Bethlen Almanac 1999 (Ligonier)

The Bethlen Home

engedjük, hogy Isten vezessen minket ennek az állandóan változó világnak új útjain. Félelemre nincs okunk, mert az apostollal együtt mondhatjuk: “Mindenre van erőm Abban, Aki megerősít engem.” (Filippi 4:13).

Kálmán Szabolcs lelkipásztor

REPORT from LIGONIER

“Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. ”

Matthew 13-52

Ligonier, for more than a century, has been a special treasure entrusted to the American Hungarians. Ligonier is an embracing mother to us, whose welfare is our responsibility. This year, I attended the traditional three meetings scheduled for Labor Day weekend.

The American-Hungarian Presbyters’ Association meeting started with Sunday morning worship. As a pastor, I enjoyed being a worshipper in the congregation, and appreciated that every part of the service was conducted by a lay person. President Frank Dudás gave the sermon; he was interesting, often humorous, never departing from the concerns of daily life. The meeting was also characterized by this informal, yet orderly atmosphere. I was the invited key note speaker for this year’s gathering. I delivered my speech in English, on the model of the bilingual church, as outlined in my doctoral papers. The speech was received with genuine interest and appreciation. While, the presbyters use English in their meetings, nevertheless, they keenly reacted to the values of Hungarian language and culture as treasures given to us by God. They were also open to fulfill our responsibilities for sending missionary aids to Hungarian causes. Almost every congregation participates in such mission work. Several of the participants promised to report to their home church on my lecture; since then, Lorain already did that.

In addition to the usual, beloved elderly participants, I was glad to notice several young faces (rather middle aged ones, like ages between 30 and 50). Several of them are in leadership position in society. Even in technology, this group was more advanced than the ministers, who met

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