Week #55 of our 78-week humanitarian mission to Slovakia and Poland is in the books.

We celebrated one year in the mission field on Tuesday of this week.

“If you really want to receive joy and happiness, then serve others with all your heart. Lift their burden, and your own burden will be lighter.” - Ezra Taft Benson.

Poland . . . There is a 'Polish Sahara' in Poland. Błędowska Desert, located between Kraków and Katowice, is Europe’s largest accumulation of loose sand away from a sea. It was created by a melting glacier thousands of years ago.

This was a week when we were once again reminded that one of the great blessings of serving a humanitarian mission is associating with both incredible people serving those in need, and the people they serve. We are truly honored to play a small part of the process of serving the less fortunate among us.

Kelly's commitment to provide as many blankets as possible for ill children in Slovakia and Ukraine refugee babies continues to grow. She delivered sets of crochet kits to Angel House, who has 18 women who want to join the cause. She also delivered blankets she had made over the past few weeks. Kelly has become a master at crocheting beautiful blankets.

Great news - Our most aggressive project to date to support Roma was approved, Funding is for six months, the project is multifaceted and will support self-reliance, childhood education, language courses, medical care, and will also provide immediate food needs. We are partnering with Harangos and Jududora - two respected Roma support organizations in Poland who have worked with 10 interconnected villages with 1,000 residents for many years.

We experienced, as the say, two birds with one stone on Wednesday. We recently provided funds to the non-profit Pavol Jozef University Public Health department to acquire mobile medical equipment. The equipment will be used to conduct health screenings for the medically underserved. Access to the health system can be challenging in Slovakia. There are a number of remote towns, Roma villages, and homeless shelters that have residents who are unaware of their acute medical issues. Public Health will now be able to serve these communities. Elder Asonsohn and Elder Bayles joined me and served as my translators.

We met their director, Marianna Kizeková, at the Oáza homeless shelter to see how they will be using the equipment. It is hard to describe how excited Marianna was to finally be able to serve the men, women, and children in the shelter.

We were given a tour of this massive 350 person homeless shelter by their leadership. Stay tuned for updates on how we plan to support this shelter and their residents. In the meantime, here is a first look at the shelter. My favorite photo is me with a man and his kitten. He was so excited to show it to me.

We were happy to spend our P-Day traveling to near the Ukraine border to visit Energetik, the retreat center for children and adults with special needs, that we have supported in the past. We were to meet the 25 children and teenagers from Perechyn, Ukraine who were able to spend a week at Energetik thanks to the humanitarian fund.

Kelly was under the weather and it was going to be a very long day so she remained in Presov closing projects. I was fortunate to have our good friends and translators, Fero and Ria, joining me on the trip.

We realized as we arrived there were two other groups at Energetik that we had completed projects with earlier in our mission, Duhovy Den and Centrum pre Deti a Rodiny DRaK. It was so nice to see them again and to get reacquainted.

Duhovy Den is a center for 71 severely mentally and handicapped senior adults. The residents do not have family members that can care for them and many have been in the center since they were transferred from a juvenile facility many years ago. We provided funding for a variety of equipment that has enabled these wonderful and sweet people to have a better quality of life.

Centrum pre Deti a Rodiny DRaK operates four Roma children's homes. In these homes children ages nine to 18 live on a full-time basis as they are treated by medical professionals, psychologists, and psychiatrists. The children have been taken from their homes by the government due to what is classified as "urgent, educational, or constitutional measures”. Their goal is to rehabilitate the children so they can return to their families. We provided funds so the children who had to remain at the center over the Christmas holidays, when it is so hard to be alone, could attend a retreat in which their recovery could continue.

Here are a few photos of the Ukraine children, Duhovy residents, Jan Karas, the director of Centrum pre Deti a Rodiny DRaK, the mayor and deputy mayor of Sobrance, Slovakia and the mayor of Perchyne Ukraine, and the director of Energetik, Anna Andrejcova.

We were treated to a boat ride on Lake Sirava with the Ukrainian children.

We pray you are well and that you will have a wonderful week.