The “Muzevni Budite” editorial office received a testimonial from a single mother of seven children who testified about the help she received from the men who pray the rosary publicly every 1st Saturday in Zagreb’s (Trg) Square when she needed it most. Who published her testimony in its entirety.
My name is Đurđica and I felt the need to tell my story.
Two years ago, my life completely fell apart. I was left alone with my seven children, without any real support. I turned to various institutions, but the help I needed never came. Namely, the house we live in had no connection to the city water supply, and our well had become so dirty that we no longer had drinking water. Every day was a struggle – we improvised, carried water from afar, tried to stay positive in this difficult situation.
And then the summer came to an end and the days became colder. The eight of us warmed ourselves with an old, dilapidated wood-burning stove, which was almost falling apart and which threatened to catch fire. I knew we wouldn’t last, that the children would get sick, but I had no other choice.
Just then, when I thought there was no hope left, the men praying on the main square in Zagreb heard about me. I didn’t know them and didn’t know what to expect. And then they simply came. Without big words, without advertising, without conditions.
They collected money among themselves, as they told me, as they do every month for those in need, and that’s how they collected it for the eight of us. They cleaned our well, paid for the connection to the city water supply, brought a handyman who installed central heating for us. For the first time in a long time, we had both hot water and a warm house. The children could sleep peacefully that winter, and I could breathe a sigh of relief in that regard.
It may not have been much for them, but it meant everything to us.
That’s why today I watch with disbelief how people talk about these men. I don’t understand the attacks, I don’t understand the hostility. My experience says the opposite: they reached out to us when no one else did. And I know that the good I have experienced from them cannot be evil.
Perhaps it is time for all of us, and especially us women – we who often know how difficult it is to carry the burden of life – to recognize and support those who do good. Because they truly do good, and that good deserves to be seen and that is precisely the good that should be spoken about, as the Gospel says, even from the rooftops.
Đurđica