A letter from Burkhard Paetzold in Germany
July 2012
Dear Friends,
One of our family’s favorite summer hymns is from the German pastor and poet Paul Gerhard (1656)—it’s particularly nice to sing the hymn when the bright sunlight shines through the windows into the coolness of our sanctuary—and I’ve just found an English translation:
Go seek, my heart, the joys of life, / This lovely summertime so rife, / In all the gifts God gave you. / Look at the gardens, colorful displayed, / See how, for you and me they've made: | An overwhelming view.
I’m wondering if you know it. This song helps me thank God for a wonderful summer season, and I hope that it has been and will be a beautiful season for you too.
ant to thank you for all your support, prayers, encouraging communications and financial donations. All this means a lot to me; it boosts my ministry and helps a great deal in a variety of projects.
For some of the children in Nadia Ayoub’s Roma preschool in Peterfalva, Ukraine, this summer is particularly exciting. For the first time in their young lives they are expecting to attend the Roma summer camp in Csonkapapi. This summer camp in a vivid Roma Mission Center, which the PC(USA) has supported in the past, gives a wonderful opportunity for kids from a variety of Roma settlements to enjoy singing and playing with each other. This is a very rare opportunity for kids who are almost never able to leave their ghetto except to work with their parents on some landowner's fields. Please pray that it works out for the kids from Peterfalva this year and that it will be a renewing experience for them.
I traveled to Carpath Ukraine in late spring and visited different preschools and elementary schools for Roma. In some places a Christian Dutch organization Help for Eastern Europe has helped to build some new buildings in places where schools had earlier been started in small houses first and have grown successfully. Support for construction also comes for Winnetka Presbyterian Church. (I was travelling together with folks from the Netherlands and from Winnetka, Illinois.) Nadia’s two small preschools in Peterfalva are still in an early stage. Nadia does a wonderful job together with two young Ukrainian volunteers to get the kids—and parents—interested in the schools, learning and singing—and finding a more decent place to do this. So far the schoolrooms in Roma family houses are less than basic. You can read in Nadia’s letters more about her trust in God and her difficult but faithful step-by-step process to create an atmosphere for the kids to learn and grow.
Another part of my time in Carpath Ukraine I spent with Kathy, Joe, Mary Beth, David and MJ, who were installing already their 6th water filter supported by Living Waters for the World. On this visit they installed these in two elementary schools, in Csonkapapi and in the Roma village of Szernye. Part of their program is to raise awareness about the importance of clean water. One of the young students said: “My grandfather told me that he was still able to swim in the pond of our village, my father did not, and nobody would dare to do this today. I’m really afraid, if I look into the future of our environment.” Let’s hope that among the kids there is a seed now that grows and helps them take responsibility at least for their local situation, influencing others to do likewise.
A place where older students from Eastern Europe learn how to take on responsibility for the life of their communities is LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania. When we are talking about help for self-help, teaching is a great tool and LCC is doing a great job. I visited the school and our mission workers Eric, Becky and Jane together with World Mission’s area coordinator Amgad Beblawi, and we found again that they are extraordinary in facilitating this idea.
I also consider Young Adult Volunteer programs very important to strengthen leadership skills. So I’m glad to hear that World Mission will increase the number of programs and participants in the near future. In Budapest I took part in a founding meeting of “Phiren Amenca,” which works on a youth exchange for Roma and “Gadje” (non-Roma).
When you hear news from Europe, I guess it’s mainly about the financial crisis, maybe about the European soccer championship, and probably almost nothing about the situation of the Roma and those who care and work to improve it. In the months ahead several Europeans will visit the U.S. with news of our ministries and offer you firsthand information. They will visit from the Czech Republic, Russia, and Hungary. And two Iranians from Berlin, Germany, will share insights about the refugee situation in Europe.
For those of you attending the Church Wide Gathering of Presbyterian Women in Orlando, I invite you to meet Anna Hříbková from Vsetin, Czech Republic. Anna is a social worker and is coordinating with the Diakonie of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren for successful programs among Roma. Vsetin is a community visited by PW’s Global Exchange group in the fall of 2008.
Another visitor is Andrey Beskorovaniy from Russia. Andrey is a Roma himself and works as a pastor and network coordinator for Russian Roma. He will visit Presbyterian congregations as part of the International Peacemaking Program in the fall. He is definitely an amazingly faithful and energetic person to meet, and if you wish to find out if he is travelling close to your presbytery or church, you can find out at the Peacemaking Program link and may wish to invite him.
Talking about visitors from Europe: in September/October I want to mention Aziz and Sadegh, our Iranian PC(USA) mission workers who are preparing their itineration in Presbyterian churches. Both are working with refugees in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe and will share their insights about the refugee situation in Europe. If you are interested, please write to me and we will see if they can also visit your church.
To finish these announcements I need to mention that I myself will be in the U.S. as well between mid-September and mid-October, visiting churches, hopefully together with Karolina Kósa from Debrecen, who is the co-facilitator of a Roma self-housing program; participating in the Czech Mission Network meeting, together with Gerhard Frey-Reininghaus, the ecumenical coordinator of ECCB (Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren), and Karen Moritz, our mission worker in Prague; attending the Dallas II consultation (“Better Together – Collective Impact for God’s Mission”); and a training week in Louisville.
Even though the time is short and the places to visit are limited, I hope I have a chance to meet as many of you as possible.
Grace and peace to all of you,
Burkhard
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 275
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