A letter from Burkhard Paetzold in Germany
December 2011
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD
require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Dear friends,
Blessings to you in this Advent and Christmas Season. I want to thank you very much for your prayers and for your steadfast support. I’m very grateful for any support that helps me to build long-term relationships so that together we can make a difference in the lives of the Roma people.
Burkhard with Mary Ferris in an Orphanage in Tulcea, Romania.
As a born “East German” having lived my life in two different social systems and having served for more than 13 years with the PC(USA), I believe both the United States and Europe have to learn from each other. Christians in both regions have to walk humbly with each other. And furthermore I truly believe that Central Europe has a specific role in Europe that can be a model for other regions. In European history there have always been forces of division and forces of bridge building. We are aware of ethnic and religious as well as social economic divisions and we have learned our lesson: we need cooperation rather than conflict. So Europe’s future is multiethnic, ecumenical, and without striving for justice, peace and the integrity of God’s creation there is no future.
It’s a benefit for Christians and congregations in the PC(USA) to learn from this history. And, it’s important for Christians and churches in Central Europe to know that they are supported by sisters and brothers in the U.S.
Burkhard during Mission Connections Live! in Second PC Sumter, SC.
Praying for each other is an important expression of closeness, connectedness, and solidarity. This year I was happy that we were able to establish a call for “Ten days of prayer and thanksgiving for the Roma,” focusing on Roma in 10 different countries. Despite their daily struggle facing social exclusion, discrimination and racism, this prayer guide shows that Roma are not forgotten people, that there are Christians even as far away as the U.S. who pray, are willing to learn, and care.
Your support helps me in my role to serve as a facilitator for this kind of mutual learning. It’s hard, but necessary, not to be impatient.
After visiting Carpath Ukraine for almost 10 years now, I finally was able to introduce a new mission worker, Nadia Ayoub, to Ukraine and help her with her first “baby steps” in this challenging environment. Nadia arrived in late winter 2011 to work as a consultant for early childhood education for Roma children. But she will not only be a teacher, she is a student as well, learning about existing conflicts and difficulties but also the way conflict management can work in a society like Ukraine—where its people historically have suffered under different regimes, rulers, and terrible wars.
The PC(USA) does “mission in partnership.” This is an honorable goal, but how do we learn to do it?
Roma Family members in Nagydobrony, Carpatho-Ukraine.
Our mission workers in Lithuania, Becky and Eric Hinderliter, invited me to Klaipeda, Lithuania, at a time this past summer when a mission group from Carlisle Presbytery came to visit. An international school like LCC Christian University in Klaipeda is always a unique place to be. Students from the former Soviet Union and other former communist countries will be future leaders in their homelands in these times of transformation.
Mission trips there are about seeing what their support can do in the life of individual students and learning about their situation. The role of the mission workers, including myself, is to act as a guide. I’ve been able to guide several mission groups in the past and new trips for 2012 are in my plans.
Over the last few years Presbyterian Women have been an example of partnership missiology. Their Global Exchange program with Central and Eastern Europe and the Roma people took place in 2008/09, and the women have experienced that a long-term commitment is needed.
They express this by supporting a model project of job creation for Roma women in Ukraine. Kathy and Joe Angi are serving as consultants for PW’s basket project “weaving a future.”
Roma Woman of a basket weaving group in Nagydobrony, Carpatho-Ukraine.
Besides PW, Living Waters for the World has established an ongoing water project in Ukraine. The important element of this, aside from the generous donation of time and money, is the approach to teach local people how to help themselves with clean water facilities.
The government of Hungary assumed the lead in the European presidency early this year. The churches were asked to offer suggestions and input. So our partner, the Reformed Church in Hungary, hosted consultations with Eurodiaconia and the Churches’ Commission on Migrants in Europe about Roma Inclusion. I’m aware that Americans sometimes have a bad reputation among Europeans. So, I’m proud that here American churches were asked to sit at the table.
Prague, Czech Republic, is one of the centers of the early Reformation, a beautiful place and a “boom town” in Central Europe.
I’m glad that Karen Moritz, our new mission worker who arrived last year, has found her place in the ecumenical department of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, a small but important follower of the Reformation in the Czech Republic. As in the early days it has been clear that the reformation of today’s church vis-à-vis a changing society is needed, but the way forward is debated—a debate that can tear Protestant churches apart. The Czechs have a long history they can teach us, a history of how to live with the diversity of the Reformation and still stay in unity.
Ellen and Al Smith are partnership facilitators for Russia, which includes working with the Russian Roma. For them the Russian bureaucracy made it more and more difficult to live in Moscow as they had done for a decade. So they moved to Berlin, knowing that the direct flight connections between Berlin and Moscow can be an easy alternative. The German Protestant Church in Berlin Brandenburg (of which I am a member) has its own mission program in Russia. So we are able to plan ahead with newly discovered synergies.
It’s a joy to be able to welcome new mission workers, but also a joy to be able to look back when a colleague like Mary Ferris retires after a full and dedicated mission life in Tulcea, Romania. I was happy to have been present at her farewell in Tulcea and as well as in a “Thank You” celebration in Lubbock, Texas.
As you see my ministry as a mission facilitator in Central and Eastern Europe and for the Roma people is to be “here and there and everywhere.” I love weaving this net. So I was very glad to be invited to the Mission Connections Live! campaign this past fall, visiting PC(USA) churches in six different states within six weeks (Illinois, North Dakota, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas). It was exhausting, but absolutely wonderful!
I hope my description has given you a glimpse of the diversity of my service as the regional liaison for Central and Eastern Europe and the Roma and also has showed you how much your support is needed.
I hope you can continue to support my ministry in the year ahead with prayers, encouragement, involvement in mission, and possibly a financial contribution. In these challenging economic times, any donation is much appreciated. You may make an online donation through the link below.
It is a joy and a privilege for me to serve Christ, our faithful partners, and all those across the PC(USA) who are called to come alongside brothers and sisters far away in solidarity.
Grace and peace to you and yours in 2012!
Burkhard
The 2011 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 197
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 275
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