This week on Sunday and Monday we spent time preparing for
the UNA Klub Kids Festival in the Roma village.
We cut out and prepared crafts, and also made nametags. Since they were
preparing for 200 children, there was a lot of work to be done. It was a lot of
fun and we got to fellowship with other missionaries from different countries
that had come to help with the festival.
A missionary couple, Andy and Lim, leads the UNA Klub along
with a Croatian woman named Želka.
Želka
and her mother, Zlata, have done all of the translating for us during the Klubs
we have done this summer. It’s great to
see them pour out God’s love on these children—the Roma community isn’t typically
treated well all throughout Europe, especially here in Croatia. We get to see the Parable of the Good
Samaritan lived out before our eyes.
Most people here walk by the Romani people and completely ignore
them. Želka and Zlata go out of their
way to show God’s love. They are a great
example of what Jesus said in John 13:35:
By this all men will
know that you are my disciples, if you love one another
The festival was from Tuesday to Thursday. There were a lot
of kids that came out and each day we would split them up into 6 groups of
about 20-30 kids. In each group they got a coloring book of different Bible
characters and stories. A storyteller, either Želka or Zlata, would come around
to each group and tell the Bible story of the day. Musicians would then come to each group and
play guitars and the kids would sing songs.
After the songs the children would get to do a craft that was related to
the story.
The neat thing about the UNA Festival, is that it is
specifically designed for Roma children. A lot of Roma people believe they’re
cursed by God and this view is passed down to the children. One of the main points that the UNA Klub tries
to concentrate on is that “God is for us, not against us.” This is in the mission statement that all the
kids say at the beginning and it is also in one of the songs that they sang at
the festival. It was a blessing to hear them all singing at the top of their
lungs that God is for them, not against them.
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| Katarina |
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| Me & Durda |
Please pray for the Roma people and children. They don’t
have an easy life-they are looked down upon, a lot of the family situations are
bad, and a lot of the kids are mistreated. It was a blessing to get to love on
the children this past week, and see smiles on their faces, but there is such a
need for the truth and hope of Jesus in this village. Pray that God will open
their eyes.
Thursday morning we were able to visit a children’s home
here in Brod. We were able to play some games with some of the children that
live there. Most of them are children with a rough home life, and a couple of
them are orphans. We weren’t able to stay long, but it was a lot of fun getting
to fellowship and play games with them.
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| Children's Home |
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| Matija having fun with the volleyball |
Friday afternoon, we had another baseball practice in Nova
Gradiska. There were not a lot of kids there this time, but the ones there seemed
to really enjoy playing and learning new drills. Guy enjoyed it too, as he got to not only teach
the kids, but he was right there doing the drills with them. He said he wanted to show them how to do the
drills the right way, but I think he just wanted to get out there and play. The missionaries that live there permanently
are planning on continuing this ministry to reach out to the youth there.
Saturday, we went back to Nova Gradiska to have another Kids
Klub. Some of the same kids came out from the last Kids Klub we did there. We
were able to play more games and tell them the story of Jesus feeding the 5000.
The kids really enjoy singing all the songs and making the crafts. The
missionaries there also want to continue this Kids Klub once a month, so that
they can continue to connect with these kids and parents. A lot of the parents of the children asked
the missionaries in Gradiska if they would continue these Kids Klub. This is obviously encouraging, but also very
surprising as most parents look down on the Church. Pray that connections with youth and adults
are met and the church in Gradiska continues to grow!
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| Guy preaching |
Sunday was our last time to be at the church here in Slavonski
Brod. Cindy, Melissa (2 girls from VA) and I were able to share our
testimonies. Everyone who knows me, knows that this is a difficult task to
stand up in front of people, much less make it through my testimony without
tears. There were tears and it was difficult, but it was a blessing to share my
heart with the church, and hopefully it was an encouragement to them. Guy was
able to share the message at church with the help of our translator, Maja. It was a blessing for me to see God
speaking through him to the church. He spoke about how we as Christians should
be different from the world around us, so different that people notice. We
should be different in the way we love, different in our generosity, different
in what we worship, and our purpose in life should be different.
My challenge to you and to myself: Do people notice a
difference in you? In what ways are you too much like the world and need to be
more like Jesus?
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but
Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20
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