Preschool program Archives - Roma Christian Fellowship

RCF 2018 Summer in Review

Andy — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 12:01:43 +0000

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.

Building Permits!

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<.

Intern & National Workers!

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!

Special Mladice Clubs in Capraške Poljane

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.

Mladice Carnival in Capraške Poljane and Palanjek

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!

Klema Teen Camp

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!

Mladice Carnival in Slavonski Brod

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.

Mini-Preschool in Slavonski Brod

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!

Computer Programming Club

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.

The Year Ahead

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!

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The Gospel for Capraške Poljane

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 04:08:47 +0000

This is a guest Blog from our friend and co-laborer, Violeta Mihelić.

For those of you who are reading this letter and do not know me, my name is Violeta, from Petrinja and I’m 23 years old. This is letter about God’s grace in my life and about something that He can do, and according to the Scriptures and He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Since I was young, in the church where I grew up and other churches in different areas, I watched people who were serving God, people who used what God had given them. When I became a Christian, at the age of 14, I was asked to join people who worked with kids in church. Of course, I said yes. At that time, I thought ministry was something that can be done only in church, like worship, pastor’s ministry, ministry to kids, youth, sisters in Church…but I never imagined how widely that can be. I loved working with kids, going to the camps, that wasn’t a problem to me, but deep inside I thought maybe this is something that I “took” for myself. As time was passing I started asking God to show me what should I do next, I didn’t understand why all of a sudden, I felt turmoil and dissatisfaction. As I didn’t receive any answer from God I was convinced that God had nothing for me and that I don’t need to expect or ask anymore.

Three years ago, I found an article about Roma people from Međimurje. I had no idea if what the article was saying was true or not, but I read that people were not treating the Roma kids in the same way as other kids I didn’t have any contact with Roma. We didn’t have Roma people in my school, and I would only see them occasionally on a bike going through the city. I had no idea where they lived or anything. That day I thought that wasn’t the way God imagined people should treat one another. Two months later my church organized a one-week kids camp in Slavonski Brod, and I went with them. A few of us were staying in an apartment of one missionary which I personally didn’t know. As we started talking she told me that there were people who were working with Roma, and sometimes she would help them, and that week they had a preschool program in the village. I asked her if I can come and see what are they doing, and she told me that she would introduce me to the person who started this ministry – Andy. He told me who the Roma people were and the way that he was serving there with his wife Lim, Sergej and Željka. The first time I entered the village it was like I stepped into an unknown world, a world of a people that longs for love and acceptance. The love on that appeared in me that day and only grew was, I’m convinced, something that doesn’t come from people, but only from God. That day I received an answer from God. An answer to prayer that came just at the right time, not late nor early.

Later, I was invited to attend festivals that were happening in the village in Slavonski Brod, but also in a place not too far from Petrinja, Capraške Poljane. The team that was working in Slavonski Brod also traveled during the Summer to do festivals in Capraške Poljane. That was three years ago. As time went on, I got the chance to meet Roma culture, talk to people, kids, and share the Gospel. I saw kids that are willing to accept the love that we are giving to them, I saw adults saying sorry for not having coffee to offer us and adults who were offering their last spoon of it. By that time, it was so clear that God wanted me in Sisak, in a Roma village separated from the city, a place where most people don’t want to go, where people don’t feel comfortable. It became so clear that God was sending me to people that He loved so much and for whom he gave His only Son. Roma people in Capraške Poljane need to hear the Gospel. In the meantime, I got a chance to spend 6 months in Ireland. And I liked it, the people, the culture, life, the church. I liked it a lot, except I knew I needed to go back to Croatia. Sometimes in life we go where we feel most comfortable, places that we choose for personal reasons, but often those are not places where God wants us, He is calling us to go one step more. God didn’t give me peace in Ireland, and now I can see far greater things were waiting for me here. All that has happened over the past three years are miracles for me. It’s a miracle the was God opens hearts, answers prayers, brings people, the way He does things more than we could imagine, directs plans for His kingdom.

Right now, I’m working a job near Sisak, but my prayer is that God will provide everything I need in order to work full time with Roma and to spread the Gospel in Capraške Poljane. Please pray with me that God will send people who are willing to serve the Roma in Capraške Poljane. Pray for things that we are preparing for the village, for the hearts of the Roma, both adults and kids.

Violeta Mihelić

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Preschool program

Andy — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:18:37 +0000

A few weeks ago, one mother told us that it would be good if we could organize a preschool program that we had two years ago because that program helped her child a lot.

We were encouraged by those words and from the 24th to the 26th of August we organized a preschool program for kids who are about to go in the 1st grade.

Every day, we started the preschool program with a prayer and a song: ‘If I were a colorful butterfly’. We taught kids this song to remind them that we need to be thankful to the Lord for creating us as we are. Kids really loved the song!

Every day we learned one letter. So in three days, we learned letters, L, V, R. We showed the kids objects that starting with those letters, kids had a task to write a letter on the whiteboard, to create those letters from playdough and kids practiced to write the letter in their notebooks.

Every day at break time we ate something that is connected with the letter that we were learning. watermelon (L as lubenica), vanilla ice-cream (V as vanilla), tomato (R as rajčica) sandwich with tomato.

Then we practiced numbers. A majority of the kids knew how to count to ten, but they did not recognize the numbers. We tried to teach them what the numbers look like. For those kids that already knew the numbers, we used Legos to practice counting.

At the end of the program, we had a craft and we tried to give them a simple task where they could color, glue, cut and all that they will need to do in school in the future.

On the last day, at the end of the program we gave to each child a diploma and a gift, and we gave them a school bag and sweets. They were so happy!

The kids that came to this preschool program were babies when we started our ministry in the village. They were so young that they would sit in their moms’ laps and watch the kid’s Bible club from a distance. Now they are growing up, but still so small. Now they are entering a new period of life. We are rejoicing with them and praying for them!

Thank you to all of you for praying for us during this program.

Thank you to the local Baptist church to allows us to use their building for this program.

Jennifer Coll, we are waiting for you next year! ;)

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