34th day - August 11: Buckov - Protestant church in the countryside

I arranged to meet Miroslaw, an acquaintance who supports Pastor Lucia in Koseca, at 10 a.m. to talk about working with youth in the community. When we spoke at 11 a.m., he unfortunately had to cancel the conversation because his departure would be delayed by about 3 hours. Also in Trencin - the next city on my way - no conversation was possible, as I found out in Sulov two days ago, because the pastor is on vacation.

So I made my way to Buckov, a rural community near Nove Mesto. The road led through beautiful country roads that were not heavily trafficked. From a distance, the imposing ruins of Buckov Castle greeted me on a steep towering rock. When I arrived in the village with its three churches in the late afternoon, I had to look for the Protestant church for a while. Finally, I found the church and the rectory and community center across the street. But the rectory seemed uninhabited. Finally, I asked an older man who had just come out of the neighboring property on his bike for the pastor. I would only find out later that he was a "gift from heaven." Unfortunately, communication was very difficult. English was not possible and my translation device didn't help either. When I showed him the website of the Protestant Church in Slovakia on my mobile phone, where a man was listed as the responsible pastor, he just kept saying no, no, no, in Slovak. After some back and forth, he gestured for me to simply follow him with my bike. I had no idea where we were going. But I trusted in the kindness of people. We cycled through the whole village, past the castle to the end of the village. He stopped near the last house and rang the doorbell of a private house. The door opened, a larger woman came out, and the older man gestured intensively at me with his hands.

Finally, it turned out that she is the responsible pastor for the place, but lives in her own house. If I hadn't met the older man and he had led me to her - I wouldn't have found out this information on my own. However, she had a visit to the hospital in the next city that evening and had to leave soon. But I could still stay in the community center and the older man would open the church for me to visit. She also called the honorary organist - who speaks some English and German - as well as the sexton, they would all accompany me. Afterwards, we cycled through the village and picked up the sexton and cycled back to the church.

Shortly afterwards, the honorary organist arrived, who plays the organ voluntarily every Sunday and could also tell something about the church community. She reported that the community in Beckov and some surrounding villages has around 280 members and between 20-25 people come to the Sunday service. Every year there is a children's summer camp in the rectory garden. After corona, it is difficult to reach the visitor numbers before the pandemic again in the countryside. I also showed photos and videos of my work and then I was shown my sleeping place on a sofa in the rectory, where I could stay alone. Since the grocery store had already closed, I decided to go out for dinner.

In the evening, the pastor finally came by and we talked a bit about the simple and plain church life in the countryside and the difficult situation after Corona. Then I made myself comfortable in the lonely community center, wrote in my travel blog, and crawled into my sleeping bag on the floor after the late news. The offered sofa turned out to be too uncomfortable for my back to sleep on.