A letter from Joe and Kathy Angi in Hungary
April 29, 2009
Friends,
Yesterday, Dick, Carolyn, Kathy and I went to Karpat, Ukraine. Dick and Carolyn Otterness are mission workers from the Reformed Church in America who also work here in Budapest. They work with the Roma (gypsies).
Karpat, Ukraine, is just across the border from the northeast corner of Hungary. At one time, these two counties of the larger country of Ukraine were part of Hungary. In the last 100 years the residents of this area have been citizens of more than half a dozen countries due to changing international borders. It is a forgotten, mostly rural area and very, very poor. Visitors who are well traveled say it reminds them of some parts of Africa. The Hungarians living there are now in the minority, and they have their own minority, the Roma.
Kathy and I normally work with refugees here in Hungary or do international disaster work, but there is interest in the PC(USA) in working with “unreached people,” and the Roma are one of these groups. In the last few years, I have accompanied some of our visitors from PC(USA) to Karpat because I can translate between English and Hungarian, the language spoken by the minority Hungarians and most of the Roma people.
There is a Hungarian woman living in one of the poor villages named Aunt Gizi. (All adults are addressed as Aunt or Uncle out of respect.) Her heart is full of the Spirit of the Lord, and instead of complaining about her own life, she looks around to see how she can help others.
Aunt Yolan is Roma. She is a leader in her community and an elder at the Roma Reformed Church. She also teaches at the church school and makes baskets.
In this area, the Roma tend to go to school for about four years and then drop out. Often this is because they marry between 13 and 16 years of age (both boys and girls). Many can’t read or write or do math. Some in their late teens or early 20s are beginning to realize how much this limits them in getting jobs, even as day laborers. Most Roma are unemployed or work as day laborers. In the winter, they make baskets, which they try to sell the rest of the year. Some of the young people went to Aunt Gizi and asked her to help them get their ninth-grade diploma.
She started tutoring them in the evenings or when they were available. Later she found a student from a nearby teacher’s college to become a volunteer teacher. The group has grown to eight who are preparing for their exams and 30 others waiting to take classes. You may ask, “How could one lone student from a teacher’s college teach so many at such varied levels?” As Gizi prayed about this one day in February, Joe just happened to be in the area with some PC(USA) visitors. She asked impulsively if they could help fund a full-time teacher for one year or more. The answer was that there is a good chance, but she had to send a written proposal. Needless to say, Aunt Gizi had never written a proposal in her life. This is where Kathy came in. She is good at writing proposals.
Then there were the baskets. Last year, some ladies from Presbyterian Women were visiting Karpat on their global exchange delegation. They came up with the idea that they might be able to sell some of the baskets made by the Roma women when they went back home. The women talked with their PW groups and worked out a plan. So we were asked to pick up some of these baskets and take them back to the United States when we visit this May.
We have an unusually busy schedule this month. I will skip the details, but we were able to find one day to drive 500 miles to Karpat with Dick and Carolyn, the Roma workers, write the proposal, pick up the baskets and be back in time to sleep in our own bed.
We asked Dick and Carolyn to go with us because this culture and region is their area of expertise, and they know all the players and all the cultural niceties. We packed, picked them up, drove 100 yards, and the police pulled us over for a “routine check.” It turned out that there were some problems with the car papers, and we could not drive the car.
Grumble.
Back to Dick and Carolyn’s house, repack everything into their car, and off we go. In retrospect, the police did us a favor. If this problem with the documentation was found at the border, 200 miles from Budapest, we would not have been able to go on or come back. We would have been stranded a long way from nowhere.
Thank God.
So, long drive, long wait at the border, bad roads, “hellos,” proposal writing with Aunt Gizi, prayer. “Ramen soup,” bad roads, pot holes, “hellos,” prayers, long talk with Aunt Yolan, baskets packed, pictures taken, prayers, bad roads, two-hour wait at the border, flat tire, bad word, prayers, nice supper, long drive, home by midnight, thank God, sleep.
If you think I’m complaining you are mistaken. I feel honored to work with such dedicated people and to play a small part in this wonderful activity of God.
Joe Angi
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 180
