Children love holidays. Holidays last much longer for children than for adults. With age people are quickly absorbed by the bustle of everyday work; they begin holiday preparations long in advance, and end up too tired to enjoy the celebration. For children, in contrast to adults, a holiday can be arranged at any time. All you have to do is say "Guys, let's have a holiday!" - and the immediate answer will be: "All right!" And  children don't need much to have a celebration. Boys and girls are simply waiting for an adult to come along and pay attention to them. If the children know that we care about them, that we love them and are willing to spend time with them - that's already a holiday.

You may recall that we already talked about how long some of the children in the orphanages had to wait for the celebration of Christmas. It was late winter for some of them. The same thing happened at Easter. More than a month after the holiday we visited children in schools, hospitals, health centers and on the streets. More than two thousand children and hundreds of adults who were with the children during these Easter celebrations heard the news of the Risen Savior. When we greeted them with the celebratory exclamation: "Christ is risen!", boys and girls in unison replied: "He is risen indeed!".

How fortunate we are that in our country we can freely share the message of Christ with children. May God prolong this period of freedom and may He rise again in the hearts of all those children who heard of him. I will not be wordy. The photographs will tell the story of the meetings.

 Vladimir Goluk