Alexandra and Svetlana are residents of the Good Samaritan Children’s Home in Nagydobrony. It is one of the institutions of the Reformed Church of Sub-Carpathian Ukraine (RCCU) and has been in operation since 1995. Presently there are 74 girls who live in this home for orphan girls and many of them are handicapped. Those who are considered healthy, like Alexandra and Svetlana, attend a school in town, while the rest are educated at the Home. In 2015 after the Moderator’s tour of Eastern Europe, International Ministries donated money to the bursary of the RCCU Secondary School in Nagydobrony to help support boarding and lodging costs for girls from the Good Samaritan Children’s Home for the 2015-16 school year.
Alexandra is 15 years old and was moved here because of her family situation. She came to the Good Samaritan Children’s Home with her sister, Barbara, when she was 5 years old. Alexandra is presently a grade 10 student at the RCCU Secondary School in Nagydobrony. Although her family lives in the same town, the school’s regulations allow students home visits only every other weekend. Her favourite subjects are geography and law. One day she would like to become a psychologist. While she enjoys being at the school, her only concern is that she doesn’t have a private place to study. Her most effective method of studying is to repeat the lessons out loud but this is challenging since she has to share her room with another girl. Upon hearing of her concern, I accompanied her to the principal’s office and she was granted permission to study in the school cafeteria. Immediately, Alexandra broke into a smile and went off to gather her books for the afternoon studies.
Brown-eyed Svetlana, a 15 year-old girl, has been a resident of the Good Samaritan Children’s Home since she was a baby. She is Alexandra’s classmate and her roommate. It is sad to say that she has never met her parents. Fortunately, she is on good terms with a kind family in town whose children have embraced her as part of their family. Her greatest wish is to be able to visit Hungary one day. Since the border is not far from this town, the distance is not the issue but not having enough money to apply for a passport which is very costly.
László Katkó, Director of the Good Samaritan Children’s Home, expresses his thanks to The Presbyterian Church in Canada for providing financial assistance to five girls from the Children’s Home in Nagydobrony, Ukraine for the 2015/2016 academic year.
