TLDR: the mission is growing, we built a chapel at Mútnik, we are visiting more Roma settlements and parishes in the east as well, we enlarged the team, bought a big car and take the children on trips, we bought a kit for making Christian T-shirts and have an e-shop, the children learn in our workshops and clubs, and the Sunday services for adults are a great success.
Chapel
With joy, and sometimes with our tongues hanging out, we watch the service grow and bear fruit. Last autumn our Roma children received the sacrament of chrismation (confirmation). Since then they go regularly to confession and to Holy Communion, and somehow we have become a real spiritual family. By that I mean we all feel closer to one another and we sincerely love each other. Little by little, a change can be seen in their behaviour too. When we arrive somewhere with them, we find that we have (mostly) very good, willing and obedient children. :-)
Trips
Around the same time, with God's help, we bought a nine-seater car and began taking the children from the Roma settlement on trips. We try to make one trip every month, and in it we bring together spiritual service, teaching and fun. Usually we drive to another parish, where we attend a service, and then comes a programme together, a trip out into nature or to some attraction. In the last week of the summer holidays we held a trip camp. The children signed up for it with the points they get as a reward. They love the trips, and it motivates them for other activities too.
Clubs and workshops
A maths club has been running since spring. We also continue cooking with the girls, where they learn to bake simple cakes and buns. And a new multimedia workshop has started, where the children learn to work with a computer. We began with short videos - you can see what they made on YouTube, on Martin Halík's channel). From October, besides the videos in the multimedia workshops, we added printing our own Christian T-shirts. We bought a printing set for printing on textiles, and we teach the children skill, fine motor control and computer graphics. Everyone enjoys it much more when they can print the design than when it just stays on the screen. The club is very popular. The children eagerly bring their own T-shirts that they want to print on, and some old pieces have come completely to life. We launched an online shop to cover our production costs. We also send to Czechia, and in the coming days we will add our Christmas T-shirt. :-) We would also like Christians to be able to wear affordable, attractive and modern clothes that proclaim their faith. For now we are only getting the project going, and we will be glad of feedback or ideas for prints.
The boys also keep going to the bricklaying workshops, where under the guidance of the master builder, Mr Hruška, they improve in basic craft work. Besides bricklaying skills, they learn, for example, how to sharpen various tools, how to store wood properly for winter, how electricity works, working with wood as a material in general, and other skills needed to look after a house, so that one day they will be able to build a house and take care of it.
The aim of our clubs is to prepare the children for a future job, to help them get a secondary education, and so to help them towards a better standard of living.
Adults
Besides the work with children, this year's novelty is services for adults. It began with giving out flour and oil. After several years we set a condition that those who come for flour and oil must pray with us, at least briefly, because God is the giver of bread and the one who cares for everyone. Suddenly they began to leave grateful and smiling. And when, after a while, we moved the giving out of flour and oil to after the Sunday morning service, a large number of people suddenly began to come “for flour and oil” (20-30 people every Sunday), even people who never needed it before and do not need it now. It seems as if the donated flour and oil gave them a socially acceptable reason to come to the service, because “after all, something is being given out”, and nobody will mock anyone for being “some pious type” or for “it being for kids”.
The clothing charity for the mums is still running. Martin's parents have taken it over, because Míša is expecting another baby (any day now). :-) The demand is mainly for children's clothes and shoes, or underwear.
Dobrovíkendy
Last autumn we welcomed a group of volunteers from Brno and the surrounding area for the first time, led by Jan Bleha. The volunteers prepared a programme for the children, helped us sort through the charity goods, and some also joined in the building work. The cooperation went well, so they have been here twice more since then (in April and in September), and we hope it will keep growing well in the future. The children look forward to the “Czechs” very much and are fond of them. We see that it motivates the children. Even some who had stopped coming to us always join in, and others get a push to take part in further activities or at least to come to the service. More about the volunteer weekends, including info on planned events, at https://dobrovikendy.wordpress.com/.
