There is Another Side to the Coin
“Our life is like a coin with two sides: the way it is and the way it can become.”
IVAN IVANOV, BULGARIA
When my wife Mila and I launched a soup kitchen and reading classes, we had a challenging start. Our burden is for the children in the slum community of our village Konyovo, and these children have all kinds of problems. Their home conditions are miserable, and many are neglected by their parents altogether. Some have already been in trouble with the police for shoplifting and even burglary. They’re often defiant and problematic in school. Most speak only the Roma language (not Bulgarian).
The fact that Mila and I are Roma ourselves has helped build a bridge: we can communicate in their native tongue. After a shaky start, the children showed interest in the activities we offered at the church and started coming regularly.
In addition to meals, reading lessons, games, and Bible and prayer times, we share our dreams of a better future with this generation: a life without alcoholism, theft, imprisonment, teen marriages and pregnancies, anger, revenge, and domestic violence. A life devoid of those things is common for most of us, but for these children, it is a dream that takes faith and courage to pursue.
And we are seeing wonderful changes! Teachers at the school are offering us positive feedback for our efforts as the students aren’t the behavioral and academic challenges they’ve always been!
Our life is like a coin with two sides: the way it is and the way it can become – with God’s help and the support of others!
All it takes is faith and courage (and a little help from someone) to experience the other side of the coin.
Ivan and Mila Ivanov coordinate Mission Possible’s Baby Box program and work in Bulgaria’s Roma churches. Ivan also pastors the church in Konyovo.
Mila and volunteers leading a children’s event in the Konyovo church building, which was completed two years ago with support from Mission Possible
Mila hands a Baby Box to a mother in an impoverished community.
