Community team update

Yesterday was changeover day and the team turned its attention from the smaller villages of Akli Hegy, Akli and Uj Akli under record temperatures of 35 degrees.

Last night we enjoyed a folk dance evening beginning with Hungarian dancing in the refurbished clubhouse in Gjula. Windows which had been nailed into a closed position were now wide open but hardly made an impression on the temperatures generated by about 80 people or all ages dancing to a 4 piece band under instruction and demo from a Hungarian feather-hatted chap in a black shirt and waistcoat and a blonde plaited haired girl in a tea floral dress and pinafore. The dances were mainly single circles dances from different regions of Hungary and there was full participation and enjoyment and perspiration. 

The community team members met with Zoltan, the pastor, his wife Réka, and our interpreters and were broken into groups with the elders to visit 11 families with a sick person, 9 families with a joyful situation such as the birth of a new baby and 6 with a troubled situation, two of which were extremely harrowing. We remarked today how privileged we all feel to be warmly welcomed into the villagers' homes each time we enter them and how openly they share their stories, often of great hardship, loss or suffering; it is humbling but encouraging to be part of the Kingdom Family of God and to share the love of Jesus as we pray for one another together.  

I have been visiting the villages over the past 13 years and have been struck this time by the large numbers of villagers now working abroad to supplement family income; no longer Budapest but other areas of Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Czech Republic, and women as well as men as Hungarian passport holding citizens. There is wealth as a result, and home improvements but a considerable impact on family life. The threat of army call-up is no longer as acute, but there are fewer cows being collected each morning and market prices of tomato, cucumber and potato staples are falling. Hungarian government grants for loans on tractors and for new business such as commercial blueberry growing are trying to encourage Hungarian Ukrainians to remain in their home villages, but falling crop prices are not helping. 

Roger and I were privileged yesterday to accompany Attila on a visit to the head of the elders at Akli Hegy church. Attila and Kristina are leaving next week after 15 years' ministry in the villages for family reasons. Attila read the passage to the elders of the church in Ephesus from Acts 20 when Paul was preparing to leave for Jerusalem, to anticipate the things that could happen in his absence. His sadness at leaving, his concern for the people he was leaving behind, and his entrusting them to God were as evident in Attila's face as they were in Paul's letter. This ministry has been valued by so many and they will be sorely missed.

Jill