THANKS!

 CBF's annual Silent Art Auction is over.

A big thank you to whoever purchased these two pieces.

This generated $185 for the Offering for Global Missions. This is the fund that pays the salary and housing for field personnel like us. 

A big thank you to those who made this online auction possible.

And another thank you to our Dutch friend Arie Pothoven, the artist who painted and donated these pieces.

May our Creator bless all of you . . . and may your creativity be a blessing to many others!

 Why is there a troubadour on our blogpost? Because CBF's Silent Art Auction starts this Monday, August 23. Our Dutch friend Arie Pothoven* donated this painting plus two other watercolors to the annual Silent Art Auction.  

You can read--and hear--more about the Art Auction here: CBF Silent Art Auction. The pieces of art come from around the world. Funds raised from the sale support different missions projects. Arie's paintings will go towards the Offering for Global Missions, the fund which keeps all CBF field personnel--including us--in the field.  

Arie's art work has extra meaning for us. He painted musicians, he was a musician, but he can no longer paint and no longer takes part in the church's music teams. He has Parkinson's. His faith remains strong even as his muscle control becomes more limited.

Thank you, Arie, for your donation. And thank you, all those who will bid on the artwork for sale. 

*Details from auction website:

Water color, 45x45 cm., including mat 

 Arie Pothoven (Ah-ree POT-hoe-ven) was born in 1948 and began painting in 1992. He is largely self-taught. After a few lessons, he won the Talens Drawing and Painting Competition for his region in 1994. Topics have focused on architecture, biblical scenes, flowers and portraits. In addition to painting, he regularly did calligraphy, particularly for “trouwbijbels” (Bible traditionally given in the Netherlands as a wedding gift from the church). Arie now has Parkinson’s and no longer paints. On Ascension Day in Deventer, The Netherlands, the time is turned back to the Middle Ages for one day. In the city center, a colorful group traipses through the narrow cobblestone streets with dance, music, and various activities from that era. This troubadour played solo on several different instruments, including the lute, the flute and the drum. 

Mary Van Rheenen and Keith Holmes work with Romany across Europe. They have lived in The Netherlands for the past 20+ years. Arie Pothoven is a friend from the Dutch Baptist Church they attend.

The Offering for Global Missions ensures the long-term presence of CBF field personnel among some of the most neglected people both here and around the globe. Long-term presence allows field personnel to bear witness to Jesus Christ, seek transformational development and cultivate beloved community. This offering provides for the compensation, benefits, housing, and children’s education needs for CBF Global Missions field personnel. 

Proceeds go to support the Offering for Global Missions

Final Reflections

Hello!

Wow! I can’t believe how fast time flies! I have come to the end of my summer internship. It has definitely been a rewarding experience. From the beginning, I was honestly a little nervous as there were some tasks that I didn’t have much experience in. But over these two months I have learned so much and gained some new skills. 

I have also been able to learn more about the Dom people, and that has been the greatest blessing. I believe that knowing more about each other can help to foster environments of respect and better support for others. While there is still so much for me to learn (which I will definitely continue to do even after the internship ends), I have come to have a better understanding, and I have been able to share this information with others and engage in conversations that share something new with others.

Water Project, Syria

During this time I have also had the opportunity to observe how the DRC (Dom Research Center) functions and the way that the organization works to mobilize and support people who are already their in the communities, rather than just bringing in new people or controlling the situation. This has led me to think about how organizations and individuals can create spaces of support and development that can be long term as well as meeting the immediate need. 

We can see this reflected so strongly in current times of COVID-19. So many need something in this moment, but we also have to look at the long-term goal for sustainability. I am glad that I was able to engage in those conversations, and I hope to continue them with others so that we can do intentional community work and empower others. 

I am grateful for the connection we were able to make through phones and the internet. Despite the miles between us all, we were able to work together, and I am so thankful for the support and guidance from Allen and Mary. I plan to continue to support as I can, and I am looking forward to where this experience leads me in life!

Jaya, Student.Go Summer Intern

Romany "Cousins" in the Middle East

 Hello!

Welcome to the last episode of the conversations with Amoun! I hope you have learned something new about the Dom people in each video as well as the Domari Society in Jerusalem.  In today’s video we discussed the life of the Dom as well as their experiences, especially that of Amoun and the Dom people in Jerusalem. Click here to see video.

I learned a lot from Amoun about the lives of the Dom people. As Amoun mentioned, the Dom people originated in India and can now be found all over the world with large concentration in the Middle East. Because of the fact that they find themselves mixed with other communities, they are influenced in areas like their languages and lifestyles. 

It was saddening to hear the struggles that the Dom children face just to have access to education. In Amoun’s book, she mentioned teachers who did not want her in their class after knowing she was from the Dom community. This kind of discrimination existed then and, unfortunately, it is still present now. The Dom people face discrimination in many areas, and this causes a lack of opportunities as well as a lack of access to resources. Amoun shared that despite the discrimination and exclusion that they face, the Dom people continue to be resilient and work towards a better future.

