Ministry here has been quite interesting. We are working with man named
Pastor Zhamvbor (Not how you spell it, but it’s the best way for me to
sound that out.) We are in fact not working with the gypsies, but we are
working in the city with regular average joes. Pastor, as we call him,
is working on starting up a reformed church. One that is separate from
the Orthodox and the Catholicism tradition that so many are used to. He
wants a church that is set on the love of God and relationship, not
tradition. He is a Hungarian man who has a dream to see the Hungarian
and Romanian communities unite. This area, Transylvania/Turgu Muresh,
was once part of Hungary, but was taken over by the Romanians at the end
of the 2nd world war. There are many tensions between the two
communities, and if you speak Romanian to a Hungarian they get upset,
but if you speak Hungarian to a Romanian, they too get upset. So it is
best to speak English!
As I said, our pastor is working to start up a new reformed church. His
aim is more toward the college aged youth. Our ministry is somewhat
strange as typically we walk around the inner city passing out fliers
and meeting people. We spend many days at the colleges here, one a
medical university and the other is called a Sapienta. We have made
friends with many people and have had the awesome opportunity to answer
some of their hard questions about Christ/Christianity. We play football
(soccer, not American football) with a few of the guys, and we sit and
talk with many in between their classes.
Last night the guys, Phil Henry; Julian Sutton; Blake Rushing; and
myself, went out to a club with our friends William and Tomash from the
college and went dancing and just had some fun with them.
The truth is that we don’t have a super defined ministry plan. On
Fridays, we put on a youth group style night and on Saturdays a church
service. Not many people come other than Pastor, his family, a few of
their friends, 3 or 4 Romanian/Hungarians, and our big bunch of 13 from
the race. Our ministry here is mostly relational, and as I said we
typically just hang out with people, shoot the breeze, and ask/answer
questions. Many people speak English which makes our days a bit more fun
for us, but we are learning bits of both languages. Our ministry is
beautiful this month though. It has been a blast making friends here and
I hope these guys make it to the states someday so that I can see them
again.
Our life style is not so primitive here, except that I sleep in a
hammock in the cool/cold weather, and I get our milk straight from the
cow just a few blocks away. We have a large house on the outskirts of
the city in a small village surrounded by corn fields. The village is a
little primitive with cows and chickens running around, dogs barking all
night long, and dirt roads, but the people are amazing. They are so
friendly and so generous. They are no different than small town people
in the states. Our village is Hungarian, while 400 yards away, just
cross the corn field is another small village of romanians/gypsies.
Gypsies are kind, and not nearly the bad people that so many make them
out to be.
The city people are not much different than in any big city; in a rush,
focused on life, but kind hearted when you get to talk to them.
This is life here. Just one day at a time, making friends, sharing the word, and loving it all.
