A letter from Nadia Ayoub in Ukraine
October 2012
Dear Friends and Family,
I greet you all in the wonderful name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I thank God because of his amazing love for us all. God continues to show this love to the Roma people because of you and your faithful partnership with the PC(USA) and its worldwide missionaries. It was strange for me to understand how there could be an unreached group of people in the Peterfolvo township, where in a street less than five kilometers away there are three Reformed churches, one Orthodox, and one Catholic church. This Roma group of people are separated from the community by their illiteracy, their own tradition, and their unwise way of living, yet they have not heard the full message of the love of God for them. Thank you for your prayers and financial support that make it possible for me to be in Karpatalja and be an instrument in God’s hand to bring your heart’s desire of sharing the good news of Jesus with this unreached group of people, the Roma people.
The school year started in September 1. We now work only with the preschoolers, and we get about 20 children in each of the two Roma camps. We go to both camps each day. There is one kilometer between the camps, but we cannot get them together. First, we do not have a large enough place to host all the children and, second, they do not like each other. The school-age kids do not always go to school, and they try to force themselves into our lessons, but I try to stop them because they must go to their schools. But sometimes when it is rainy and cold I allow them to attend the Bible time.
I thank God greatly because of my two helpers (Csilla and Naomi), who continue to do their best and work with the children and love them, and the children too, but the condition of the workplaces is not comfortable for both the teachers and the kids. When we started last year we brought tables and chairs, but the families took them for their private use and when I asked them to give them back they will not. So I asked Naomi's husband, who is a carpenter, to make wooden boards, which we give to the children to work on, then we take them back and I carry them in my car.
Many of the older children do not go to school and instead go to work with the whole family. First they started with picking up twigs from the riverside to make baskets, then picking the potato crop, and now it is time to collect the walnuts. The walnut trees belong to the state on both sides of the country roads and the Roma are allowed to pick up the walnuts and clean them from their green cover, then break and remove the shells and sell them to dealers to take to Hungary. I learned that three kilograms of unshelled walnuts gives one kilogram of shelled walnuts and is sold for 20-25 UAH (Grevnia), about $3. It is a time for everyone to work, even my preschool children 3 years old and up. They all have black hands and the stain gets to their faces too from cleaning the walnuts. It is a happy time—they have work and get wages. But sadly the children miss many days in school and they cannot catch up with the other students in the class. It is hard for the teacher to work with them, so they are left behind—they move them to the higher level and so on, but they graduate from 8th grade and do not even know how to write their names. They know how to count numbers but not read them.
There are some talks with the Reformed church leader and the mayor of Peterfolvo about finding a place to accommodate a preschool program for the Roma children, I pray it will happen soon and the children will have proper preparation before starting school.
Prayer items
1. Thank God that the children are healthy.
2. Thank God for our strength and courage to work in a very difficult place.
3. Thank God that I have started making attempts to speak some words and short sentences in Hungarian.
4. Please continue to pray for a good relationship with the Roma families and all.
5. And more prayer that soon we will have a place for the program.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20,21
Thank you so much for your active participation in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the Roma in Peterfolvo. May the Lord encourage you the more in your faith and life.
Serving Christ with you,
Nadia
Mailing address:
The Reformed church in Carpathian – Ukraine
The Bishop office
Beregszasz 90202,
Munkacsi St. 83.
UKRAINE
Attn: Nadia Ayoub
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 284
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