Inspired in Cervenica

  

Cervenica is a little town in eastern Slovakia. Draw an Isosceles triangle with the base as the road from Presov to Kosice, point the triangle eastward, and put the equal side as the distance from Kosice to the point, and you will have nearly found Cervenica.  We went there as two of a dozen folks from the International Church of Bratislava.

Glenda from our group signing

We wanted to present gifts to the school and do a little work for them.  We left at about 6AM on Saturday morning and got there a little after noon.  This may give you a sense of the town's isolation;  we rode with a Presov native who had been to Cervenica before, we attempted to follow signs, we had a map, and we still got to the town on a logging road rather than the main one.


The school itself is an agency of the Slovak Lutheran Church.  Why in such a small town? We never got a clear answer for that question, but we speculate that (1), the state gave the church the building, a closed elementary school; (2), many of the children are from eastern Slovakia, and are of Roma or mixed Slovak-Roma culture, which is prevalent in the area; (3), country atmosphere is good for the students; or (4), the culture, like that of most of the West, would just as soon forget the children exist, and putting the school in a small town helps the process.  Probably number (1) is the most logical, and number (4) is the most cynical.

Kudos to the director and his staff, most of whom live in Presov.  These children require round-the-clock care on a shoestring budget, and these people provide a clean, safe atmosphere.  The students must have some hearing and some sight loss.  Slovakia provides schools for children who are either sight-impaired or hearing-impaired, but this is the only school for children who who have some of both.  According to the director, percentages of loss run from twenty or thirty percent to nearly complete.  Disabilities often come in multiples, however, so most of these children have other challenges as well, including mobility, the autism spectrum, and behavior.

The director's training is in social psychology, so he depends on his staff for much of the care.  Cervenica is a boarding school, but we went there on a state school holiday weekend so many of the twenty-five or so children and several staff members had gone with parents or, even, back to the orphanage from which they came. Still, five children stayed at the school which meant that a half dozen of the staff needed to be there as well.  The director took us on a tour of the facility after lunch and gave us a summary of each classroom and each student.  He then took us through the rest of the facility, showing us with some pride the wood stove/furnace he had built.  Electricity is the main cost in rural areas, and wood is plentiful, so heating with wood is logical.  It helps that the director's main hobby is--you guessed it--building stoves.  
 
Just before we arrived he finished a greenhouse.  He welded the frame and installed the glass himself (another hobby?).  He had not thought to put one in, but then a series of circumstances intervened.  Many dairy farms dot the area around Cervenica, serving the rest of the country, but that means the water is not the best quality.  The school needs medically approved water, which drillers located on a hill above.  The well, however, overflows occasionally and puts water down a trace behind the school.  The director, clever man that he is, channeled the water and built a greenhouse over the channel, creating a self-watering space when the well overflows.  However, when he built the addition he displaced a large amount of dirt, and workers brought in more sand than the greenhouse needed, so that created two piles of dirt and sand that needed to be moved.  The director took one look at the eleven ladies and one one man and decided that he would get no work done.  A lot of persuasion convinced him to let us try, and our faith moved mountains. Well, hills.  Well, piles. Others did yeoman work weeding the gardens in the terrace area.  After clean-up and supper, some of the group headed for the town bar for a beer. Townsfolk, unaccustomed to any visitors much less English speakers. discretely gawked, and local children ran through the bar to get a look at these foreigners.



Our intern pastor conducted a worship service Sunday morning and staff and students attended. Peter, our Presov native and driver, translated for them.  The camp song "Father Abraham" with its repetition and physical movements, attracted a lot of attention.

We visited Spis Castle (and got some wonderful sheep cheese) on our way home.  Although we enjoyed those additions, the school remained at the center of our thoughts.  The director's central concern is visibility, public awareness.  Tucked away in the small town of Cervenica, the school can be nearly invisible unless people make the time and effort to see what it is and what it does.  Paula, who has worked with special needs children for many years, sums it up:  You need to accept the children for who they are now, not what you wish they were or what they might have been.  Then you need to help them become what they can be.  The director, his staff, and the school in Cervenica allow this to happen.