So as I had said in my last blog our month six ministry was split between two countries, Bulgaria and Kosovo. The end of the month was spent in Kosovo where we partnered with an American family who have been in Kosovo for 12 years spreading God’s love.
The Frey Family after Naomi’s dance recital
The Frey’s are a family so secure and connected in God’s love. The way they poured into one another, us, and the community was so beautiful. They always made sure people’s voice was heard and really showed how everyone matters. It was amazing to work along side of them, another family from the States, a Romanian couple, and their local friend’s who translated for us.
While there, we got the opportunity to plan a children’s outreach with them. The building we used has been used for many mission minded things in the past, but has lasted around a 3 year before the ministry fanned out. The Frey’s vision is to bring God’s love to the city and have a long term mission and activity there.
The kids outreach was a way to reach out and begin to form relationships with the people
of the community. The program was the perfect way to love on the kids in a city where there is nothing kid oriented.
So in a matter a two days and a few meetings, we decided to transform the inside of the building into a castle and the outdoors into a carnival. We wanted these kid-os to just feel loved, feel like royalty, and be able to be kids!
We did face painting, nails, hair, built cardboard castles, made crafts, had a photo booth, and had carnival like games outside. We gave out a few flyers the first day about two hours before the event and by the second day we had over one hundred kids arriving at the gates about three hours early.
On the final day we had a water day to change things up a bit. In a matter of seconds, all the toys for the games we prepared and all the extra buckets of water were in kids hands and everyone was running completely WILD. Nothing was going as planned but in the mist of that water fight I couldn’t feel anything more than complete joy.
Eventually we did gain control again and got to play the actual planned games and they loved it just as much!
The day after we set back up the ‘castle’ and ‘carnival’ and invited the down syndrome kids and their families to enjoy a day of fun. A sad part of the culture is that having a disabled child can be a sort of shaming. There are not many things for these kids to do or be a part of. It was awesome to to hang out with them and their families and treat them too like royalty.
In this week all of the kids were filled with joy. Our translators said how parents thanked us and were grateful for their kids to have something like this to do. It also began to cause them to ask questions of who we were and why we were here.
In this time God again was able to show me the beauty and importance of being part of a group that is helping crack a door open so that eventually it may be fully opened. I am so glad to be a part of the start of something so much bigger and work alongside the plan that God has for the Frey’s.
