Among
the many programmes that Smiles Foundation run there is a special one
which can only be done during the summer school break – that is HBC
(Holiday Bible Club), or VBS (Vacation Bible School) as our friends
from America would call it. This programme is meant to communicate the
simple yet powerful message of God’s love for all, children
particularly. With the help of our guests, through the summer months,
we put together Bible lessons, dramas, games, crafts, songs,
competitions, questions and answers, basically - a lot of fun!
There are many villages where we were
invited to go this season. Last year, HBC/VBS was very
successful, many children were blessed by hearing the message of the
Bible and participating in our meetings. We couldn’t fulfil all the
requests we had, but that made us even more determined to continue and
to grow our programme for 2016. So, we decided that we’ll go in new
places, where we’ve not been before, to allow as many children as
possible to enjoy an experience that proved to be excellent in the
past.
Our first location was Gepis, in
June. A totally new place, we’ve never had programmes there before.
When chose this village because there is a teacher, in the local
school, who wanted to provide something special for his kids. He is a
young man, who grew-up in a very poor gypsy community and he became a
very passionate advocate for integration of Rroma with the rest of the
population. We gladly accepted the invitation and we decided to have
this HBC/VBS programme there.
We had the programme out in the school yard
– a good old tree provided the shade we needed and the 30 plus kids of
all ages were so enthusiastic that we could barely cover them when
asking for silence… In the end we lost the contest – our voice gave up
and for the last songs we were all singing about three semitones
lower!
The following day we visited Lazareni,
another village with a large number of Gypsy families. We’ve been
impressed to see the youngest ones being very receptive, but even the
older kids that participated in the programme were very participative
and we made friends very quickly. It probably helped that we put
together a football match to start! They are always keen on that!
Then another great time we had was in
Rapa, one of the places where Smiles has made a huge difference in
recent years, as most of you will know very well. Only a few weeks
earlier, on June 12th, there was a public Christian baptism
in the village and the whole community witnessed the testimony of
eleven souls that decided to follow Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
So, it seemed only appropriate to us that we take the good news in
there using a very easy to understand form, whereby children and
adults together can understand what Jesus did for us all. And sure
enough, parents participated along with the little ones, everybody had
a great time and most certainly we’ll be back there to grow even more
the Christian ministry to these simple but honest people.
Another first time visit took place in
Fonau, to the local Gypsy community. Here we’ve met surprisingly
well prepared children. They knew many things about God, due to the
work of a retired pastor that felt he could do more, a wonderful man
of Christ. Yet, the children enjoyed greatly what we offered, as it
was a more relaxed and playful way to present the Bible teaching. They
made us promise that we’ll be back there next year at the latest!
Finally, the most recent visit we took to
Sititelec. Despite the temperature of over 35 Celsius (100F.), we
had a wonderful time with the children. They were very excited to hear
stories from the Bible, but equally to play outside with water and to
enjoy watermelon at the end! Great time to have fellowship together
with their friends and our visitors.
There will be more HBC/VBS meetings this
summer. Please pray for the success of such a great ministry which
will no doubt have a great impact on the kids and parents as well. We
need your support both with prayers and on finances to help run these
programmes. Thank you for all you’ve done so far and thank you for
continuing to be partners with us in making a difference in people’s
lives.
Adi Matis
Adrian Matis
Assistant Director of Smiles Foundation Romania
