Calvin Synod Herald, 1986 (86. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1986 / 5-6. szám

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD

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REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

Alcoholic Rescue Mission in Hungary

BUDAPEST — From the beginning of her history the Church has been helping people in need. The Reformed Church in Hungary has also a long tradition in caring for the disabled and the elderly. Recognizing the growing alcoholism and the public efforts fighting it, the leadership of our church started to organize the Alcoholic Rescue Mission. It was formed in 1982. It works in cooperation with the congregations and with the public efforts.

Its goal is to heal alcoholics in its special way. It makes efforts to fight alcoholism and to help to create new social customs regarding alcohol-consumption.

In the past few years the staff RARM consisting of pastors, doctors and other Christians of living faith searched for and formulated the theological - Biblical basis and practice of this service and clarified the special aspects. RARM organizes the work with alcoholics and the leadership is responsible for ordinary business.

The main message of our service is that God through his power and love in Jesus

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The Revonation of the Ráday College

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With Bishop Dr. Károly Tóth in the chair, the Reconstruction Committee of the Ráday College in Budapest has again held a meeting to deal with problems to be coped with in the last phase of the reconstruction project.

General Director Dr. József Adorján informed the committee about certain conditions favouring the speeding up of the operations. Chief Architect István Szabó informed the committee about the further phases of the work. Interior Architect László Hornicsek presented the detailed plan for the new Assembly Hall which will have the double seating capacity of the former one.

After discussing the financial aspects of the work, the committee accepted the plan essentially to finish the work by the end of 1986. This would mean the saving the time of one full year, and this would bring substantial financial advantages. But those responsible for this decision fully realize the need for extraordinary exertions. In 1986, 8 million Forints in excess to former estimates must be raised to cover the outstanding expenditures which will amount to 26 million Forints. The congregations of the Danubian Church District have decided to send their contributions before the end of the year, and the sister church districts have also declared their willingness to help. Churches and institutions abroad have promised further support. Thus the last phase of the project begins with faith, confidence and hope.

Christ makes a person free from the burdens of a ruined life, from dependence and initiates a new way of life preserved from relapse.

The main areas of our work are the following:

“Conscientization The attitude toward alcoholism in society and in the church is indifferent or tolerant but it rejects alcoholics. So we need to awaken responsibility and we do it in meetings with pastors, in the press, in congregations. This is everybody’s concern.

Prevention: We agree with those who consider prevention as important as treatment. So we inform pastors, congregations about the dangers of alcohol-use, alcoholism, ways of prevention and cure, our responsibility.

Outreach: In working with alcoholics, the first step is to reach and to invite them to be helped. We try also to prepare them if possible, to have clear expectations. This work is done by those who have been in RARM meetings before, by recovered alcoholics, and also by pastors, doctors, other Christian co-workers and family members, friends of alcoholics. So we always have the appropriate number of participants (15—20) in our conferences.

Healing-conferences: This is the main area of our work. The participants in our conferences are men and women, old (but more and more young people), agricultural and industrial workers, intellectuals, atheists and church members from all denominations: Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans and Reformed. Alcoholics in the first or last stage of alcoholism, they come also after 10— 16 detoxication cures, accompanied by family-members, friends or a coworker of RARM. There are about 5—7 co-workers of RARM present, and at least one doctor who is responsible for medical problems. The conferences take place in one of the conference centers of our church or in a weekendhouse for this purpose. They are 5 or 10 days long. An intensive daily program from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. is planned with Bible study, devotions, small and large group discussions, personal counselling, medical information, singing, slide-shows, leisure activities. At the end each participant has the chance to give a short account of how they were affected. The atmosphere of our conferences, 8—10 per year, is that of acceptance, love, peace and joy. Co-workers and recovered alcoholics form a healing community.

We have reached 1200 alcoholics through 37 conferences so far. The recovered and relapsed alcoholics who come back again and again are included in this number, those who are interested and come as visitors, are not. There is a great interest in the results of our work. We are very careful in this matter. The reason is that the mystery of healing is hidden to us in the power and love of the living God acting in our time. We are happy with the smallest results. We are very thankful for those who have recovered and live free for years. They belong to our staff and have found their way back to their family, to work and to society.

Caring for the recovered or rehabilitation is a long term task, which must consider the social and medical problems of alcoholics. The first steps are taken in the healing conferences in individual, small and large group discussions. We ask questions: How do we reorganize our relations to family, work, congregation, friends, RARM? What do we do about financial and health problems?

This work is done mostly by congregations and pastors but also by other coworkers of the church, by doctors, by medical services and by RARM.

RARM organizes Bible studies for alcoholics, there are 21 groups working at differenc places in the country at present. They meet once or twice a month or every week. We have conferences for recovered alcoholics once or twice a year and we had a good experience with work-therapy at some of them.

We encourage all our helpers to take responsibility and to take care of our recovered alcoholics in order to form a community where helpers and alcoholics are healed. This year we plan to meet those who are in contact with us from all over the country.

Our staff and helpers are 35 pastors, 25 doctors and 40 other Christians, some from other denominations, altogether 100 persons. To the leadership belongs the president, the executive president, a secretary, who organizes for the support from congregations and a travelling secretary, who works full time with RARM. Administrative work is done by two part time secretaries.

Finances: We are supported by voluntary donations from congregations and individual church members. They have covered the rising costs of the work so far, including travelling costs and expenses for board and lodging for alcoholics on conferences when they do not have the means to pay for it. The three RARM employees