Bethlen Évkönyv, 1991-1992 (Ligonier)

Kálvin egyházkerület

Yet, for a time, everything seemed to be promising. Young families joined our Church, church attendance, donation were growing, we had programs for many different age groups. The fellowship of the Little Lambs, Kids for Christ, God’s Gang, New Hope Fellowship, Sunday School, confirmation classes, Bible study, Women’s Guild were blooming.

Unfortunately, the gradually deteriorating steel industry changed the picture. Thousands of people lost their jobs, half of the population left the city. Our members were also amongthem.

The problem of survival emerged again from our collective subconscious mind. In His compassion and care for this ailing body of Christ, the Lord worked out a solution. In 1983 the dying Hungarian Reformed Church of Rankin joined us in Christian love and fellowship. We received sixteen new members and an additional income from the sale of their church building.

In our gratitude to the Lord, Who bailed our Church out in this promising way, we invested all the following years in conscientious, prayerful, elaborate, educated, and exhausting effort for a better future. We wanted to replace our crumbling church building, located in a most unfavorable area, and establish a specialized ministry for our members.

During these years our three defeats on the battlefield with HUD broke the spirit of people and Pastor. Our 80th anniversary album in 1988 was „A cry in crisis. ”

Meanwhile, history and time were also heavily working against us. Younger families (formerly from Rankin) also had to look for work in other states. Our rapidly aging membership was decimated by death. By 1990 only one “Rankin” family has remained in our fellowship; and the number of funerals has topped the number of members who elected the Pastor in 1975.

Nevertheless, we again dressed our wounds, dusted our halos, got up, and tried again. This time we consulted with the Pennsylvanian Housing Finance Agency. Unfortunately, we found their State Treasury empty.

One more possibility was open for us. Another merger. This time with the small and struggling First United Church of Christ in our city. To our great regret, the West Penn con111