Day 40 - August 17: Big challenge in Plave Vozokany

After a warm farewell from Hontianske Vrbica, I only had a short distance of 35 km to drive today. Almost the entire road was on level ground. However, before reaching my destination for the day, the tranquil rural community of Plave Vozokany, there was still a steep uphill climb to overcome in 35-degree heat. A bit out of breath and sweaty, I quickly found the visible Evangelical church and the small parsonage, where I was warmly greeted by Pastor Michaela, who lives, works, and raises her two children in this peaceful place. Because she spoke German very well, communication was quite easy. I learned that she is responsible for three villages with a total of around 330 members, but she has only been in the area for 2.5 years. The time of the pandemic was a difficult time for all church communities, but especially for her, as she had only been there for a few months when the pandemic broke out.

We talked at length about the evangelical work in the countryside and discovered certain parallels in the habits of the church members. For example, the habit of only attending worship services in their own church and not in the neighboring community, or the fact that there is little conversation during Bible study evenings. Between 20-25 visitors, mostly elderly, come to the worship service in her village. She can count the number of children on one hand. The worship services in another village, for which she is responsible, pose a great challenge. Unfortunately, I forgot the name of the village, but mostly Hungarian-speaking people live there. Therefore, she is expected to conduct the worship service in Hungarian. Working with children and young people in her area is also not easy due to the small number of them. But she has one young person who usually leads the children's worship service on Sundays. She places a special focus on home visits to the church members in order to know about their everyday concerns and to pray with them. Despite the difficult circumstances, she wants to stay there and advocate for her communities.

After the long conversation, we visited the modest village church and the equally simple community room. The external facilities are quite modest, so she conducts some groups, which are quite small in number, in her private living room. Therefore, there were only a few photo opportunities today. Overall, I noticed some parallels to our church community life in the countryside.

After a delicious dinner, I also showed pictures from my work and we talked about some theological topics. She showed me her first self-written book on a text by Martin Luther. Then I wanted to write on my blog in the evening, but I quickly became tired and fell asleep in her children's room.