Presbyterian Mission Agency Ellen Smith Regional Liaison for Central and Eastern Europe Archives

Ellen Smith Regional Liaison for Central and Eastern Europe

Minute for Mission: International Roma Day

Posted March 26th, 2024

In Belgrade, Serbia, many Roma families live in settlements scattered about the city. In one that we visited, the streets were flooded, water mixed with sewage, and there were mounds of garbage between and behind their homes. Trucks drive through the settlement daily, and one day recently, one truck ran over a Roma child. The public response was to blame the victim — Roma chooses to live this way. But who chooses to live in a slum?

Mission co-worker delivers a compassionate update during Synod School on Ukrainian refugee work

Posted September 27th, 2023

Ellen Smith, World Mission’s regional liaison for Central and Eastern Europe, led a packed and thought-provoking mini-course during Synod School on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s mission in Ukraine.

Minute for Mission: International Roma Day

Posted March 15th, 2023

It humbles me the extent to which our Roma friends and colleagues practice hospitality, always laying a table for us with whatever they have. They are among the poorest of the poor, marginalized by a society that feels threatened by an alien culture living in their midst. I don’t use the word alien as a negative, just a reality. They are a people with deep traditions, a strong sense of family and community, their own language, their own music, their own style of dress.