For several years now I have had the desire to be close to the poor and poor people of Africa. I wanted to be next to them, to offer them a glass of milk. To test how strong my feelings are in the face of this human suffering. To compare the culture of the modern world that I experience here with the natural way of life and the simplicity of the people of Africa.
It was a great honor and spiritual joy for me to be in Madagascar through the Brotherhood of the Orthodox Foreign Mission of Thessaloniki. A country that resembles a natural paradise with thousands of children in the streets. A combination of natural beauty and human poverty.
Every morning in the Holy Diocese of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, we gave milk and biscuits to more than 1200 children. Many of them came at dawn and from miles away, most of them barefoot and others with their little brothers and sisters on their backs. It was awesome to see children at that tender age having lost the carefree spirit of childhood and shouldering the responsibilities of their family.
People, when they approached us, were full of kindness and smiles, and saw the hope of life in our faces. It is a responsibility that every person will feel if they are near them, and at the same time a reflection on human nature. People who may eat once a day and have no drinking water, children who work on the streets and don’t go to school. Yet these people have many gifts and one of them is to create handmade crafts. But the lack of the knowledge required to develop their skills makes them prisoners of the adverse conditions of their lives.
The Orthodox Foreign Missionary Brotherhood provides for the spiritual and living needs of these people by building Holy Churches, Schools, Schools, Clinics, Clinics, Dispensaries, Orphanages and opening drinking water wells. It also organizes daily soup kitchens, food distribution, distribution of clothes and stationery.
Blessed is his work Bishop Ignatius and all the Missionaries, but also the people who participate with their help in the work of the Orthodox Mission in Africa.
Dimitris Vrakas
