Calvin Synod Herald, 2004 (105. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2004-01-01 / 1-2. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD 5 TRAC 2003 Summer Mission Report For the last three summers, the students from the Reformed Seminary at Kolozsvár (Cluj), Romania, have made it their summer mission to go out to live and work in the villages in which they had supplied worship services throughout the preceding winter. Their practice has been to visit the people, teach the adults and children, hold daily worships services, and prepare a combined conference for all of these churches on the final Sunday of their visit. Two years ago this work was visited by a group of eight people from the Dyer, Indiana area, and this year by a group of 23 from southwest Michigan. These visits have been very helpful in encouraging the people of the scattered villages with the assurance that other Christians are mindful of their plight, and for us in gaining an understanding of those whom we wish to help as we continue our work in their behalf. This year’s visit, with the added number of visitors, has been far more complex than those before, and was directed toward a number of different goals. Mindful of the need to find ways to help the people in their agricultural efforts, one team went to construct a cattle shed for a fanner and his son who have been struggling to make a living by raising cattle. Bob DeYoung was in charge of this project, working with his wife, Karen, Doug Bleyenburg, Steve Faver, and others who helped from time to time. After a frustrating day purchasing the needed material, they were able to raise the shed in approximately three days. But the real value was it hencoming to know and understand the difficulties in which this family and their neighbors are required to live. In turn, there was another building project in the village of Szentegyed, where Dale Miedema, Tim Heemstra and Stephanie Kerkstra, along with others who came over the hill from Pulyon, worked at replacing the roof on the house of a poor woman and her invalid son. The roof had so many broken tiles that it could hardly keep the rain out. So they took the whole roof apart, repaired the rafters and installed new tiles. After this, they were joined by the rest of our group in building a stairway to the little Reformed Church which stood high on a hill overlooking the town. Most of the congregation are now elderly and were finding it increasingly difficult to climb the steep path up to the church. This stairway will now make it easier for them to take part in the service there. The village is small and by the end of the week our people had met nearly everyone and were especially impressed by the spirituality of the congregation there. During this time, Jennifer Rutgers and Amanda Haney were in the village of Bogota working in a small orphanage run by a very dedicated Reformed pastor and his wife. While their church is small and limited in means, they, at the suggestion of the then bishop, Kálmán Csiha, had taken on the care of seven Hungarian children who were living in squalor in a nearby state orphanage without spiritual attention of any kind. They now have thirteen such children in their care and are working to finish off the attic of the orphanage, which will enable them to double the number of children for which they can care, as quickly as the means to do so can be found. While there, Amanda and Jennifer came to know the children, attend their classes, play games with them and go on an outing with them - all of which gave them a deeper sense of the importance of the work being done. Meanwhile, others from the group went out with the seminary students to live in the villages in which they had held services throughout the winter. A team consisting of Dean Bőven, Sandra Glashower and Dawn Bouwkamp went to Oroszfaja and Komlod, the places where our Diaspora program began four years ago. The people there live quiet, simple lives amid a beautiful landscape. But most are old and often painfully lonely, their children having moved away. The fertile lands were once under the leadership of a kind-heated Hungarian nobleman, whom the Communists drove away without any possessions from his beautiful home. His estate now lies in ruins. The elderly who remain in the villages, after 40 years of Communism, have neither the knowledge, equipment nor the ability to work the land properly. And yet, especially since the coming of the students, there is a spirituality among them which might well be coveted as our own. Amanda Kerkstra and Lindsay Zandstra went to Cege, where they spent a great deal of time visiting with the people and getting to know their way of life. The difference in cultures impressed them and especially the contentment of those who have so little of the necessities of life. It would seem they have little to live for, other than mere survival - and their faith in the goodness of God. Tyler Schimmel, Derei Glashower and Quiton Glashower went to Pulyon and found it quite different than we did two years ago. Then there were no children; now there are more than anywhere else. They told Bible stories to the children there and played games with them, while witnessing a doctor’s visit as well. Clearly, they could see the appreciation of those she treated and the revived life which this village has had in the last two years. The team in Noszoly consisted of Lisa Kerkstra, Jessica Kerkstra and Kelly Zandstra. This was the village chosen to host this Summer Mission’s closing worship service and ceremony. First, however, there was the usual week of activities: meeting and visiting with the people, working with the children, and viewing the environment in which they live and work. It gave the team a better understanding of this difficult and different way of life and the spiritual response with which these people receive it, especially as each night they concluded with a worship service in the church. But the climax came on the final Sunday, when the people from all the villages came to Noszoly for a mass church service and celebration. Rarely do many of them get out of their own villages where their native Hungarian language is seldom heard anymore; and now to be able to meet with several Hundred people of their own kind and worship together in a large crowd of common faith was, to them, a great joy. An old friend of ours, Kálmán Csiha, the former bishop, traveled from Budapest just (continued on page 6) T
