Morning Thought presented on BBC Radio Jersey by Rose Helie

Tuesday September 30^th 2008

Good morning. Yesterday in Morning Thought I shared with you about my first experience of distributing Christmas shoeboxes. Since then I have been to various countries in Eastern Europe every year to give out Christmas shoeboxes, in Bosnia, Croatia, Moldova and mainly in Romania. Because we are a small and very much “hands on” charity we can adapt what we do and how we do it in response to the needs and situation. For example if we were packing for a war torn country we would never include anything that had even the smallest connection with war or could be used as a weapon in any way – when we packed for Bosnia we never included marbles feeling they could be used as weapons. But packing for Romania is different, this is a country getting back on its feet after years of poverty and oppression. The children we give to are the poorest of the poor - many of them are gypsies. Many of the gypsies are despised in Romania – gypsies must make up 10% of their population and the poorest among them are often ostracised, unable to obtain legal employment, doing the most menial tasks – sometimes we will see gypsy women sweeping the roads at night.

Mustard Seed has set up a kindergarten and homework club in the village of Cefa to help the gypsies. To our joy some non-gypsy parents choose to send their children to both homework club and kindergarten. In Cefa over the years we have been able to help the schools in the area – which is a pretty poor area. Until we arrived about 8 years ago the schools had no computers and even the mayor did not have one in his office. We will provide shoeboxes for those state schools we know to be in need. But a special time will be distributing shoeboxes to children in our own Mustard Seed homework club and kindergarten, and no doubt we will have a simple lunch at the kindergarten afterwards.

When I first met little Florin at our kindergarten 2 years ago he was painfully shy, too frightened by the presence of a stranger to stop crying enough to take hold of his Christmas shoebox. Now after 2 years at the kindergarten he has changed and last time when we gave him his shoebox he was the only one who refused to obey the instruction to wait and open the box at home – it was already going home time when we gave out the boxes. Florin began to open it by pulling up the lid and peeping inside, then he ripped the lid and finally he got it fully opened. Thankfully there was a carrier bag inside it, so we were able to help him put the contents into the carrier bag so he did not lose them on the way home as they would have fallen out of his opened box.

I find that often the most challenging, but enjoyable and precious times are times spent in families giving out the shoeboxes. We go into some pretty grim homes at times, damp, sometimes with no electric light, invariably with no running water. In one single room house I almost heaved because it stank - it was really damp and although they had a wood burning fire it was still cold – the family wore their hats and coats in the house. On the sofa the mother sat with a baby, he had a runny nose and a bare bottom – they couldn’t afford nappies. The mother looked pale and ill, we learnt afterwards she had just had a back street abortion as she felt she could not cope with yet another mouth to feed. As well as the shoeboxes we left a food parcel for that family and I saw tears glisten in the woman’s eyes as she realised what it was. On the double bed three young children sat – we gave them their shoeboxes and helped them open them. They seemed to have no idea about opening the wrappers before eating their sweets. From the expressions on their faces I wondered if they had ever had fun items like the car and ball and teddy. Then wide smiles appeared.

That particular home visit was difficult, I remember it I felt quite helpless, I had so much compared to them; they had so little and above all they had no hope and no opportunity. The Christmas shoeboxes we took them, the food parcel we gave them brought them a flicker of hope. I am glad people went to the trouble and expense of packing those shoeboxes, giving the money for us to buy the food, because to the poorest of the poor this means so much. And I am pleased we took the time to visit them – I feel sure that Jesus Christ would have gone to visit them and other needy families like them. Because this is what the Christmas message is all about, this is giving, real giving.

I hope you will share some of the good things you have through packing a Christmas shoebox this year. There is information at the parish halls.

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