Angels Among Us

A few months ago, when Sarah Gorrell, from BBC Southern Counties Radio, put out an appeal for a knitting instructor to come out to Moldova with me, not in my wildest dreams did I imagine how we were about to hit the Angel jackpot!

The knitting machine I carried to Moldova last Winter was as long as I am tall. To me, it looked to be such a mechanical monstrosity, I simply couldn’t imagine anyone ever grasping its technical aspects. So I was surprised when one of our sewing teachers asked me to find someone to teach her and the children how to use it. And I was shocked to discover several weeks later that a villager brought in another machine, as she too wanted to learn.

Enters Alison Casserly. Actually, it was her mum who phoned the BBC to volunteer Alison. (Aren’t mums great that way!) Alison lives way up north – so far away that she is not able to hear the radio show. We chatted on the phone a couple of times and Alison was ready to come.

I felt badly as my limited knowledge of anything relating to knitting and sewing left me simply acknowledging that we had a machine and that was all I could tell her about it. So on blind faith, Alison prepared to leave her husband and children and travel thousands of miles to a heretofore-unknown smattering of ink on a world map.

As we chatted on the phone, Alison rattled off names of ‘thingys’ and ‘widgetygrubs’ and ‘whatnots’ that she thought she’d bring. All I could do was say that this sounded great. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about! Alison was much too polite to point out that even a slug knows more about knitting than I did, but I’m sure she was thinking it!

Our first rendezvous was quite out of the norm. Alison and I had never met before the morning we boarded the flight. Whatever age you might be, there has to be a degree of discomfort with the idea of a stranger picking you up at 3:30 in the morning, taking you to an international airport and carting you off to a country that few have even heard of!

Nevertheless, blind faith was the catalyst for Alison. The night before, Alison drove down south to where her mum and dad live. I was warmly greeted at the door by her father. I can't imagine many people being so hospitable at 3:30 in the morning. As I sipped a desperately needed cup of tea, surrounded by people in their jimjams and slippers, their small dog sniffed me with suspicion, no doubt trying to determine whether the scent of my Jack Russell, Mr. Piddles, branded me as friend or foe.

I sincerely felt nervous for Alison and as we headed up the M25, I found myself talking even more than usual about anything and everything. There were points when I felt I should just shut up, but in some ways, I was afraid she’d back out at the last minute and go back home.

During the flights, there were times when she was very quiet and I chose to let her reflect, uninterrupted, on the adventure that lay before her. As the tiny aircraft pulled up to the Chisinau airport building, I tried to read Alison’s face. What I felt I saw was a healthy balance of excitement and apprehension. Certainly an appropriate reaction to the experience, especially in light of some of the things she had heard.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget Alison’s words a full week later, when I asked her for her thoughts about what she had experienced. She was full of emotion about her profoundly powerful journey of self-awareness, and discovery.

I had to hold back my own tears as I listened to her. Alison had experienced what I find myself longing for each time I leave Moldova. She not only could see, hear, and feel the powerful sense of pride that exists in the hearts of Moldova’s children, but she was able to see hope in their eyes.

The children were perplexed that a perfect stranger would travel thousands of miles to come help them and ask for nothing in return.

Alison demonstrated a gentle admiration for them; for the fact that each and every child considered the education they are receiving as a gift; the fact they take pride in what they have, which by material standards is little or nothing. Instead, their measurements are in friends, the power of families, and community pride. And as Alison so poignantly pointed out to me, despite the fact the homes many of them live in would have been condemned in Britain, those homes are immaculate, the streets are clean, not a scintilla of trash, not a marking of graffiti, and not a single disrespectful young person.
We live in an addictive society where those who live their lives as sponges have the audacity to complain that the level of handouts they receive, their free homes, their free medical services and medicine, are simply not enough. When we offer money to Moldovan children, it’s like the Parable of the Talents. They’re humbled by the responsibility for which they’ve been entrusted. They want to find ways repay the trust you’ve invested in them.

I received an email from Alison this week. She was almost stumbling over herself with excitement, telling me about all the people she has shared her experience with, the plans she has for returning to Moldova and the creative ideas she’s developing to help the children achieve their goals.

Sarah Gorrell and the BBC helped me plant that small mustard seed of hope. Alison is becoming the Vine and Branch of hope for so many of our youth.

What a wonderful gift. Thank you Sarah. Thank you Alison. And thank you God for hearing my prayers.

When We Need a Little Help

You're No Good!

Perhaps All You Need is a Little DOG in Your Life?

A Thought For Advent

This may seem an odd subject to write about at the beginning of Advent, which begins this Sunday, but this year there have been many successes in the arrests of child-traffickers and those who exploit women and children for gain. I see this as a wonderful blessing. But there is still a long way to go.

The trafficking of the young and innocent is an appalling offence. It inevitably affects the most vulnerable and least secure of women and children, making them false promises and offering false hope. These girls from Eastern Europe, often struggling with poverty, come to Europe in trust, dependent for their safety on those who brought them over, believing that here they’ll find a loving home, honest work and have legal protection.