Thankfully, there are efforts to create safer spaces for the Dom people as well as to spread information to others so that the Dom people can be better understood. I hope this video series helped viewers in a way to better understand as well as inspired viewers to learn more.

Thanks for watching and look forward to more content in the future!

Jaya, Student.Go Summer Intern

Conversations with Amoun: The Domari Society

Hello and welcome to the second installment from my conversations with Amoun Sleem from the Domari Society in Jerusalem. 

In today’s topic, we hear about the Domari Society: the beginning, the programs offered, as well as some of Amoun’s hopes for the center. 

Conversations with Amoun: The Domari Society (click to open link).  This is compiled from two separate conversations I had with Amoun on different days.

The Dom people, more often than not, must be their own advocates. Support from outside the
community is rather limited, and Amoun noticed this. In her book, A Gypsy Dreaming in Jerusalem, Amoun mentioned that when she was starting the center and sharing her vision, people didn’t even know that there were Dom Gypsies in Jerusalem. Through various connections and volunteers from different places, Amoun was able to begin helping the Dom community even before having established the society. As Amoun stated in the video, when the nonprofit was started in 1999, the main focus was women and children. We saw in the last video that to this day that is still the focus even through the COVID-19 response.

As shown from the pictures in the video, the work started just out of Amoun’s home. The programs continued for four years out of Amoun’s home along with support from the DRC to close in the veranda and create an office and classroom space. Eventually they were able to move onto a bigger location and then now to their current location that functions well with their needs.

In the book Amoun wrote, “…I wanted a place that would be surrounded by positive thoughts about Gypsy culture…”. I really do believe that Amoun has achieved that through the Domari Society. 

Thank you for joining us for this video, I hope you learned something new! See you for the next video!

Jaya, Summer Intern

Jaya, one of our Student.Go interns, is working with the Dom Research Center. She has created a series of Blogposts for them based on interviews with Amoun Sleem, founder of the Domari Society in Jerusalem. We are pleased to share her video and written posts with you here.

Conversations with Amoun: COVID-19 and the Dom People (click to view video).

Hello and welcome to the first of a series of interviews with Amoun Sleem, director of the Domari Society in Jerusalem. I hope this interview series helps you to learn more and inspire you as it did for me! We are starting off the series by discussing the impact of COVID-19 on the Dom people. For people all over the world, COVID-19 and the resulting pandemic wreaked havoc on our lives. This has also been the case for the Dom people. Amoun shared with me that many of the Dom people work as day laborers and rely on that work as their source of income. Jobs that may have been abundant before the pandemic became scarce. In an effort to provide some relief from the dire circumstances, Amoun and the Domari Society worked tirelessly around the clock. She reached out to other organizations to provide aid such as food to families in need. Children were also impacted due to school shifting from in the classroom to online. With less access to technological tools such as WIFI or a computer, as well as losing the interaction and assistance often found in the school setting, many students fell behind. Also, many women lost their sources of income during this time. The Domari Society serves as a safe haven for the people of the Dom community. The Domari Society did not close, rather shifted focus to providing humanitarian aid. Amoun shared her hopes in the coming times for acquiring funding to have other options of programs for women. As we saw during this time, many businesses and establishments had to close their doors in an effort to take safe precautions. Events and some work could still take place on a smaller scale with less people. Because of this, Amoun hopes to equip women with skills that they can do one-on-one as a service. She hopes to offer classes such as hairdressing, catering, sewing, etc. Thank you for checking out this first part of the interview. Please share your thoughts! Hope you join us for the next post in the series! Jaya, Summer Intern

I'm not a pushy person, but apparently blogs like this one benefit from a "push." Sofia Hines, the Student.Go intern who helped us this past spring, set up a way for people to get notifications from this blog. And then, just before her term ended, we discovered that that service would also end, in July. So Sofia found this service which will send web push notifications. 

I've tried it out. It works. And the company which provides the service also provides this handy notification which we are supposed to share with you all. 

The rainbow is a different kind of notification all together. Our Creator provides lots of free services like that.*  

Web push notifications:

We provide news and updates on our site via web push notifications.
To benefit from this free service, operated with our push provider WonderPush (https://www.wonderpush.com/), you must first subscribe by clicking on an authorization request controlled by your browser and your device when you visit our blog.
The navigation data that is needed to operate this service and send you relevant messages is anonymized and kept on WonderPush servers for a maximum of 90 days and never shared to third parties. We do not store any recognizable data, neither IP address about you or your device in connection with the push notification service.
You can stop receiving our web push notifications at any time by unsubscribing.
Here is how to manage your web push subscription and to delete associated data.
(https://docs.wonderpush.com/docs/manage-your-data-and-unsubscribe-from-web-push-notifications)

* Photo taken outside Nisporeni, Moldova.