“And everything to the dog’s kennel without love”
Fr. John Twardowski
Klenica is a small village in the west of Poland. Life flows ordinary here . A few small shops, the rectory, a church, a forgotten palace of The Polish Nobel Prize winner, a fire station, a tiny primary school, two bus stops … and house for orphan. Helpless people live here. Kids from all walks of life, with many burdens and difficult stories, in his short biographies one could say – a facility like an institution, if not for the fact that its founders and leaders of the center are the Sisters of Mary Immaculate. Sister Veronika managed the house for several years – a person with a big heart and great courage. She and her sisters had to face what was the most difficult. With take-off in difficult circumstances. Today the house is restructured. It changed the leading body and became a local government institution which the leading authority is the County Office. As Heraclitus of Ephesus used to say, “everything flows and nothing remains the same “, however, despite many changes, the sisters continue. Why? Reply is simple – they love people. Working with sisters is extraordinary for us, educators experience and discover what is important to them.
A few weeks ago, and this short text is being written in early December 2020, Our house started to receive gifts. At the beginning, thanks to one of online social networking sites, then through various television. We came up with an action on the occasion of St. Nicholas – we asked Internet users to donate gifts for our kids … and to our surprise, things started to happen good and incomprehensible to us. Couriers, postmen, parcel lockers and couriers became for a few weeks our inseparable companions. We have received so much good that it is difficult for us to deal with its measure. Every donor made a gift from the heart, sister Zelia did not stop chatting and constantly answering questions: what for Zuzia? What kind of hat for Kuba?
Cuba is size M or better L? I bought a doll for Lenka, would a stroller also come in handy? St. Nicholas was full of childish smiles. There was endless joy, but it wasn’t everything , good has fallen from everywhere. Mrs. Ania offered to buy new mattresses, one of the personal trainers from Zielona Góra brought a few bags of healthy food, two restaurants made the kids happy in the form of delicious dishes from their own menu, a representative of a large cleaning company in Ireland wrote a project to his company, and donated money for sports activities for kids, a large company production company – sent poufs and seats, Ela from the hairdressing salon dedicated the entire Saturday to our kids by treating us like “top-shelf” customers. One of our foster child – Cyntia became pregnant and she immediately experienced the care – we told the doctor of gynecology from Poznań and offered free, private care for the future mother and her baby to be born. Anyway, she visited us with her husband – they brought a wonderful gift and immediately Mr. Paweł – an orthopedic doctor offered to examine everyone and helped the charges if there was a need. Such things happen with us all day despite the pandemic, after all. Why? The answer is very simple – love we share in real life.
***
The sisters pray daily for the well-being of our friends. For consent and understanding in our team. For a smile. For smart solutions. The whole team we show that we can do beautiful and valuable things, even in spite of differences. We teachers, we do everything to help our pupils in a few or a dozen years, they said – it was not a wasted and terrible time. How it will be – the future will show..
ps. I wrote the text on the night shift thinking well of all the sisters ever in this place stood in my way.
PAUL