Because children’s ministries are such a large part of what we do, the summer is always an extremely busy and chaotic part of our yearly cycle. Typically, we host multiple short-term missionary teams and minister in multiple cities. It is often a stream of activities that both seems to never end and finishes before we can blink twice.

As the fall season arrives and the children return to school, it’s always good to survey what God has done during the summer months.

After about 1.5 years of building design, trying and replacing architects, resolving a seemingly never-ending land border dispute with our new neighbors, and paying lots of money, we are very excited to have received the building permits for our Ministry Center!

The Ministry Center will provide a home in the Roma village for us, a place to house and train missionaries to the Roma, and a location embedded in the Roma village from which to minister to the community and host a church fellowship.

The Ministry Center will consist of two buildings, the larger main building and the smaller “cottage.” We are currently raising funds (about $41,000 to go!) to build the cottage, which will allow us to live and minister in the Roma village. Learn more >here<.

This summer we were blessed to work alongside our first summer intern, Rebekah. Rebekah joined us for the summer after serving with us in Sisak on two previous short-term ministries. For much of the summer, she was joined by Violeta, who has served with us frequently in the past. Violeta, who is from Sisak, Croatia, and Rebekah both have a heart for the Roma of Capraške Poljane, located just outside of Sisak.

We were also blessed to work with Vedrana again this summer. Vedrana grew up around Roma ministries and has a deep desire for the Roma to know the love of Christ.

Please pray that the Lord will continue to raise up workers and provide finances to pay nationals who wish to work full time!

We have been doing seasonal ministries in Capraške Poljane for a number of years. During that time, we felt the Lord moving as the ministry and the openness grew. This year, because we had Rebekah and Violeta with us all summer, we kicked off a special four weeks of Mladice Bible Clubs in Capraške Poljane. Over those four clubs we focused on the life and ministry of Jesus. It was a great success, although a bit chaotic, and really helped to prepare the kids for the Mladice Carnival, which we had soon after the last club.

At the conclusion of the four Mladice Clubs, we had a 4-day Mladice Carnival. For the first three days we had biblical skits, crafts, and songs. This was followed by a day of fun and games.

We were grateful to have a team from Master’s Community Church in Kansas City to help with the Carnival. Since many of them served in Mladice Carnivals in Capraške Poljane in previous years, it was really wonderful to see them continue their relationships by loving the children! When people return multiple times to minister to a village, it makes a big impact on the kids. This year, we were also able to go to a nearby smaller village Palanjek to have a one day mini-carnival! This was our second year of ministries in Palanjek.

Please pray that the Lord would raise up more workers in Capraške Poljane and Palanjek!

Once we returned from Capraške Poljane, we had just a few days to catch our breath and prepare for our Klema Teen Camp. This was the second year we had a camp, but our first year of busing teens to a remote location. We hosted about 30 teens from the Roma villages of Slavonski Brod and Darda in the city of Orahovica. We were joined by Margaret, Lenna, and Abigayl from the USA; Đeno, Biljana and family from the EPC church in Darda; and the Price family from Slavonski Brod.

The primary goal of the Klema Teen Camp is to encourage youth to think about and make spiritual decisions as they very quickly approach adulthood. Secondarily, we desire to provide an opportunity for the Roma youth to connect, in the name of Christ, across their distributed and isolated communities.

Please pray that a church would “adopt” this very important yearly ministry and support it by sending regular teams!

After the Klema Camp, we all headed back to Slavonski Brod for our Mladice Carnival with “our” children. As always, it was a joy to bring all of our kids together and learn about Jesus.

One of the desires of RCF is to encourage and help children to do well in school. This is especially true for Lim and Željka. Because of a generous gift from the USA and the endurance of Lim, Željka, and Pam, we held our annual 5-day “mini” preschool. We are very thankful for the Slavonski Brod Baptist Church for, once again, hosting our preschool.

Roma children have special challenges when they enter the public school system. Our mini-preschool tries to prepare the children for the structure and methodologies the kids will encounter when they start school. We very much desire this program to expand, especially after our Ministry Center is realized.

Please pray that we may one day have a “full” preschool for the children!

Lastly, Sergej and I (Andy) started a computer programming club this summer. As I have worked as a computer programmer and manager of other programmers, I have always desired to encourage Roma children to consider a profession in computers. This summer we met with 4 children, introducing them to the fundamentals of computer programming.

We had a very busy and productive summer! As we adjust to the “normal” ministries, we are excited about what God is doing here in Slavonski Brod. Please pray with us that this year we see the realization of the Ministry Center and that Slavonski Brod would be a base from which God’s blessings are poured out to the Roma communities of Croatia!

I remember back in 2011 when for the first time a three-day biblical VBS was held for the children in the Roma village in Slavonski Brod. The word that can best describe that event from a long time ago is “chaos” that our beautiful Lord was shaping year by year into His order.

This year we had our 7^th VBS (now called a Mladice Carnival) in Slavonski Brod. The Carnival lasted for three days. We had a Bible program for two days and the third day was only games.

Through the years of working in the Roma villages, and in our personal Christian lives, we see and constantly relearn how important it is to love and to forgive. These were exactly the two topics we presented to the children attending our Carnival. Through Jesus’ parables, the “Unforgiving servant” (Mt 18) and the “Good Samaritan” (Lk 10), in the most realistic way possible, we tried to teach the children what Jesus taught his disciples and a multitude of other people.

Every day, after songs and a biblical skit, we divided the children into the groups. While in their group, children talked with leaders about the meaning and application of the biblical skit. Afterward, they worked on a craft and coloring book that was connected to the biblical message of the skit.

This year we had one little addition in our program. It was a skit about the fight between good and evil, between Super Andy and his partner, Super Kokoš, and Evil Andry. Through these humorous skits, children could see how good prevails against evil!

The third day of the Carnival was for games. The children especially love games, but for them, it is more important to jump and run, and most of the time their focus is on individual success. Our games are group based games led by leaders so that the children must win through cooperative efforts. Children really played hard, but in the end, just one group won. But, in the end, no matter who won all the children got candy!

It was a blessing to see the children listen and participate in the program even though it was very hot outside. It was a blessing to see some of our teens, who just two days before had attended our camp in Orahovica, came and helped. It was a blessing to see that children do not climb or jump on our cars when we leave the village every day (only the last day). It was a blessing that the Carnival program went on in the peace and harmony. It was a blessing that we could have this Carnival in Brod.

Thank you to all the helpers for the 2018 Mladice Carnival! You made it possible to have the Carnival and to bless the children of Slavonski Brod!

This is a blog post from our summer 2018 intern, Rebekah Parker. You can find the original at the following link:
https://rebekahparkerblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/fruits-of-your-labor/