Brussels – Programme 1

Our friends from Brussels, Agnieszka and Rafal, ardent supporters of Programme 1, have organised again Programme 1 for Poles working in Belgium – this time it was for 7 couples. As migrant families can only count on themselves and there are no grandparents, family members or neighbours that could take care of children), the parents came with the kids. People who took part in last year’s Programme 1 have organised activities for children and the parents have time for themselves.

This time we meet in Brussels, in the house of the Good Shepherd Community. Several different houses, all rather poor, clean but it’s clear that the days of their glory are long gone. They welcome different groups, unfortunately mostly elderly people. So in the dining room a big group of elderly persons meet with our group full of children, where the youngest one is only 7 months old, and the majority is around 5 years old. The elderly look with joy at our kids. Their grandchildren must be grown-up, they may even have great-grandchildren. A look at children is always a look into the future. The more children there are ,the more joyous this future is.

I remember here a conversation from Scotland. A Scotsman expressed his discontentment with the fact that his Polish colleague from work had so many children who were a burden for the state budget. He heard the answer that those children would be in the future the source of income for the country. He was then silent.

The future of the Church and of the world depends on the family, in the words of blessed John Paul II. It’s so good that our families are so open to life. Perhaps in the future we’ll need to change the words of our national anthem – “Poland, Europe has not perished until we are alive”.