Do you know any children that don’t have a family? Well, it is pretty rare in the United States, but in the country of Bulgaria, it isn’t so rare. Pavel did have a mother and father but they were so poor, they couldn’t afford to take care of him. Pavel’s mother lives in a village about fifty miles from the orphanage and because she doesn’t have a car, she has to save up to be able to afford a bus ticket to go visit him. She works long hours so she also doesn’t have much time to visit him. Pavel’s father moved to Germany to earn more money so he never gets to see his son. There are a lot of such families in Bulgaria.
Vidin lives at the Vidin orphanage, a city in the north, near a very long river that runs almost all the way through central Europe. There are about fifty children living at the orphanage. They stay in big rooms with lots of cribs or beds in them. A woman called a Baba takes care of all the woman in the room. Pavel’s Baba is named Violetka. She was named after the violet, a purple flower. Because of that, she always puts a flower into her hair when they are available, daisies or violets if possible.
Every day at the orphanage begins very early. Violetka bathes and dresses each of the children up between six and seven o’clock. She usually gets Pavel ready first since he is usually the first one awake when she gets there in the morning. He then has to wait in his crib until all the children are ready.
Because Pavel is two years old, he can now walk with Violetka to the big dining room. The dining room is very colorful because someone painted the walls of the dining room with cartoon characters that are popular in Bulgaria. They also painted those characters on the windows between the rooms where the children sleep. Pavel loves the different animals and flowers with faces, and sometimes when Violetka holds him he points to them and smiles. Violetka started to make up stories about the characters just for Pavel. A few weeks ago, Pavel started to ask Violetka while she was dressing him to “Make me a story.”
In this picture of the big crib for babies, you can see
some of those paintings on the wall behind the nurse
and the wall behind the crib.
Breakfast is usually a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of milk. Violetka frequently has to remind him to let her help him because he usually puts his hand into it to squish it between his fingers and then spread it on his face.
“You’re going to be an artist someday, Pavel. But you must stop painting with oatmeal. It is not a very pretty color for art,” Violetka would often tell him.
After breakfast, Violetka would put all the children back in their crib except for one child that she would hold as she rocked in a rocking chair and read them a Bible story. Pavel always liked the stories with animals. When Violetka is finished reading to him, she hugs and kisses him, then says a little prayer, asking God to help him learn everything he has to learn, to help him be a good boy, and to help him get back with his mother or find a new family.
Violetka can do those things because she is paid by a Christian organization, Helping Hands Eastern European Ministries. Like many churches and Christian organizations, they give a lot of help to the Bulgarians. Although they do try to help people that are sick or poor to get food, medicine (if needed) and clothing, Helping Hands also helps them to learn about God since many Bulgarians have never heard about Jesus and the wonderful things he did to help them.
Every Sunday, she goes to church in a room that is rented for services every weekend. A few weeks ago, Violetka invited her neighbors to come to a church service. Venka, her parents and grandmother were those neighbors. None of them had ever gone to church before because the prior government said it was illegal to go to church. Venka had no idea what to do but just like Pavel, she watched Violetka and imitated everything she did. Afterwards she had many questions.
“Next week, I’ll bring a Children’s Bible from the orphanage,” Violetka promised.