Teaching the class
The cycle of poverty is not easy to break for a young child—or even desired.
How can you grasp how important education and hard work are, when your own family and community think that going to school is pointless? How can you appreciate good results and qualifications if you still go to bed hungry? Live for the moment and make the most of that!
With every generation, the story repeats itself. This is the mentality one must break through in both children and parents before any productive work is done. For kindness to be embraced, a sense of trust and a loving relationship must be developed. Bringing those walls down is where literacy classes begin.
For nearly two decades, faithful and committed teachers within the First Baptist Church in Sofia have given time, effort, skills, kind-heartedness, and patience to teach illiterate poor Roma children.
The goal is to encourage children and parents to believe in themselves so they make a conscious decision of going successfully through the education system, to get as far ahead in their education and work towards a better future. Also, the love of God in Jesus is practically lived out, as the children come to a place where they can have a long, hot shower, warm meal, clothes; they can even take aid home.
It is a rewarding experience to look back and count the people who have studied. Not everyone succeeds; some only finish primary school, others manage to complete secondary school, and some finish high school. The kids grow up, get married, have children and many of them send their children to our classes in the faith and conviction that it is good for them, that it is a place of acceptance and hope.
By Didi Oprenova, Co-Pastor of Sofia Baptist Church, Bulgaria
