Portrait of a Sinti Bible Club Leader: Anna Schafer, the Netherlands

“Our children are everything,” Anna Shafer told me. Children—nieces, nephews, neighbors—often wander into the woonwagen Anna shares with her elderly father. She warmly receives them all and has been doing children’s work, off and on, for nearly 40 years. Yet Anna only reluctantly accepted the call to lead a children’s Bible club. She described how it happened.

Anna grew up in the church. Her father became one of the preaching elders in the Light and Life congregation that met in the woonwagenkamp where Anna and many of her relatives lived. After W.W. II, the Dutch government no longer allowed Roma, Sinti, or Travelers to move from place to place. Instead, places (camps or woonwagenkampen) were set aside where people permanently parked their caravans (woonwagens). In this way, whole family groups can continue to live close to each other. They support each other and visit freely from one woonwagen to the next. (Drawing by Roy Ann Cary from O Drom coloring booklet.)

Anna’s woonwagenkamp is in a rural region of the southern province of North Brabant. Now-stationary caravans line the two roads leading into the camp. At the very end of the camp, where the roads merge, stands a portable metal building where the church meets. Services are held twice on Sunday and many other evenings throughout the week. The preaching and much of the singing is in Romanes, the language of the Sinti. Two Sinti church leaders stand up to lead the services, one preaching in Romanes and the other simultaneously translating into Dutch or—if there are many foreign visitors—German or French. (The church building, ca 1999.) 

When Anna was a girl of 13 or 14, a woman named Klara started coming up from Belgium once a week to lead a “children’s school.” Anna remembers these children’s programs fondly. They were fun. She can still sing songs that Klara taught them, like the Dutch version of Jesus Bids Us Shine. 

Klara did this for several years.

“Without really being aware of it, I started being her helper,” Anna recalled.

“Then one day when she asked me, ‘When  you are older, would you take over this work?’ I didn’t dare to say no.”

But the very idea alarmed her. “When I went home from the club that afternoon, I cried to my mother about it. I did not want to do that at all.”

Her mother, a strong believer, suggested they pray about it together.

“We’ll leave it with the Lord,” her mother told her. “If He plans for you to do this, He will also put that desire in your heart.” (Anna’s mother with some of Anna’s nieces and nephews, ca 1999. Someone walks through the camp, ringing the bell, to call people to worship.) 

One day, Klara became very ill and didn’t come for the weekly club. Anna was there, with the children, waiting. Finally, when it became clear that Klara wasn’t simply going to be late, Anna decided to have the children sing songs. Then she told them a story she had learned from Klara. That was how she got started leading children’s work. 

For a long time after that, Anna held a children’s school (Bible club) every Wednesday afternoon in the church building in their woonwagenkamp. All the children from the camp came, from toddlers to preteens. The program lasted two hours, “three if it went well,” Anna said. 

Anna began preparing for each of these meetings by praying, “Give me a story; show me the way.” A story would come to mind. She started with stories about Joseph, Mary, & Jesus. Then whatever story that the Lord laid on her heart would be the one for the next session. She could have studied a printed series of children’s lessons, but she didn’t need to. She knew all these stories by heart because she had been attending church meetings since she was a child. 

Once she started leading the children’s club, her ears would prick up when the preacher shared Bible stories. She made a mental note of Bible stories that would be good to share with the children. “Oh, that would be good for the children.” 

Anna also knew the children. She would see them and hear them during the week as she moved around the camp. One time she noticed how the children were not listening to or obeying their parents.  

“We can improve on this,” she thought. So at the next week’s meeting, Anna told the children a story about their guardian angels. “We believe everyone has one,” Anna said. She told the children that each one of them has an angel sitting  on their right shoulder who helps them do what is right. But there is another angel, a little devil, sitting on their left shoulder, telling them not to listen to their parents. Which one did they want to listen to? (Photo:  some of the children, around 2004)

“Not the devil!” the children told her. 

“Well, what will you do the next week?” she asked them. 

“Listen to our parents and do what they say!” they replied. 

“Good.”

And Anna could see that the children did, indeed, change their behavior for the better. 

Things didn’t always go so smoothly, however. 

“Some days I’d come home after the club crying,” Anna admitted, “Crying, I don’t want to do this anymore.” 

But the Lord always gave her what she needed to continue. 

Sometimes she was inspired to give the children challenges. 

“Who will be able to tell this story the best next week?”

Once she also chose a Bible text for each child to memorize, depending on their age and ability. This led to a bit of competition—who would and who wouldn’t know their verse at the next meeting. No one wanted to be outdone. This tactic proved to be effective. Two days ahead of time children would come up to her, saying, “I can say my verse. Listen to me!” 

Sometimes after telling a Bible story, Anna would give the children paper and (colored) pencils or markers.

“Have you listened well to the story?” she’d ask. “Can you draw something from it?”

“The kids thought that was fantastic,” Anna recalled. 

It didn’t matter what they actually drew.  She would praise them, no matter what. She also used this to re-emphasize the story. For example, with the story of Noah, she might suggest they draw something that was in the boat.

If she saw a child drawing a fish, she would say, “Was there a fish in the boat, too?” That way she’d make a connection between the story and the child’s art work. 

