LIKE A LITTLE CHILD: John Da Fiesole of Disputations is collecting donations for a parish in Kazakhstan that is caring for fifty abandoned children. I’m going to quote almost all of his post (everything below is from his site), so you can see just how amazing this project is.

The following note, lightly edited, is from Connie Woods, the wife of a U.S. diplomat stationed in Almaty, Kazakhstan, through June 2003:

When Pope John Paul II visited Kazakhstan in September 2001, he praised the peaceful relations between Moslems and Christians. The small Catholic presence in the country today is the result of the Communist practice of exiling Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and Germans here to labor camps and concentration camps. These exiles kept the faith alive although religion was officially prohibited until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Today the Faith is flourishing, especially among the young, and the parishes are active in a variety of apostolates, charities, and catechism programs. The majority of priests are missionaries from Poland, Slovakia and Italy.

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If you are willing to support the Immaculate Conception parish, I have already arranged a way for contributions to be made through a U.S. address. Sister Alma’s motherhouse happens to be in Pennsylvania, and the sisters there have agreed to forward any contributions earmarked to Sister Alma for her work in Kapchagai. However, to avoid lots of individual money transfers and accounting that is not part of their own budget, it would be better to collect checks from individuals and then consolidate them into one check before sending it to the sisters.

[Then Da Fiesole writes:] Anyone who wants to contribute to Sister Alma’s work can drop me a line. I can add individual contributions to that of my Lay Dominican chapter, which I believe can provide charitable donation acknowledgement letters, to reduce the paperwork for Sister Alma’s motherhouse. If you’ve got an organization of your own, I can put you in touch with Connie Woods for information on donating directly to the motherhouse. If you’re not in the U.S., I’m sure we can work something out.