Thank you God for sending Tim to us safely! He arrived yesterday and joined us at the village visit. Thank you all my bros and siss for praying for him as well :)
In these two days, we basically had two orientation sessions from Andy, where he talked about the history of Croatia and therefore the people's social culture, as well as the ministry here as in how he and Lim started I-club and UNA Club. This has helped us a lot in understanding the attitude of the older generations and the society the Roma people are living in. Moreover we also had a lot of Croatian language lessons from Zelkja. We are feeling an increasing need to really grasp the language or at least the basics, as we really want to communicate with the kids in the village, and it felt so bad when kids kept talking to you and you failed to understand a word...
We have started to truly see the needs of the Roma kids as well as the environment they live in after visiting their village. We went there to invite kids to our Christmas parties tomorrow. The parents are much more opened and have mostly consented their 6-12 year old children to come to the party!! While our translators were doing the invitations, others took the "distraction jobs" which was to distract and play with the kids so they would not be "crowding" the doors of the houses. Instead of bringing in love and hope, I really want to express how blessed I am to actually be welcomed and embraced and loved by the kids. They may have violent behaviours among themselves, but their needs are just like ours. They have so much love to give away but their expressions might not have attracted recipients back home... Anyway, we can share more, personally, when we are back. Haha.
We have been practising and preparing for tomorrow's Christmas party this evening. Wish everything goes well in God's will tomorrow :DD
In these two days, we basically had two orientation sessions from Andy, where he talked about the history of Croatia and therefore the people's social culture, as well as the ministry here as in how he and Lim started I-club and UNA Club. This has helped us a lot in understanding the attitude of the older generations and the society the Roma people are living in. Moreover we also had a lot of Croatian language lessons from Zelkja. We are feeling an increasing need to really grasp the language or at least the basics, as we really want to communicate with the kids in the village, and it felt so bad when kids kept talking to you and you failed to understand a word...
We have started to truly see the needs of the Roma kids as well as the environment they live in after visiting their village. We went there to invite kids to our Christmas parties tomorrow. The parents are much more opened and have mostly consented their 6-12 year old children to come to the party!! While our translators were doing the invitations, others took the "distraction jobs" which was to distract and play with the kids so they would not be "crowding" the doors of the houses. Instead of bringing in love and hope, I really want to express how blessed I am to actually be welcomed and embraced and loved by the kids. They may have violent behaviours among themselves, but their needs are just like ours. They have so much love to give away but their expressions might not have attracted recipients back home... Anyway, we can share more, personally, when we are back. Haha.
We have been practising and preparing for tomorrow's Christmas party this evening. Wish everything goes well in God's will tomorrow :DD