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This sermon was given
by Frances Tanaka at OUUC on January 27, 2002.
A few links have been added in the text to show you photos of what Frances is
describing - just hit the "back" button to return to this page.
For a couple of hours on September 11 I thought maybe it would be a good idea to cancel my trip to our partner church in Kissolymos, Romania, but the afternoon found me buying sea shells to take to the school children there.
The next two weeks I continued my preparations finding the most peace during our national period of mourning in of all things studying Hungarian. But I will admit there was still a nagging little fear of getting on an airplane again. Two days before I left, I went to choir practice and lo and behold what was the first piece that Troy trotted out but the song you just heard, "Flying Free". I decided to take my copy with me on my flight and had a death grip on it when my plane took off.
Well I'm so glad I went.
Kissolymos was a perfect place to be healed by nature and to have one's faith
in one's fellowman restored. I arrived during the height of the harvest. The
fields were bursting with ripe corn and grapes were dripping off the vines.
The barnyards were teeming with life; newly hatched out chicks, ducks, geese,
pigs growing fatter daily. Cows, sheep and goats paraded out to their pastures
in the morning and returned in the evening. Everything tasted good, from the
delicious soups made out of fresh vegetables from the garden to the newly preserved
jams and pickles. All of the people of the village made me feel welcome; from
providing beautiful roses for my room to inviting me in for hot chocolate on
my walks. They had been praying for our congregation and country since September
11 and I think they liked being able to comfort at least one American personally.
I taught a lot of English in return, training the new teacher at the school
and giving extra private lessons at the parsonage in the evenings. I met with
both the church council and the women's auxiliary. They send to all of you their
greetings and an invitation to come visit them anytime. They have built a special
guest house for you that is absolutely charming. It is a wonderful place for
a retreat and after two weeks there I
was refreshed both physically and spiritually.
But as lovely as it is to be a visitor in Kissolymos, life is hard there. Of the 430 people who live there, only a few families have running water in their homes. All water for cooking and washing must be hand drawn and carried from wells in their courtyards to their kitchens. There is electricity and gas, but no paved roads and very few cars. Most people get around with horse-drawn carts. The main industry is agriculture and although the land is rich, the work is mostly done by hand or with animals, so the families are just barely able to feed themselves. Cash is almost non-existent and a typical family income for a month would be less than $100. It is not surprising that many young people have to leave to make a living elsewhere in Romania. This is not easy because they leave with an eighth grade education at most and unable to speak the language of the majority population well.
Why is this so? Kissolymos is part of Transylvania, which used to belong to Hungary. Because Hungary was an ally of Germany in WWI, two-thirds of its land was taken away and given to other countries after the war was over and that's when Transylvania became a part of Romania. The region was able to maintain its culture and language for a while but really lost ground when the communist government came in after WWII. Ceaucescu moved people around so the Hungarians would no longer dominate one region and they became a minority on their own ancestral lands. When Ceaucescu was overthrown in 1989 there was less pressure to assimilate Hungarians and the government supports Hungarian education to a certain extent, but stops at the eighth grade. The children learn Romanian as a second language but don't begin to know enough to succeed in a Romanian high school. Kissolymos is so isolated that the people there almost never interact with Romanian speakers and after the revolution they even got rid of Romanian television. Istvan Berei, the Unitarian minister who is bi-lingual says he uses Hungarian 99% of the time. Fifty children go to elementary school in Kissolymos, only two go to high school. This year's eighth grade class has four bright children who really should go on. What does the future have in store for these children?
The Unitarian Church in Romania is doing its best to help them. First of all they are doing an excellent job of training new ministers at the seminary in Kolosvar and sending them out to the villages to do whatever they can do to help improve the lives of their parishioners. The church had been suppressed during the communist years and all the church land and property had been taken away. After 1989 the Unitarian church has been slowly getting everything back and has made a lot of improvements to the seminary and two high schools. The young men and women graduating from the seminary are so full of energy and idealism that it's just a joy to be around them.
The minister in Kissolymos is Istvan Berei. I've gotten to know him quite well the past two years. He and I correspond weekly by e-mail. He is 27 years old and has been out of seminary for three years. He was on probation in Kissolymos for two years and was called permanently a year ago. He is engaged to Emiko Seminy, a local girl, who is related to half the village. She teaches first and third grade. They are planning to get married March 2 this year. The two of them have so many plans for the village. They want to get a medical clinic started, so a doctor can come there once a week. They'd like to start a bakery or some other small industry to provide local jobs for some of the young people, but mostly they work with the children. Istvan teaches a religious education class once a week to each grade. He's organized a soccer team and takes them around to play neighboring villages. They and the children put on theatricals for their parents and compete in regional poetry contests. They help the cildren dream of a brighter future.
For all this work Istvan receives $75 a month from the government. (There is no separation of church and state in Romania.) This is half what a Reformed minister would get. Tax money for churches is divided up according to their membership 50% to Roman Catholics, 40% to Reformed (Calvinist) and 4% to Unitarians.
Besides sending these wonderful young people out to the villages, the Unitarian Church also operates two high schools, one in Szekelykeresztur which is not too far from Kissolymos and another in Kolozvar in the same building as the seminary. These are boarding schools and although tuition is low, $10, boarding costs equal most families income. Fortunately through the Partner Church Program in the United States they can provide scholarships. $300 a year supports one child. I'd like to leave a little time this morning for you to ask me some questions.
Each time that I go to Kissolymos, we exchange gifts. These are some gifts I've brought back for the church. I will be presenting them to the care of the Aesthetic Committee.
Each year our church takes a collection to support our partner church. This year we'll divide the money between the needs of the village parish and the scholarship fund. I hope you'll be generous. All of the offering this morning will be sent to Kissolymos unless you mark your check otherwise.
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