“And
the King will answer and say to them,
‘Assuredly
I say to you, inasmuch as you
did
it to the least of these My brethren, you did
it to Me’.” – Mat. 25:40
When our sisterhood chose this remote
place for our monastery, we were expecting a life of solitude and service to
our neighbor mostly in the form of prayer.
Over the years, however, as God has sent many of the ailing and
world-weary for spiritual comfort and shelter at our monastery, we have
realized that He asks of us a more active service for our neighbor.
Loyal helpers
Proud of the harvest at the garden skete
On the road to the harvest
Although we have visitors of all
ages and origins, we especially have been sent children and youths who are in
need of spiritual and material help.
These usually fall into three groups: Serbian refugees (from Kosovo,
Croatia and Bosnia), those abandoned by their parents, or those who have fallen
into bad company, delinquency, and addiction.
With Abbess Efrosinija’s secular training in psychology, along with,
more importantly, many years of training and experience in the spiritual life,
these youths receive much help under her care.
At the same time, life at the monastery itself
has proved to be miraculously healing.
We have seen many youths who seemed like a hopeless cases utterly healed
and transformed through the grace of God and the prayers of St. John the
Baptist. Without any specific “program” on our part, but just by living at the
monastery where life is centered around service to God through prayer and
obedience, many have naturally drawn closer to Our Sweetest Savior or tasted
the grace of closeness to Him for the first time. Here many souls who have experienced nothing
but suffering from the many cruel blows of the world finally find comfort and
shelter in a safe port. Though our life
is simple, it is deep, and this is wonderful after life in the world which is
so complex and yet so shallow. After
time spent at the monastery, some have chosen the monastic life, while others
have left the monastery renewed and strengthened for the battle of living as
Christians in the World, which is in many ways much harder. Unfortunately, some, because of their
unhappy circumstances, are not capable of either path but put their hope in us that
we will take care of them. In any case, Novi Stjenik is always there as a
spiritual anchor.
Mati Efrosinija reminisces about one
of these brothers:
“The story of Nenad Ðurđević is particularly moving. As a student of psychology I used to
volunteer at a home for abandoned children, where I was considering staying on
to work. I worked with a group of the
youngest children, ages six to eight.
With the help of a few other friends we would organize outings for the
children on certain occasions, to monasteries, to the zoo, for lunch at someone’s
house, or to people’s family Slava, where we were always welcome. Nenad was one of those children, although he
was not actually in my group, he was present now and then. After I joined
Stjenik monastery, the children also came to visit me there. After many years
of my monastic life had passed, and we had established Uteshiteljevo Monastery
,a young man appeared there two years ago, saying that he had grown up in a
home for abandoned children. His story
fit in with my own and it became clear that we had known each other. After we had gotten to know each other again
he told me that those times when we had worked with them, as professionals but
also as Christians, offering them various comforts, were the only bright spots
in their otherwise very sad lives, without any other rays of light. These children had been abandoned by their
parents, but however much those parents were bad ones and unfeeling towards
their own children, those children would faithfully wait for them for
years. They waited for them to come and
take them home. It did not matter how
poor that home might be, just that it be theirs. They never judged their
mothers and fathers for abandoning them and forgetting them. These children were abused in every sense, by
various violent personalities, pedophiles, and criminal rings who forced them
into thievery, begging and prostitution for the profit of the lowest of the
low. One child of
from those horribly sad stories, who had no chance of passing a single day
without suffering and horror, who was more often hungry than full, was Nenad
Ðurđević. His life was featured once on
the television program “More than Life.” His mother lives in a home for the
elderly (also a charitable institution for the elderly who have no one to take
care of them), not so much because she is old, but because she was left an
invalid after her merciless husband abused her so much that she attempted
suicide by jumping of Sava bridge, surviving only by a miracle. Since then she
has been struggling with illness and receiving therapy, both physical and
spiritual.”
Through all of that suffering, Nenad
turned to Our Lord Whom his grandmother taught him about when he was very
small. As he became more mobile and independent as a young man, he began
singing in a (Patriarchate) church choir.
He just prayed and prayed, and this helped him recover from all of the
suffering and horror he had endured.
Eventually the Lord led His suffering one to the True Church, and his
mother soon followed him thanks to visits from our sisterhood and good pastors.
Now she is regularly ministered to by our priests, receives Holy Communion, and
has a new family of our sisters and faithful in the Belgrade area. After joining our parish at Uteshiteljevo
(Belgrade) two years ago, Nenad spent the past two summers at Novi Stjenik
which he recalls as the happiest periods of his life.
At the end of the fall, however,
when the winter snowfalls send all of our guests home, it is very difficult for
him to go back to the homeless shelter, as it is for many others to go back to
their sad homes. Then Uteshiteljevo is their only comfort, an oasis in the
cruel desert of the World.
Unfortunately, however, as many know, we do not have regular living
conditions for ourselves, much less for others but because of such brothers
like Nenad, whose lives are truly unbearable and who, because of all of the
trauma they endured, are incapable of surviving by themselves in society, we
wish to make a place for them to stay at Uteshiteljevo, if only the most basic
one for starters – for now, a container house.
In order to raise money for this project, to simplify making donations
for our friends abroad, we have made a gofundme fundraising account which can
be accessed here: https://www.gofundme.com/helpNShelpothers
Mati concludes,
“We
have to find enough generosity and understanding in our hearts for these people
from the margins. They suffer not because they wanted or deserved it, and are
entirely unnoticed by us. Now they stand before us, with a silent plea for just
one smile or one comforting word, which all of us who love Christ are called to
give them. For before Christ they and we
are the same. The Lord tests all of our souls, without regard to position,
reputation, power, vocation or property.
Paupers and the mentally ill are also those “little ones” who quietly
live among us…”
May the Lord reward all of you for
your help and support!
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