the bio which is just one among many I sent this week, from little Elizabetha and all of a sudden you KNOW this matters, it truly matters both to the life of a little girl who deserves more and to the very heart of God himself. IT MATTERS! this is about taking care of the poor and loving our neighbors, putting them before ourselves. IT MATTERS!! Elizabetha is a beautiful girl and she used to spend each day helping her parents scavenge an existence from the trash of Skopje or begging in the city centre gutters and now she comes to the kindergarten and is loved and cared for, fed and makes friends. IT MATTERS!!!
Misty and I know our priority for being here in Skopje is to serve our friends as part of the wonderful post-modern emerging funky artsy church community commonly known as Glasnost but thankfully one of the things Glasnost are here to do is to serve the poor and the broken finding themselves loving places like Shutka and people like Eliabetha.
Over the next year we will look to bolster the funding of the Little Friends children's work, currently we have little money for even the basics, i.e. no money for milk for the kids or a vacuum cleaner (we have to brush the carpets on our hands and knees each day) or for the wood we will desperately need to feed the oven we don’t have and cant afford over the cold winter months as well as finding sustainable sponsorship support for the kids as they enter the world of ‘real school’ and pray like mad to get a building project completed so we don’t get ripped off again by a crumby absent landlord. But whilst we run around managing projects and motivating people we will never forget that the reason we are doing this is for beautiful children like Elizabetha who are made in the glorious image of God. IT MATTERS.
Credit to Lile for this photo and lots of others like them.