Renovation
Last year we managed to renovate the ground floor, where a chapel, a kitchen, a new pantry, a bathroom with a toilet and a second separate toilet were made. This year, with God's help, we finished the attic, including a new roof. What was originally an uninsulated storage space has become a spacious living room meant for visitors, so we can now put up more guests. At the moment the work has moved to the middle floor, where the electrics and the floor still need to be redone, and then of course the walls and ceilings need to be fixed up.
Other Roma settlementsMútnik
The teaching of children in the nearby Roma settlement of Mútnik has already taken a complete and regular form, but we had to start dealing with practical problems and the lack of space. Mútnik is a smaller settlement with one larger brick building and small wooden huts around it. There is no proper access to water, no electricity, and no common space where we could meet. Teaching outside over the summer is pleasant, but where do we shelter when winter comes, especially when it gets dark early and we need light? Thank God, last winter some family from the big house always took us in and gave us space to teach the children. But it was clear that this was a burden, that the space was too small, and that it could not go on like this for long. So we decided to build our own log cabin, a classroom and a little chapel. Thank God, we managed to get the quiet consent of the mayor of Hnúšťa and later the bishop's blessing to consecrate the new chapel. The building was finished at the end of June and consecrated in July as the chapel of Mary Magdalene. The children from Mútnik were very willing to help already with the building itself. They look forward with enthusiasm to every lesson, when they can go and learn in their own little chapel. They hardly even want to play any more, they want to start learning right away. :-) After lessons, the most capable children also learn to play the ukulele.
Regular services for children and adults have also begun in the little chapel. The priest Štefan Pružinský from Spišská Nová Ves comes to serve them.
Hačava
In April we managed to get into the settlement at Hačava, which is about 10 km from Klenovec in the direction of Tisovec. We have prayed for this settlement for many years. We used to go there once a year for short evangelisations, but we never managed to start any regular teaching there. The situation changed, so we started with songs and games with the children, and gradually introduced our worksheets and the points system with rewards. They set to work quite enthusiastically, and the cooperation is going well and starting to grow. In the summer Martin's parents took over Hačava, and the children have grown very fond of them. But the situation in Hačava is hard. Many children are missing one of their parents, the men are often away working and then spend their whole wage on drink at home. So we will be very grateful for prayers.
Orthodox parishes
We have already written to you that Martin is studying theology and would like to become a priest. We are glad to announce that this year he successfully finished his studies (hurray, hurray!). However, the bishop has so far answered his request for ordination with a no, but he blessed us for the Roma mission and said he welcomes such an initiative. During his studies Martin got to know many priests who serve in eastern Slovakia, and almost every parish has a Roma settlement or at least a colony, which opens a large field of work for the Roma mission. Thanks to the project Operácia vianočné dieťa by Samaritan's Purse, we managed to involve two of them in further cooperation and teaching about God. They are the villages of Závadka and Váradka. Sometimes the teaching is purely in the hands of the priests, but from time to time Martin manages to get there too and help with the not easy work. We took some of our Roma children to both places, so that they could help the other children with what they themselves have already learnt.
Our teamAs the latest news, we would like to welcome new members to our KRM mission team, namely Martin's parents, whom we have already mentioned, Libor and Dáša. For over a year now they have been coming here to help every other weekend, and thanks to them the mission could begin to expand and flourish. The children in Klenovec and in Hačava love them very much and have taken them as their own. Libor, as a priest, took over leading the services for adults, who listen with interest to his simple and straightforward sermons. He also helps with teaching maths and with the charity. In Klenovec Dáša devotes herself mainly to the girls, whether by teaching or by cooking, which she took over from Míša, who naturally has more mother's duties now and does not have as much time for the service itself. Together they then go to Hačava.
In December we will then welcome the youngest member to the team. A little boy, Mikuláš, should be born to us (if the doctor hasn't made a mistake :) ).
That is all from us for now. Thank you for reading, and we ask for prayers for everything mentioned, and for the mission and our family as a whole.
God bless you!