My Story

Hello! My name is Rafaela Velillari. I am 10 years old and my birthday is on April 29^th. I am doing well regarding health. My favorite color is purple and my future dream is to become a doctor. I attend the fifth grade at school and enjoy learning. The subject I enjoy the most to study is Math. I meet with my friends during the middays to play football. Even that many girls are not playing this game, still, I enjoy playing football and other games that we choose to play outside in the roads. When I return in the house, after playing, I offer myself to help my step mother and grandparents. I am very close to my grandparents who have raised me. I go together with my grandmother when she is feeds our cow and I also go along with her when she visits her friends or when she has to go to the shop to buy groceries. I sit to study my school books for a few hours and afterwards, I continue reading outside school books that contain stories for children and poetry. I enjoy watching cartoons and programs for children on TV together with my step sisters. My family and I live in Dunica, Upper Mokra. I have six persons in my family who are my father, step mother as well as my three step sisters. My mother committed suicide after I was born and my father re married to my stepmother and they have three children from their marriage. My grandparents and two uncles live very close to our house. My father has worked in Northern Macedonia for several months as Butcher. When he returns in the village he continues to work in the field that we own as family and plants together with my mother wheat, corn, alfalfa and vegetables. We have a horse and a cow. My father takes the horse and he collects wood in the mountain and sells to others who come to buy for it. Winters are very cold and he is collecting the wood needed for us to burn. My step mother is working in the garden, feeding the animals and she deals with housekeeping, so she gets busy working hard. My three step sisters are seven, three and a years old. Two of them go to school and they are also in the program. We benefit food parcels provided for us at the program of Adopt a Child and we come every week to frequent the Bible classes and learn about the Lord. We are as family very thankful to the program for the special care that we are benefiting. God bless you in abundance.

Translated by Martin Rucolli

LW/Adopt a Child Albania