“Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (Jn. 6:37, ESV).

 

Another mother turns to us for help. . .

 

The Diaconal Department of The Church of Ingria is like a hospital. The last chance for the gravest, whom the state and charities refuse to help. Those with no dwelling place or registration of residence, no job or any prospects of having one. The last refuge, the last hope. Because the Church does not deal according to the law, but according to love.

 

Children who are simply hungry, who don’t talk at age 12, whose only clothes are those they’re wearing, who don’t go to school at age 10, who have a dental abscess because they have no medical insurance, who have lice. And a mama with two checkered bags packed with her and her two children’s belongings. Children with no papa, not even in their birth certificates.

 

We talk with the mothers softly because any question can provoke irritation and a stormy reaction as we try to find out their current circumstances. “Do you have any residential registration, actual place to live, job, profession, relatives?” “No.” “What do you have?” “These two children.” The children look serious as children don’t normally look and have attentive strict eyes because they see all people as a chain of uninterested passersby who give something and get out of their life forever.

 

Frankly, they all see us as enemies because we have a home, a job, a car, a refrigerator with food, while all they have is a distressed mother who loves them and whom everyone deceives. Because in the evening we’re going home, while they are going to stand next to a store holding a Please Help sign.

 

But God gives hope. And for such mothers with children, this day spent in a warm place and with simple food is another day of grace time in their fight for survival. It’s a sense of the church as a big family where they won’t abandon you, it’s an understanding of Christian love, and it’s their first prayers of thanksgiving. And thanks be to God that He does not only send us the needy, but also those who support our work, those who have come to feel the joy of Christ by sharing in His works. Amen.