The missionary sister discovered the Catholic Church through her love of the French language and culture. When she read French novels, she was introduced to the features and vocabulary of Catholicism.
“So I just wanted to see how the French people pray and what was the Mass and remembering one of the books, even of Alexandre Dumas, I was reading about [the] ‘Te Deum’ and I felt I want[ed] to know what is this ‘Te Deum?’”
Polish girls at her university brought her to their Catholic chapel, where she attended her first Mass on July 8, 2001.
She said she wanted to stay forever. But knowing she had been baptized Orthodox, she at first had doubts about whether it was right to join the Catholic Church.
Kovalchuk came to realize converting was not so much a change — she still believed in the same God — as a discovery of something, a deepening of God’s presence in her life through the sacraments.
Soon after becoming Catholic at the age of 18, she began to feel a desire to enter religious life, which she did after finishing university. Before Kovalchuk’s superior asked her to come to Greece, she was serving in Ukraine.
English lessons and rag dolls
When refugees fled the Moria camp on Lesbos after the fires last year, some of them were living for days or weeks in Victoria Square, Kovalchuk said.
She and other volunteers would go there every day to play with the children and to tell the women about the center they run which has showers and a place to wash clothes.
The center also has a shop with free second-hand clothing and a social worker who answers questions and shares other resources for refugees and migrants.
The volunteers and sisters give language lessons in Greek, French, and English. During the COVID-19 pandemic the lessons have been done via video call.
They also offer activities and classes for children, many of whom are not in school, and otherwise do not have things to occupy them.
Sr. Kovalchuk also took up a Ukrainian tradition: making rag dolls called motanka.
“Our refugee kids do not have any toys and nothing to play with. This is actually the best place for my dolls,” she said, estimating that she has made and given out around 500.
The sister recycles leftover donated clothes, those in too poor a condition to be worn, to make her dolls.
She said the kids like to sit with her and watch her make the dolls, or even learn to make them alongside her.
“They choose different color of the dress, of hair. And I think this is also very important and a little bit, like, therapeutic,” she said, because the children do not have opportunities to make choices in their day-to-day life, even about small things like what they want to wear.
She said, “So for them, it brings a lot of joy even if they can choose their own way, their own style.”
“And when I see the smiles, the happiness of these children who actually have nothing,” she said, “who sometimes are hungry, who cannot come to the shop and can ask, ‘mommy, buy me this doll or mommy, buy me this car. Or give me this or give me that,’ but they are happy with the simple stuff.”
Despite differences in language, culture, and religion, Kovalchuk said she feels respected and appreciated by those she helps
Families she visits will set a table and bake bread or make tea to serve her.
The children, unprompted, will bring her water when the weather is hot, or share their cookies with her. When sitting on the ground, they will bring her a paper bag to sit on.
“And this is very touching and this helps me to see how God takes care of me also through them, although they are different nationalities and different religions,” she described.
“But these kids, they are just satisfied and then they will hug me and then they will kiss me. And this is the best [thing that] I can get as a reward, these signs of love as a response.”
“My journey here started maybe first of all from my need, my personal need to meet and rediscover God again in my life and in my vocation,” the sister said. “And those people they helped me here. So this is mutual: I try to help them in the way that I can, just being with them and then, they help me a lot.”
Credit: Source link
