Morning Thought Wednesday February 11^th 2009

Good morning. In December a group of nine of us from the island were privileged to go to Romania to distribute Mustard Seed Christmas shoeboxes. As well as distributing the shoeboxes and the food parcels, we spent time visiting those on various of our sponsorship programmes.

Best known is the Adopt A Granny programme where we enable a sponsor in Jersey to assist a needy Romanian pensioner each month either in the winter or throughout the year. We have a smaller programme to assist needy families or young people. While in Romania we visited a number of those sponsored in both villages and the city.

I personally always find the poverty in the centre of Oradea the most challenging and disturbing. Alongside of smart shops, lawyers offices and government offices there can be high metal gates and behind those metal gates there can be what I can only described as hell on earth - little courtyards where the poorest of the poor live. Individuals and even families often live in one tiny room sharing water and toilet facilities with others, sometimes with no electricity.

The worst example we saw on this occasion was a basement dwelling right in the centre of the affluent town of Oradea. Here in a single narrow room (we estimate it measured less than 2 metres X 4 metres) a teenage boy lived with his mother. There was no sanitation or water, no natural light and a ghastly damp smell. The boy had an eye complaint – a comparatively routine procedure in Jersey but impossible for him. The mother (a poorly educated gypsy) could only find occasional work because of prejudice against her as a gypsy.

Nelu the social worker said the boy attended the youth club they ran, and that they found him to be really intelligent and had the ability to do well at school, but not the opportunity.

We left a food parcel there, and Nelu confirmed that the boy would receive his shoebox at the special party for the youth club a few days later. But I for one left that home saddened that we were doing so little for that family and wishing we had the possibility and resources to re-house them in better conditions, with a rent they could afford and better facilities.

At times like that when I feel quite overwhelmed and helpless in the face of huge need I often pray the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can change and the wisdom to know the difference.

And I remember the Bible verse given to me at the time of my baptism: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.

And recently someone gave me a poem on the same theme:

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen. y of
Fr Bertram Griffin -- 1932-2000
Requiescat in Pace

Back to Prayer Updates