|
Each One Different, Each One Beautiful If you are an American member of Miles Jesu living in Poland, the easiest way to renew your Polish visa (which has to be done every three months) is to take the five-hour bus ride to the Miles Jesu Girls' Town across the border in western Ukraine. I have done this several times and the visit with our community in L'viv makes you glad your visa has expired again! When you walk in the door of our L'viv Girls' Town, you are greeted by a short-legged, long-haired, strong-lunged welcome-wagon. Everyone has her two kopeks to put in. Rokslana insists on greeting you by bending your hand into a fist and then pretending it's an apple for her to eat. Emma wants you to carry her around from the moment you arrive until you leave again (even though she's already seven!) Nastia, at age four the baby of the bunch, expects a lot of cuddling. The whole ritual is very draining, since there are 19 of them. No one, by the way, asks that age-old question: 'What did you bring me?' The girls in our Ukrainian Girls' Town have very sad stories. One'already 15 years old'is there because her parents, who love her, are very poor and live far away from any school. She visits them in the summer. They asked us to take her so she could get good formation and have a chance to go to school. But the others are here for more tragic reasons. One has both parents in jail for drug trafficking; many suffered criminal neglect from alcoholic mothers (fathers often unknown); one was rejected by her family because she's the product of adultery. The worst story is the seven-year-old whose mother twice tried to poison her. The grandmother called the police and begged them to take the child away. Now these children have found a new, loving home. They are busy soaking up all the hugs and attention they can. I see them crowding around the front door like that and thank God that they have found a loving home before it was too late for them spiritually, psychologically, even physically. Friday, five-thirty am: the community members are up already. Time enough to dress, make a visit in the chapel, and drink something hot before the children wake up. Olha and Maria are teenagers and very helpful with the 17 younger girls, all born after 1998. Most of the kids are old enough now to dress themselves and make their own beds. That gets done while we cook them a hot breakfast, with a lot of squealing and running around in the background. When everyone's ready, it's time for morning prayers and breakfast, and then a couple of us walk the school age girls to the nearby Catholic school. While the children are at school we make our holy hour in the chapel and go to Divine Liturgy (Greek Catholic). Then there are all kinds of errands and responsibilities to take care of'including buying, preparing, and serving food for our downtown soup kitchen which feeds 300 people every day! By mid-afternoon the older children are home from school again and ready for their midday meal. These little girls are not some statistics on a social worker's clipboard. We do everything possible to promote a family atmosphere. Whenever a couple of Domus members go anywhere, on any kind of errand, they take two or three girls along. The kids love this. Birthdays, of course, are red-letter days, with the Domus members hatching a unique and elaborate theme so each child will really feel special on her big day. There's loving discipline, too. The kids are full of life and usually carry a lot more emotional baggage than children from happier backgrounds. Often in the evenings Olha and Natalia will take aside one or another girl for a quiet chat about some mischief committed during the day. Saturday, 9:00am: All 25 of us, old and young, attend Divine Liturgy together. After that two of us take four or five girls to the open market to buy vegetables. The girls have to get a good look at everything in the square, running back and forth between old ladies selling homemade sour cream in glass jars, farmers with selections of homegrown produce, somebody selling used clothing, someone else with eggs and live chickens, another with flour measured out from a big burlap sack. The real show-stopper is a little old man selling live crabs, fresh from Odessa (far away on the Black Sea). Eight-year-old Marichka extends a cautious finger near one's pincers and the old man puts on a little demonstration of the crab's clinging ability. Before going home we have to see the crabs one more time. Saturday, 7:00pm: We get together to watch 'Snow White.' The big playroom has no furniture'a thick carpet serves as couch, gym mat, or whatever else is needed. Two long rows of little heads are lined up in front of me; Domus members are sprinkled around too. Olha, the Girls' Town director, whispers that by the end of the movie all the little girls will have attached themselves to someone. One by one during the movie you see it'one of the little heads casually looks around the room, identifying available laps. Little arms and legs slide here or there in the dark. When the lights come up, the two rows are gone and each adult averages one child on her lap and one leaning on each side. Saturday, 11:00pm: The children have long since said their prayers and are settled in bed. Most of the domus members have gone to bed after preparing a schedule for all-night Adoration'each member signing up for an hour of prayer in the chapel throughout the night. This is a Miles Jesu Domus custom around the world, every Saturday night of the year. One young sister is already in the chapel, perhaps talking to Our Lord about the day, asking His guidance in raising these children, praying for all their needs, praying for all those who help this apostolate through their prayers, donations, and other sacrifices. |