Instead, they’re betrayed, exploited and abused by the very people they depend upon. Often lured by women working for the traffickers, the girls are sold the dream of a safe, loving family of other girls in similar circumstances, who will care for them and help guide them along the way in their new life. How tragically different the truth is.

Enforced prostitution is an utter violation of women. It is a violation by a whole racketeering industry, which treats them as commodities and robs them of sexual and even human integrity. It is a violation by individuals who want what the women have, without any respect for who they are.

And yet, this is an appropriate Christmas story. For it taps us into the darker side of Christmas. It reminds us this is the kind of world that God came into: a world where the vulnerable are abused and where to be fragile is to be easily exploited. Human violation of the defenceless was as great at that first Christmas as it is now; with homeless refugees on the move, and the slaughter of hundreds of innocent children.

The irony of the Christmas event is that God didn’t come as a great military hero to impose a new regime, or as the world’s policeman to do a clean-up job. He came precisely as one of the world’s most vulnerable: a baby, defenceless, fragile, unable to help himself, utterly dependent on those who were His protectors.

The Christian story challenges the very foundations of all our play-safe policies, our protection against being vulnerable, our fear of powerlessness. For it says instead, that the vulnerable matter, the weak are highly significant, the susceptible are important, the defenceless count. In taking on human vulnerability at its most fragile God gives dignity to each defenceless person, and requires us, in our relationships and our laws, to do the same.

Living without defences, Christ knows the sufferings of people who struggle under evil, whether girls sold into prostitution, or parents of murdered children, and God will act on their behalf. For in the vulnerability of a baby in a manger lies the power of divine love and justice.

The story of Christmas is Emmanuel, God with us.

May your own coming Christmas be filled with warmth and joy!

Father Bill Haymaker+

Publicat în memoria amoroasă pentru Părintele Bill

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The Trafficked Child

Suffer The Children

Who Are We Forgetting?

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When A Crisis Must Take A Backseat To Need

My heart is breaking for the children in Moldova. We have such a crisis on our hands at present.

During my visit over the Orthodox Easter, I told Vasile Batcu that the children would need to be out of Aschiuta Home and in Summer Camp by the 10th of June, in anticipation of the arrival of volunteers, as well as the funds to renovate the children’s bathrooms.

If you read one of my other blogs, ‘Anglicans,’ you will be aware that not only did the volunteers not arrive, the funds to pay for the supplies and local labour failed to materialise as well. We did receive two contributions: one in the amount of USD$850.00 and a subsequent contribution of USD$250.00. There were never any volunteers organised, there was no fund drive at one of the churches. It was an awful situation that affected so many and I only had myself to blame for not following the most basic of due diligence.

With a budgeted cost of circa GBP£4000, or USD$6900.00, we are left in an absolutely dreadful situation. The bathrooms are simply unusable. And with up to thirty-four children in the home at any given time, plus house parents and volunteers, even the absence of one of the two toilets can create a crisis.

I received a joint telephone call this morning from Vasile and Inna, asking me to advise them what we should do. My best guess was that the funds we’ve received will have to go towards some of the camp costs, as the children are already there and utilising the services. However, it doesn’t address what we’re going to do when they return.

It has been an emotionally challenging week. The sadness of the child’s funeral at the end of the week overwhelmed many. Plus my friend Sarah slowly moves in and out of a coma now. I still talk to Sarah, as I know she can hear me, but the lines on her face deepen as the cancer spreads.

As I was leaving the ward yesterday another patient called out to me. Her name is Mrs Pearce. I had not met her before. She was wild eyed and frightened. I had heard her, as I sat with Sarah, calling out to no one in particular, that she wanted to go ‘home.’ Although the ward they're in is not generally for the terminally ill, it just happens that Mrs Pearce is suffering from cancer as well.

Mrs Pearce asked me to stay with her for a bit. She said she was afraid and she wanted to go home. I held her hand and stroked her forehead. I asked simple questions: how many children did she have, grandchildren, where she was born – all truthfully intended to help her mentally escape from her present surroundings.

I promised that I’d bring her some fresh strawberries tomorrow. I’ll need to purée them as she's unable to manage any solids. But I suspect she still may have difficulty in eating them.

It had been my hope that the children and I would escape for our own ‘Star Picnic,’ on Saturday night. I needed a bit of a diversion from the challenges of the week. It wasn’t to be.

As I stood at the nursing station, disinfecting my hands with Isopropyl, one of the ward nurses came up to me. I’ve known her for several years. In fact, I celebrated her mother’s funeral sometime last year. ‘Father, would you mind if we had a word?’ she asked with a sense of urgency in her eyes. ‘Of course,’ I smiled.

As I followed her into the small office I thought she was going to tell me that Sarah would most likely not live more than a day or two. I had already thought this myself, so my heart was prepared and I had imagined how nice it would be for her finally to be free of her pain.

The nurse sat down with me. I glanced over at her desk and saw the photos of her two children; Laura is three and Michael is five. ‘Father, I thought you should know, I’ve just been diagnosed with bowel cancer.’ She said it matter-of-factly.

‘I’m so saddened to hear this,’ I began. ‘Let’s take a break now and talk about it.’
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Children In Crisis Exploited Children Death Of A Child

Anglican Prayers Falling In Love At Clapham Junction