Short Term Missions Archives - Roma Christian Fellowship https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/category/short-term-missions/ The mission of RCF is to transform Romani communities by creating and nurturing Gospel-centered, Christian Fellowships. Tue, 25 Sep 2018 12:01:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://i0.wp.com/romachristianfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cropped-Final-_RCF_Logo_colour_no_text_512x512.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Short Term Missions Archives - Roma Christian Fellowship https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/category/short-term-missions/ 32 32 127921439 RCF 2018 Summer in Review https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/rcf-2018-summer-in-review/ https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/rcf-2018-summer-in-review/#respond Tue, 25 Sep 2018 12:01:43 +0000 https://romachristianfellowship.org/?p=2330 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 [...]

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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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]]> https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/rcf-2018-summer-in-review/feed/ 0 2330 Mladice Carnival in Capraške Poljane by RCF Intern Rebekah https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/carnival-capraske-poljane-rebekah/ https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/carnival-capraske-poljane-rebekah/#respond Thu, 02 Aug 2018 16:40:05 +0000 https://romachristianfellowship.org/?p=2212 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/

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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/

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]]> https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/carnival-capraske-poljane-rebekah/feed/ 0 2212 The Romanians among the Roma https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/the-romanians-among-the-roma/ https://romachristianfellowship.org/en/blog/the-romanians-among-the-roma/#respond Thu, 28 Sep 2017 14:49:56 +0000 https://romachristianfellowship.org/?p=641 How would you respond if in your town, in your settlement, or in your street came people from another country and they speak the language of their country and you can almost fully understand them! Probably you would be excited and thrilled because you could talk with these people in your mother tongue. That's exactly [...]

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]]> How would you respond if in your town, in your settlement, or in your street came people from another country and they speak the language of their country and you can almost fully understand them! Probably you would be excited and thrilled because you could talk with these people in your mother tongue.

That’s exactly what happened last week. A group from Romania, three sisters and seven brothers, came to Croatia to proclaim the Gospel to Roma people door to door. The reason why many Roma from Croatia can understand the Romanian language is that their ancestors once lived in Romania.

The team from Romania spent ten days in Croatia. Our RCF team spent five full days with them. Our role was more of the host; we took care where will they sleep and what will they eat. But we also visited, together with this team, some Roma villages where we were before and we also discovered a few new ones.

We welcomed the Romanian team in the Sisak area. There we visited three different Roma villages. One of those villages was ‘Capraške poljane’ where we had the First Klema Carnival for kids earlier this summer. It was nice to see the kids! When the kids figured out that we were in the village, they joyfully ran towards us with open arms to hug us. In the whole short time that we spent with them, they were asking us where is the rest of the team that they met this summer and when we will they come again. We can’t wait to see these kids again.

On the way back to Slavonski Brod, we stopped at the Roma village in Kutina. Our RCF team talked to a few mothers and kids that were waiting for the school bus. Some of the kids were very shy and didn’t want to talk with us because they don’t know us. We are hoping that one day we will be able to do a Klema Carnival in this village and bless them.

On Saturday, the team from Romania spent all day in our village in Slavonski Brod. During the day they visited homes. And in the evening they had an outreach at the big field. A few new people came with whom we didn’t have any previous contact and they have shown interest that we visit them in the future and have a bible study with them. Because of this, our RCF team is delighted and encouraged.

On Sunday, after the morning service in the local church where the team from Romania served with song and a sermon, our RCF team went into Bosnia and Herzegovina with part of their team to a place near Bjeljina where we visited a Roma village.

Normally when you enter a Roma village, first what you would see are stray dogs, a lot of compacted houses, kids that are playing carefreely … but this village was something totally different. Huge, huge houses, far away from each other, no kids, no dogs. The brother from Romania went to this village last year and this time he tried to find the man that he met last year. We found the man’s brothers that kindly hosted us. Even though he was very hospitable, he was not open to God’s Word. We found out that this village has about 1000 Roma, but the majority of them live and work in other countries. They just come here during the summer. An interesting thing was that this man claimed that his nationality is Romanian, not Roma. He even called himself ‘Rudari’, which we believe is the same as ‘Ludari”, and that is the same group of Roma that is living at Slavonski Brod.

The team from Romania shared with us that they are surprised that the Roma are living separately from Croats. That they have their street in the village or their separate village. In Romania, the Roma are living among the Romanians. They were also sad that Christians are not going to most of these villages and are not working with the Roma who are interested in God’s Word.

One of the sisters from Romania noticed that many Roma kids hardly understand their Romanian language, while the older population understand them more. Maybe in the future, they will not have the opportunity to come like this and evangelize in the Romanian language because no one will understand them anymore.

We are very thankful to the Lord for Romanian team that boldly and tirelessly worked among the Roma.

We are praying that the Lord in the future would raise up committed workers for his Kingdom who are going to proclaim his Gospel to the Roma.

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