ROM Community Response Appeal Follow-up

Refugees at the Serbian - Hungarian border. Photo: Milos Nikolic

Dear Friends,

It is in a good way overwhelming and exciting to watch how this initiative that was born just over a week ago is growing fast and strong. The words of Jesus: "When I was hungry you gave me something to eat..." (Matthew 25:35) are becoming fulfilled through your actions of kindness and generosity. Many of you have at this time put aside a number of other important things to focus for a while on our action "ROM Community Refugee Response".

Since our first ROM Refugee Day of Action in Belgrade, Serbia is only one week away - Friday, 18th September, and since we are addressing the global community of our friends, and since time is of the essence, allow me to follow up on our appeal by sharing a few more hints that might be helpful as you are at this time planning to give or/and get involved:

1. For our friends in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and UK:

Please, check the names and contact details of your national coordinators, and contact them immediately to see how to pass on your donation to them. It is important that we complete the collection of funds and items in your countries by Tuesday afternoon, 15th September so that the timely transfer of donations may be organized. If you are planning to give a monetary donation remember that no amount is too small or too big. Give what you are able to give. I like the comments of some of you who told me: "ROM has given so much to me and now is the time for me to give something back".

Also, should we need to have a vehicle available to take a group of people or/and donated items from your country to Belgrade, let us and your country coordinators know as soon as possible if you can make your car and yourself available.

2. For our Friends in Other Countries:

The time was too short to organize national coordinators in your countries. We would like you to send your donation immediately, and no later than Tuesday, 15th September, directly to any of the accounts presented at the end of the appeal letter. Please mark it as "Golden Rule Project". If you would like to use some other method of sending us your donation please consult Mihaela Kovacs, Bojan Ruvarac or me first. It is important that the monetary donation you intend to give will reach us in Belgrade by Thursday, 17th September the latest.

3. Four our Friends in the US:

We are impressed and encouraged that since we launched our appeal yesterday among our friends in the US we have already been notified about the first group of donations. Please continue sending your donations by checks or electronically to The Antioch Partners as specified at the end of the appeal letter. Your checks need to be noted as "Forum - Project Golden Rule". Since time is of the essence please send us your donation immediately, or by Tuesday, September 15 the latest. Please also, notify any of our US coordinators by an independent email as soon as you have submitted your donation. 

4. For Those Planning to Come to Belgrade and Serve the Refugees on Friday, 18th September:

We are looking for a dedicated group of friends who are passionate about helping the refugees. If you are planning to come we would need to know you are coming by Monday night, 14th September, in order to organize an accommodation for you in timely manner. We are not able to receive the last minute registrations. If you are coming we are expecting you to arrive to Belgrade on Thursday afternoon, 17th September. As soon as we know who is coming and the exact number we will send you all other arrival and accommodation information.

5. Praying for the ROM Community Refugee Response action and the Day of Action in Belgrade:

Let us also give through prayer, and thus become a big prayer team. This is an important action and our contribution to the softening of the current refugee crisis in Europe that seems to be growing by each new day. Let us pray for a bigger picture too, that the Lord may move the hearts and minds of people of the European governments to find a suitable and humane solution for the hundreds of thousands unfortunate people who are seeking a safe place where they could build their new homes. Let us pray also that the witness of Jesus may shine through our action, however modest it might be if compared with the magnitude of the challenge. And, indeed let us pray for everyone who will come to Belgrade to serve, as well as for those who are already on the streets and in the fields of Serbia, Macedonia and Hungary helping the refugees in many ways.

May I also take this opportunity to thank EUS (IFES) Serbia; Samuil Petrovski, EUS Director, and ADRA Serbia for letting us do this action if partnership with them.

Finally, join our FB ROM Response Prayer Group and see our regular updates about the refugee situations in Serbia.

Love you all. May the Lord bless you abundantly.

Tihomir Kukolja

Renewing our Minds, Director

Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, Executive Director

+1-281-515-3707

PS: Please visit often the following pages for timely updates too:

http://forumforleadership.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/forumforleadership

https://www.facebook.com/ambassadorsforbetterworld

Hundreds of Roma Refugees in Montenegro Homeless

Watch the video ...

Dear Friends,

Let me share a brief account of a very dramatic event our Renewing Our Minds Team witnessed at the very end of our Southeast European Trial of Friendship 2012.

On Tuesday July 24, 2012 we were in Podgorica, Montenegro, and our plan was to visit two Roma camps (Konak 1 and Konak 2) crowded with refugees from Kosovo, who sought their refuge in Montenegro in 1999. The two refugee camps were supposed to be their temporary shelter till a permanent solution was to be found. However over the past 13 years the two camps has become their permanent home, neglected by the Montenegrin Government, abandoned by international humanitarian agencies, and treated as a nuisance by the local population. In short hundreds of Roma families living in the two camps under appalling conditions are stuck in poverty, with no prospect of a more dignified life conditions in the future.

Sinisa Nadazdin, who has committed the past ten years of his life to helping and serving Roma refugees in those two camps, took us on Tuesday to the camps, only to become unwilling witnesses of an outstanding tragedy. On the morning of our visit fire broke out, most likely caused by accident, in the biggest Roma camp of the two (Konak 1). Extreme heat that has visited the entire region for more than a month made the wooden Roma homes an easy pray to the fire that in no time consumed up to 80% of all homes in the camp Konak 1. Only a few homes were spared. One thousand Romas lost their homes and everything they possessed to the flames.

Our team witnessed children, young people and old, trying to rescue whatever they could - not much really. We saw children and Roma families wondering confused and lost, trying to make sense out of the tragedy.  I heard some of them saying that "it would have been better had they died in the fire than to have lost their modest homes and the few possessions they had. None of us in the team could keep our eyes dry as we pondered helplessly at the overwhelming consequences of the disaster that struck so many Roma families in Podgorica that Tuesday morning.

And yet, in the middle of the tragedy that plunged close to one thousand of Romas in Podgorica into a new stage of miserable existence, we witnessed something beautiful that none of us in the team would ever forget. Sinisa Nadazdin, who is also a leader of a small but growing Roma church community, invited us to their Roma church house for a special prayer service. In no time the small room was filled with Romas, more than twenty, some of who lost all their possessions, which for two hours worshiped the Lord through prayer, music and sharing times in the most beautiful way. The honesty of their prayers, sincerity of the spirit and the simplicity of their faith was a powerful witness to what it means to trust in the Lord even at the time of a great tragedy. A more meaningful worship I have not experienced for a very long time.

The Roma victims in Podgorica, Montenegro who have lost their homes and all belongings need our help. The Government of Montenegro is slow again to provide any meaningful assistance. And yet those people and their families need urgently portable homes, tents, mattresses, blankets, urgent humanitarian aid to sustain their lives at this time. Would you know a person, church community or an organization that could help? Maybe you too can do something too to help?

Information or further questions related to the nature of the most immediate help that could make a difference in the lives of the hundreds of homeless Romas in Podgorica at this time could be obtained from Sinisa Nadazdin, our friend and Romate, who is very well known and respected in the Roma communities in Podgorica. His contact details are: nadazdin@t-com.me , mobile number if +38269352052. Please, ask Sinisa about what you can do to elevate the suffering of the homeless Roma families in Podgorica, Montenegro.

Thank you for whatever you can do. Remember the words of Jesus: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matt. 25:40.

Tihomir Kukolja

Renewing Our Minds, Director

Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, Executive Director