Anna also often used concrete items (visual aids) to help the stories stick in the children’s minds:  small figures, flannel graph figures, different objects. She’d take a chair, for example, and show where Jesus was sitting, at the right hand of God. “Jesus always hears children’s prayers,” she would tell the group. “He is sitting right next to God. God hears your prayers, too.” 

These words took root in the children’s hearts. Anna vividly remembers two sisters who were really concerned for their parents. Their parents had no commitment to follow Jesus and had never taken the two girls to any church meetings. Through the lessons at the children’s club the sisters clearly understood the Gospel message. They were deeply worried about their parents’ eternal souls. Together, week after week, the group prayed with these girls for their parents. And yes, God heard those prayers. Both mama and papa repented and gave their hearts to Jesus.

Investing in those children had an eternal impact, and not just on those girls’ papa and mama. Many of the children who came to the club are now parents themselves. Many have made a commitment to Jesus and been baptized. People who came to the program as children still remember the verses they memorized, the stories Anna told, and the songs they sung. They still sing those songs.

In addition to the weekly children’s club, Anna also led children’s programs at the big tent meetings that her church participates in in the summertime. Rather than trying to capture and keep the attention of a large group of kids through a Bible lesson, these gatherings  lend themselves more to a focus on songs. 

Anna comes from a family uniquely gifted in music. 

Her father was a skilled violin player. 

Her mother had a beautiful singing voice. 

She and her sisters all also have voices strong and beautiful enough to sing opera. 

However, they prefer to sing Gospel and Christian songs with a lively swing reminiscent of the “Gypsy Jazz” played by Jean "Django" Reinhardt (also Sinto) and the Rosenberg Trio (close relatives to the Schafer family; photo in church ca 1999). 

Anna and her relatives continue to sing during worship services and at these summer tent meetings 

(photo in tent ca 2021). 

Anna also continues to gather the children in her own woonwagenkamp to prepare for Christmas or some other special occasion. 

Anna knows ahead of time that in the beginning there will be a lot of chaos. Her advice to anyone who is working with Roma or Sinti children is to “focus on the five who are paying attention rather than the ten who are distracted.” 

For example, this past year the children were meeting in her home to learn a song for Christmas. They were learning it off of YouTube, so the TV was on to the song. The little kids were just playing around on the floor. A woman in Anna’s family came in while all this was going on and started scolding the children, telling them to pay attention to what Anna was trying to teach them. That doesn’t work. 

What does work is beginning with the kids who are paying attention. “Eventually the others join in, including the little ones who also want to be part of the song and the performance. Yes, it takes patience. But it works. And the children all end up enjoying it.” 

Anna reluctantly took over the work that Klara began. She was faithful and was rewarded by seeing the fruits of her labors in the changed lives of children and adults. May others also be inspired to invest in the lives of children, especially since, as Anna said, “Our children are everything.”

 

Countering Chaos

What do you do with a group of children who create chaos? This was a question a group of Roma young people put to a friend of mine. She had offered to help teach the children literacy. The young
people noted that the kids needed to learn order and discipline first. These are tips from experienced teachers and missionaries.

Have the kids run races to burn off energy and get them tired. Alina Molla, who led Bible clubs in Roma villages in Romania, used to do this first. She worked with groups as large as 75-100 children. Cornelia Sbirecea has also found it useful, and Marleen Schonthaler did the same thing with Dutch school children.

Get to know the kids to see whether they have underlying issues. Crista Smidt has over thirty years' experience first as an elementary school teacher and then as a guidance councilor. After having the children (or child) run races to settle down, Crista Smidt sits down to talk with them. Do they have trouble at home? Does a learning disability like Attention Deficit Disorder play a role in the child's behavior? Not all of us have the training that Crista does. She has a masters in social work. We can all take the time to understand the children better.

Especially in the beginning, use activities and races involving a line. "It's good for the children to experience that there is a line, a boundary," Marleen noted. "Since boundaries will be new for some children, they actually need to physically experience an actual line." 

For example:  all the children stand behind a line. At a certain signal, they all run to the other side (of the room, of the field, of a line on the far end of the play area), touch something, and run back. When a child is back behind the line, they put their hands in the air and start cheering.

This is the simplest. The next step would be to have the children divide up in groups and run relays. There are endless variations of this (run backwards; skip; balance a book on your head . . . ). The best ones are the ones the children think up themselves.

Use activities where all of the children are actively involved. The ability to wait will take a while to develop. So instead of playing the Davar Start Game called Statues, put a line down the meeting area. Half of the children stand one side; half on the other; with at least 1.5 meters or yards between. Each of the children on one side freeze in an unusual position—maybe one has their arms in the air; another stands on one leg; whatever. Each of the children on the other side chooses one child to mimic and tries to copy exactly how the "statue" they chose is standing.

Try to work with smaller groups. A large group of fans at a ball game is easier to work up and keep worked up than a handful. The fans feed off of one another. The same is true of children. Even in a group as small as 10, unmanageable behavior will tend to escalate. This tip also came from Crista. 

Many thanks to everyone who contributed ideas.

Do you have any tips on this topic? We'd love to hear them!