Our daily effort to maintain what we have painstakingly started is great. Experiencing the consequences of the crisis that threatens our Greece in recent years, we too often come to dilemmas and conflicts about how to manage the scarce money that comes into our hands, in order to relieve and support our tried and tested native Malaysian brother. By God’s grace, we have so far embarked on many worthy charitable efforts to ease the suffering of the Malaysians living in this troubled country with its various problems and many difficulties on a daily basis… Along with our constant efforts to pass on our True and Living Orthodox Faith, we have reopened and established a feeding program for 300 children daily.
This offer to the poor families of Malawi is really very great, because our Mission employs and feeds many children 3 to 5 years old every day, with two meals, breakfast and lunch, and thus relieves the headache of every poor parent how to feed their children, but at the same time it also uses the time it has under its protection to indoctrinate and educate them in the Orthodox faith. In many parishes the place where the children are kept and fed is ours, and so the work goes on without a hitch, except for our constant anxiety to have the daily necessities in order to have the food promised. In the parish of St. Catherine, however, where the Church is not yet completed and the place of care is not ours, we have many daily anxieties… The rent, the services that visit us and always find reasons to impose fines, sometimes because the space is small, sometimes because the toilets are inadequate and so much more. There is a great need to speed up the works and to make this parish a private space to house the 100 young children that we accommodate every day. Our minds are racing and so is our imagination, and we are already thinking about how to organize the new custodial area, how to build the small toilets as well as children’s washbasins with taps, and how to make the playground cheerful, so that the two or three years that the little Africans will live with us will be happy, filled with sweet memories of the affection with which the Orthodox Mission has surrounded them.
You can’t imagine the joy we see on the children’s faces of these little angels every time we feed them. They run with such eagerness when their lunch is ready, and they reach out their skinny little hands to each take their plate. Too often they tell us “more, more, more” and we pray to God that this blessed ration may never end. Often, we find ourselves in great dilemmas about what kind of priorities to set in our mission. But these little children have such a special place in our hearts and almost always hold the top spot. The wholehearted thank you often comes out of both their lips and their hearts as they shout “zikomo, zikomo,” meaning thank you in their own language. The person in charge of this ministry, Fr. Kallinikos, often tells us that we need to increase the quantity and quality of food so that the children can withstand the hardships and difficult environment they live in. We look at him with embarrassment and sadness. Everything requires sacrifice. The poverty that surrounds us hinders us. We do what we can, but we know it’s not enough… The children, while they are at the Mission, from morning to afternoon, have a joyful and blessed time. But when they go home in the evenings, we know what awaits them. Their houses, made of mud and grass, are in danger of falling down in every heavy downpour, especially during the rainy season. It often happens that children are also killed when their mud-brick and paper-roofed hut is knocked down on top of them.
Or other times, in the evenings, their parents, not having anything to give them for dinner, tell them to be patient and, when tomorrow dawns, they will eat again the blessed food of our mission. And so these little children live with the longing of when it will dawn, so that they can come to us and spend their whole day, not only taking the two daily meals we offer them, but playing, laughing, singing beautiful children’s songs and at the same time learning short and practical prayers from our Church, such as “Holy God”, “Our Father”, etc. But their real hilarity happens when we visit them and give them various little things, balloons, toys, candies, given to us by some good Christians. The greatest reward is when they hug us out of their joy, and really that is the best payoff for us. Yes, my brothers and sisters, we implore you too, to pray to our All-Merciful and sweet Christ that this work will never cease and that He will claim us to continue humbly to minister to both the poor and needy children, but also to all our Malaysian brothers and sisters in general. Amen.
π. Hermolaus Iatrou
