A letter from Burkhard Paetzold in Germany
March 2013
Dear friends,
I wish you all near and far a blessed Easter season. So let me start with a different Easter greeting written by the Swiss pastor Kurt Marti:
Romani woman and children in Rzyan
It could suit some rulers
If, when death pays every bill,
the rule of the rulers and the subjection of the subjects were confirmed for ever.
It could suit some rulers
if they remained in their expensive mausoleums
and their subjects remained in the cheap burial plots.
But a resurrection is coming which is different, quite different, than we had thought.
A resurrection is coming which is God’s rebellion against the rulers
and against the ruler of all rulers:
Death.
(Kurt Marti, translation from German Duncan Hanson)
I’m starting to write this letter on March 13 in a train between Moscow (Russia) and Mukachevo (Carpath Ukraine). In this sleeper train I have plenty of time, because the train ride between Moscow and Mukachevo takes 29 hours. Oh, and I should mention, it’s freezing cold outside (around 5° F) and completely overheated inside.
You may have recognized from my earlier letters that Carpath Ukraine is a frequent destination of mine, but I never came from this direction. It is much easier to arrive from Hungary.
Burkhard and his travelling companions.
This time I’m travelling with a group who want to see Roma ministry both in Russia and Carpath Ukraine. During my trip I connected and travelled with Ellen Smith, Regional Liaison for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine; Al Smith, PC(USA) mission worker; Liz Searles, who is just preparing to be a PC(USA) mission co-worker with ministry in Tulcea, Romania, with orphans; Carolyn Otterness, Reformed Church in America, working with Roma out of Budapest, Hungary; and Eamon Anderson.
Eamon Anderson is a social worker and child welfare researcher from the University of Montana, working on Native American reservations in Montana, focusing on childhood trauma and child traumatic stress, training welfare workers, teachers and other professionals. She lived in a Roma village in Romania for four years and still feels a deep call to Roma ministry and to Eastern Europe. From her own experience she can see the similarities and differences that I have talked about in some of my earlier letters, Roma and Native Americans traumatized in their history, just about to lose their cultural roots, some even being not strong enough to fight against discrimination in their respective societies.
The first highlight of our trip was a conference on Post Orphanage Ministry in Smolensk. You can read more in Ellen’s mission letter.
For me the breathtaking insight was that a great many orphans are basically social orphans who suffer from trauma that appeared before they were placed in the orphanage.
Jasha and Burkhard in Rzyan
We learned that the need for reconciliation and healing is deep across Russia, with many families struggling with issues of domestic violence and substance abuse.
Maxim, a participant, told me that issues like home violence and alcoholism in Russia can be life-threatening before the youth department finally takes children out of a family.
On the other hand, the situation in the orphanage can be difficult too and very much depends on the capability and commitment of the director and staff and of volunteers who come from the neighborhood, for instance, from church congregations to play and sing with the kids.
Later we moved on to Ryazan, south of Moscow. In Ryazan we visited a family home in a Roma settlement: Yasha, the father of seven and grandfather of four, opens his home every Monday for children to receive Christian education, and to play, sing, and do arts and crafts. Yasha told me he has come from Odessa, Ukraine, near the Black Sea. It was easier there, he says, looking out his icy window, to have a garden to grow plants and raise some animals.
Here in Ryazan Yasha earns his daily bread as an iron picker. This often is one of the only remaining businesses for many Roma in Eastern Europe. The Bosnian Roma actor Nazif Mujic just won a golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in the movie “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker.”
Yasha told me there is no kindergarten in the settlement, but an integrated elementary school in the neighborhood for Russians and Roma. Even though most families speak Romani, this is not a language taught in school.
When asked what he wants most for the kids, he said: "I want them to know that God loves them. I had heard this before and it isn’t self-evident for Roma; too many of them have internalized the false prophecy of racism, 'God curses you.' ”
My long train ride gives me time to talk to my fellow travelers and to reflect. Recently I had the privilege to attend a meeting of Eurodiaconia in Prague on February 14/15 and share insights with a wide network of participants from all over East and West Europe, among them several Roma. We were talking about Roma and non-Roma identity and sharing best practices of how to accept the difference and bridge the gap while at the same time together combating the growing racism and prejudice against Roma in Europe.
Our PC(USA) mission worker in Prague, Karen Moritz, who was also present at the conference, among another four U.S. mission co-workers, has written about it in her most recent newsletter.
Before my meeting in Prague I was in Carpath Ukraine with a group of Presbyterian Women (PW). We met in early February to assess the status of the Roma basket project and talk to the basket-weaving ladies as well as with their local supporters.
We are aware that for a sustainable business a local training for business skills needs to continue, and the producers need to look for more local and regional markets. The Reformed Church in Hungary and their Reformed Church Aid is working to help with this.
After the assessment in the PW mission committee the decision has been made to bring the specific support for the basket business to an end, in particular regarding basket sales in the U.S. The women were very clear that it has raised a lot of awareness. So PW will continue to raise awareness, for instance, by receiving gifts for the Roma school of Nadia Ayoub or through considering grant proposals submitted from ministries that help the Roma in Europe. I’m grateful to PW and I’m grateful to you all for your prayers and gifts to this ministry.
Please join us again in the “Ten Days of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Roma” between March 30 and April 8.
Christ has risen. He has risen indeed.
The Peace of Christ be with you all.
Burkhard
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 283
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