The Day’s Only Meal for Traynka and Roza

Roumen Ivanov, April 2003

Gypsy children’s feeding and literacy program
has been going on for five years.
Our seven kitchens are attended by 220 children.


On a cold winter day in the Philipovtsy Gypsy slum in Sofia, children eat their hot food portion with a great appetite. One of them is Trayanka, 8. The slender girl shivers in her old sweater, she moves her cold toes to make the feel warmer in her oversized rubber slippers.

Not long ago Traynka also had to struggle with hunger. Her unemployed parents were not able to feed their six children. The ladies from our kitchen found about this family and invited the children to have meals with us, and now they joyously come to eat every day.

It is a great relief for the parents to know that at least one meal a day is guaranteed to the children. Trayanka says she sings at home to her father and mother the songs she learns from the kitchen ladies. Her favorite song is: “The Bible in one word is love, love your neighbor as yourself.”

Roza’s first letter

Roza, 10, has received her daily meal from our kitchen for many years. She has nobody else except her older brother in whose home she lives.
Roza is a sad-hearted, reserved child, she talks very little. Her sweater is full of holes, her pants are ragged, her hair unkempt, hands rough from dirt. When Roza sees the food bowl, life appears in her tired eyes. After a short prayer she begins to ladle the soup with her spoon without turning her eyes from the bowl.

Today Roza for the first time stayed after the lunch to participate in the literacy class. She didn’t know how to hold the pencil. But at the end of the lesson she was able to read the word “mom” and write the letter “a”.
She was so happy that she didn’t want to go home!

These children receive much more than just a bowl of food:

The Church becomes for them as their second home.
They get to know the Word of God, and they learn to pray and sing.
Also tens of parents have come to the Lord!

Thank you for your help in giving them this possibility!