Morning Thought
Good morning. In December a group of nine of
us from the island were privileged to go to
This morning I want to tell you about Snoopy – we do not
actually know his name but he was wearing a top with the word Snoopy on it so
we called him Snoopy. He is a gypsy boy aged 8 or 9 living in the
It was Martin, one of the
Alex who leads the Romanian charity
called us over and said there was a problem. The children attending the
homework club had been told that a reward for regular attendance at the
homework club would be a Christmas shoebox (children attending the Cefa school had already received a shoebox at school so
this was an extra one). Alex explained that in the last week several children
had suddenly begun attending the homework club what were we to do? Should we
give all the children a shoebox, but wouldn't that then be unfair to the
children who had attended every day all term? Or should we give just to the
children who were regular attenders and
nothing to the children who had only come when they knew shoeboxes were coming
soon? After discussion, we decided to give shoeboxes to the regular attenders and to those who had not come much we would give
a bag with a few goodies in it and we would explain to each child receiving a
bag that the reason was because they had not attended enough to receive a
shoebox this year. Snoopy was one of the children who received a bag rather
than a box. Tough love. But necessary for him and the
others to realise that rules are there to be kept.
Later that day, we distributed Christmas shoeboxes and food
parcels to needy pensioners, some of the pensioners were too frail to carry
their shoeboxes and food parcels back home without help. Amazingly it was
Snoopy more than any other young person who was willing to help them carry
their heavy food bags home. We have high hopes for Snoopy that he will work
hard at his education, which can lead to the possibility of better paid
employment and thus break out of the poverty cycle. I feel confident that this
year ahead he will be a regular attender at homework
club. I believe that boy Snoopy respected us for keeping the rules but still
giving him a smaller gift to encourage him.