My Thoughts on Visiting Families

Spending the day with the foundation visiting families has truly been one of the most memorable experiences of my life so far!   Visiting two different families both in need of help, but in very different ways gave me some insight into the problems in and around Warsaw today, and no doubt in many cities around the world.  For the first family, you could sense great sadness at the loss of a daughter, and a great strain concerning the health of the son who suffered from the same illness.  The foundation offered a friendly ear on which to offload some of the weight of sadness they were carrying and provided for their immediate needs with some bags of food and drink.  At the end of the meeting we prayed for the family and having provided the mother with a ticket to get to the community meeting, I felt that we had left leaving a feeling of hope, and solidarity between the family and Foundation that they would not be coping alone. 

The second family was in more urgent need of help.  Having arrived in Poland with the aim of helping their sick baby, the family clearly were being pushed to their limits both emotionally and financially.  Living in a very small apartment, and struggling to pay their rent, the family were due to be evicted the next day.  Sadness at losing their son from the same illness, the father was clearly desperate to avoid the same fate for his daughter, and wanted to do anything he could to look after his family.    One of the things that struck me most is that the Foundation deals with the problem at hand, as soon as help is needed.  There is no ‘red tape’ that constrains its works, and as such rent was found for the family to relieve the pressure for at least one month, so that the family could focus on its other needs.  The foundation also agreed to look further into the illness of the baby girl and an invitation to the family to come to the community meeting was extended.  Leaving with so much sadness that anyone should have to cope with such troubles, but at the same time real joy that something had been done to help them just when they needed it left me with a real sense of gratitude on behalf of the families that the Foundation continues to do its great work. 

By Anna Jerzykowski, New Volunteer