Where is Sister Paula? Mascha asks. Her voice is deeper than normal. When she wants something it has to be. She squints her dark eyes together. What does she want to here? She brought Katja with her. Katja stands there scared and watches as Mascha talks to Sister Paula. I asked Katja where her mother was, I have never seen her, she never comes to school. Katja told me that her mother went abroad to work. That she would come again in a year. Then Katja cried and shook. I said, don't lie, tell me the truth. Then she told me that her mother was in jail because she had killed someone. Katja was brought to her grandmother, who doesn't have a real house of her own either. There is no water and no heat there.

Sister Paula goes through our house with the two girls. The other children want to know who the new girl is. She should go to Mascha in her room. We need another bed and Katja has to talk to her grandma. The next day, Katja is not in school. Did she run away? Didn't her grandma want her to live here? Mascha comes home sad after school. Then her eyes turn big when she sees Katja there with her grandma. The CONCORDIA family has gotten bigger again. Mascha is happy and proud. We certainly won't tell the other children the secret of Katja's mother.

Since then, Mascha is like one transformed. She always needed to be the centre of attention before, now she takes care of her friend. She even helps Sister Paula with the little ones. What we knew from the neighbour she now tells us herself: My mama sells chewing gum, chocolate, cigarettes on the street. She has a little table on which she lays out these things. Life was hard. One day it was no longer possible. Then my mama brought me to you. She said it was just for a year. I asked her why just a year, I want five years. But I knew that it was hard for my mama without me, and for me without my mama. Sometimes my mama drank; maybe that's why we're so poor. The best thing would be if my mother would live here, too.

Our home is the Republic of Moldova . We found a mother for all in Sister Paula; she comes from Transnistrien. At the beginning I saw the poverty. Children who live on trash heaps, barracks for children who have no family. Hepatitis spreading among the charges. Children come to us with infectious tuberculoses. We bring them to the hospital. The little ones disappear behind run down walls for at least a half a year. Most of them are happy that they can stay so long. They have nothing to eat because their parents aren't there. Today I can say in spite of the poverty, the children have made this country my home, with the "secret of mama."

Seven big families in Moldova have joined our 36 CONCORDIA families in Romania . We would like to build more houses in the "City of Children " and we would like to help the ill. I ask for your help, dear friends.

We don't have to search for Christmas. The child with the family which had no shelter runs after us. With tasks I can not run away from, with projects which sound crazy because neither the money nor the workers are there. But the children blow all our fears into the wind and draw us into the secret of being mother and father. With the problem kids, our being together becomes Christmas. They challenge us and bring peace to all people of good will.

Thankful greetings from,

Chişinău, Advent 2005