| The ministry of Roma kids aliteration |
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- To learn to write and to recognize alphabeth (especially with the older ones) - For 3 of the girls, who were not attending school, to get used to reading and writing (we worked with special notebooks for the kindergarden class) To stimulate their creativity and to teach them to work in teams. - To inspire in them a love for school and learning The children we have in our group are between the age of 8 and 13. In the beginning of this year only four of them were attending school but now six of them do. Catalin, the oldest one of them, is 13 and is in the 3rd grade because he had to repeat the last year several times. There are many causes that brought him in the situation of repeating the year. This situation is the same for all of the kids in the group, because all of them have had to repeat at least one year.
If I look back to this year, I can see progress, even during the many times that I was losing hope of being able to help these kids. Catalin had a very poor handwriting and he was not able to write all the letters. Now I am so happy when seeing his notebook that is clean, in order and has beautiful writing in it. The small girls were not able to name the colors in the beginning, they couldn’t hold a pen in their hand, and now two of them are attending school in the first grade and they are loving it. They are both 8 years old and their mother did not want to send them to school thinking they will not manage there. It’s a miracle that she changed her opinion. When she saw the notebooks and the writing of her own daughters, she could not believe they had done that. This summer Catalin’s family went through a difficult time. His father and the older brothers who were working in various places in Medias were not able to find any to work any more. Nobody would hire them because of a new law for working. Left without money, they had a hard time even buying food. Catalin has 6 older siblings and one day, being hungry, one of them started crying. Their mother who had heard of other people going and begging in front of a supermarket and getting enough money to survive, thought of doing the same. So Catalin had to stay the whole day in the parking lot and beg, and this way he was not able to come to our meetings. Hearing about him but not knowing the story behind, we tried talking to his mother to find out why he had to beg. Finally she told us what I wrote above and that she didn’t like the situation they were in; she was even looking for a job but was not able to found a one. So the desperation forced them to beg. We asked her to let Catalin come to our group again and she promised she would. She kept her word and after a while we found out that their family, eventually, stopped begging in front of the supermarket. We received some clothes and money to help the families of the kids we’re working with, so we were able to make them packages with food. That was a great help for them.
One thing that we really wanted for them this summer was taking them to a Christian children’s camp at Prod. Tere they had opportunity to meet other children and to learn about God. It was also a good occasion to take them out of their environment. God blessed us financially and we were able to pay the costs for each one of them (80 RON = ~20 EUROS). They liked the camp very much and they even cried when they had to come back home. For this new scholar year we wish to finish the alphabeth with them so that they can read well and also count. A prayer request would be finding a person to be the leader for the group next year, since I will give birth in February and I will not be able to attend the meetings for a while. We wish to take them again to the camp next year, and to continue investing in them the knowledge of God and His Word. Lidia, YWAM Mediaș
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This year we continued the ministry with Roma kids in our neighbourhood having in mind a few goals for them:
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