visitors from Transcarpathia, Ukraine

Before coming to Seminary, I spent two years teaching grades 10-12 English as a foreign language in a small boarding school in a village in Transcarpathia (the western part of Ukraine that used to be part of Hungary before WWI). It was a pretty significant time in my life - I learned so much about myself, about being loved and loving others, and about serving God with my whole life. When I had come during college, I would say that i "fell in love" with the place. When I actually lived there, those connected to the school welcomed me and loved me in a way that I had never known before. and they taught me better how to love people back 'home' in Canada who i knew also loved me. to make a long story short, i learned a lot while i was there from the people there. that part of Ukraine became a part of me.

i returned several summers ago, and i remember how much it felt like home. even after all that time. i had changed somewhat but i still got to participate in the life of the school doing errands for the school, talking with students about life, and trying to serve God faithfully and help others do the same. when i came back to Grand Rapids after that summer, i missed this other home terribly. since then, the feelings of being 'homesick' for Ukraine have faded. life goes on. i had great friends here. i had a ministry with college students who i loved and delighted in. i got to spend more time studying the Old Testament. and i assumed that my 'homesick'-ness was mainly nostalgia for a time in my life that brought me great joy, even as it was hard at times.

since then i've emailed people back and forth, bumped into a Hungarian every once in awhile, and even visited with people connected to that part of Ukraine. and i've been thankful for that (thanks to Csilla especially who has been great about keeping in contact with me over email). yet, other than missing some of my friends, my homesickness never really returned. at least not until this past week. and i realized that this part of Ukraine will never stop being a part of me - no matter how far away i go or how long i leave.

this week i had friends from Transcarpathia visit. . Tibor (on the left in the picture) started student teaching in my second year. He spoke decent English and I spoke okay Hungarian by the time he came, and we had no problem communicating in a mixture of both. we spent hours biking - trying to beat each other up or down many of the hills near us. We became quick friends in the way that you only do with certain people. He is still at the school now, married to someone i taught my first year there. They even have a little son, Tomas, who i'll hopefully get to meet sometime in the next year. Attila (right beside on my left), like Tibor, was part of the very first class that graduated from the school (I showed up in the 7th year of the school's existence). He's now a pastor - and like me, he loves teaching, cares deeply for the people he's 'pastoring' and is a bit overwhelmed at times by the responsibility given to him by God to be a shepherd. we went sailing together (we participated in the club racing in Hamilton harbour), we played games, walked some, went to a pub, visited a marine centre, talked a lot, got lost a few times (apparently i'm not so good with directions :)), and visited some waterfalls. it was a lot of fun. (Dave's on the far right of the picture and is my good friend from Hamilton, who along with his wife Crystle, were wonderfully gracious in hosting me and my friends for a couple of days).

but what i was most thankful for was the opportunity just to talk. to laugh together about language and communication things like we used to. to hear how graduates from the school (some of them my old students) were doing. and to hear how the school and church were doing. sadly, things aren't going so well. Communism is hard on a church, and even though Communism fell 15 years ago, the survival skills and way of living that people learned under Communism don't disappear overnight. the church and individuals in the church have struggled with how to serve God in their whole life to the best of their ability. the director of the school has especially stressed this, and it is important to the students and staff of the school. not having had a lot of experience of how one's whole life can be about serving God in the non-Communist era, the church has struggled with this (under Communism, living one's whole life as a Christian had dire consequences, so the average church-going person found ways of looking and acting less Christian in order to survive.) added to this is the reality that belonging to the Hungarian Reformed Church in Ukraine is part of what it means to be Hungarian in a foreign country (either that or one is Roman Catholic). thus, the church is struggling, in spite all of the devout Christians who are part of it.

in the past few months, some of those seeing the struggles in the church and wanting to reform have been pressing for reform. for a number of reasons, this was frowned upon. and the church is beginning to split. my friends (and the director) are in the middle. they want the church to be more excited about teaching people about taking Christianity seriously and living out their faith. after all, what person with a heart for the church wouldn't want that?
but how do they help the church do that?
do they go along with those splitting off from the church (all of us who have experienced church splits know how horrible and painful and often unnecessary they are) who are reacting against (and trying to fix) the problems in the church?
or do they stay in a church with all of its struggles and its fear of change but with its greater opportunity to serve and help others?

my heart goes out to them. it feels like an impossible situation and the potential for harm is so high right now. pray for them and for the church.