Greetings Friends and Family!
I hope that your summer’s are getting off to a good start! Spring just seemed to fly by and summer is already here. I have about two more months left in Slovakia before heading back to the U.S. My return date is set for August 4th and I will have about two weeks at home with family before I head off to seminary in Chicago. My family and I will be moving my brother into college and me to seminary around August 21. I hope that I will be able to see as many of you as I can within the short time I’m in Kansas! I will be speaking at Messiah Lutheran (Lindsborg, KS) on August 12 and then at Christ Lutheran (Wichita, KS) on August 19th. If you are able to make either of those times, I would love to see you! And if not there, I hope that I can give you a call on the phone or visit with you at some point! I’ve missed you all! I want you all to know how much I’ve appreciated the love and support that you’ve showered me with this year. And expect to be tackled with a giant hug the first time I see you!
To go along with this rather late newsletter - I’ve updated my pictures. There is an album now called “Spring in Slovakia.” If you have time, take a look: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/katyaharder/albums/ This time there are pictures of English classes, youth group, my birthday, Confirmation Sunday, and Pentecost. J Hope you enjoy!
May God’s grace continue to refresh and revive you through the summer months!
Maj sa krasne! (Have a good one!)
Serving in Slovakia
Stories of a Volunteer in Vrbovce
May 2006
“There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” ~Ephesians 4:4-6
Part of my experience this year has been discovering how we as a people (as a whole human race) have so much in common. There are human elements to life that transcend cultural boundaries. I thought back in August that coming to another country would be practically like stepping onto another planet. Now I feel as though I’m only stepping into a neighbor’s back yard. We really do have more in common than I ever imagined. We deal with many of the same things as human beings: birth, death, illness, disagreements, challenges in the work place, social problems, poverty, injustices, anger, things to rejoice over, things to cry over, …love. Towards the beginning of May I took a long walk with a friend up to the hills here (called Kopanica) with a friend. Along the walk we stopped and marveled at all the blooming trees and flowers that we saw. I exclaimed at each flower that we also have back home in Kansas. And not only were there some of the same flowers, there were also some of the same weeds. (Somehow I thought even weeds would be different in Slovakia!) In this newsletter I want to share with you some of the weeds that we have in common and also some of the flowers. J
Some weeds – we share some of the same problems.
By being able to help teach English at the elementary school here in the village I’ve been able to learn a lot about the education system here in Slovakia. The teacher’s here struggle with some of the same issues that teachers in the U.S. struggle with. One of the problems that has come to the forefront of my attention this year is students with special needs. To illustrate my point I’m going to tell you about Jano. (pronounced “Yano”) Jano is 6th grader here at the elementary school in Vrbovce. He’s a cool kid. He always greets me with a friendly “Hello!” when he passes by on his bicycle and is one of the kids that is willing to talk to me when we meet in the square. He also is one of the kids at the school that struggles the most with learning. The English teacher here has told me that he has a learning disability, and I’m also fairly sure that he doesn’t have the parental support that he needs coming from home. I don’t now how his other grades are but in English he is barely passing. Earlier on in the year the English teacher (Radka) thought that maybe it would help if I could work with him (and other struggling students) after school once a week. Overall the “after school English” went okay. Students would come, we would have conversation, go over some of the things they were working on in class and maybe play a short game. One time Jano was the only student that came. I worked with him on items that would be on his next test, comparatives and superlatives (i.e. good, better, best). I thought maybe we would get farther b/c it was just one on one. I came to find that I couldn’t help him as much as I wanted. He couldn’t do the comparatives very well because he didn’t really know the original adjectives. He’s falling behind this year and it’s going to be really hard for him to ever catch up. There isn’t a tutoring program of any kind available for these kids that have problems, and they just don’t to get it at home, for one reason or another. And I’ve found that kids here are really hard on the intellectually struggling students (more so than I was used to in my school experience). So not only is Jano given a hard time for not having the coolest clothes, or sometimes not smelling that great, he also has to endure the feeling of inadequacy and the many critiques of his peers. In my thinking, some of these kids have got it tough. And I know that there are kids in the U.S. that struggle just as much as Jano does. So what can we do about it?
Try and guess what I might be describing here…
· Lack of mission, purpose, vision
· No ambitious leaders that are willing to organize, plan, and facilitate activities.
· A group that isn’t welcoming of new people and new ideas.
· No support or encouragement from parents or other members of the congregation.
I’m describing a youth group. I’m specifically describing the problems that Vrbovce’s youth group has, but don’t you think that the above description could describe a youth group in a typical Lutheran church in the U.S.?
I’ve watched this year as the youth group that we (Adrian and I) are working is struggling to stay afloat. We average an attendance of about nine or ten people and usually now at least three of those are volunteers. (Adrian, myself, and Zorka – the seminary intern) Our faithful three attenders are the triplets, Monika, Veronika and Dominika. Then there are sometimes a couple of other young people that come on and off. We have a couple of older people that come to youth group, but they aren’t leaders, only slightly out of place participants. Adrian and I have tried to plan activities that will encourage more people to come, but when new people actually do arrive I’m really surprised at the group’s behavior. The sweet and welcoming triplets become closed and stoic – not welcoming in anyone who might be new. A person or two might even make a rude comment while the new comer is in the room! I try and talk to them as much as I can, but my conversation skills are still only at about a par. If I was a newcomer I don’t think that I would want to come back either. No one wants to be part of a group where they don’t feel welcome. And not very many people want to be part of a group that doesn’t have an identity or purpose. What can groups like these do then?
I’ve prayed a lot for this group and will continue to do so – but I’ve come to believe (and accept finally) that I’m not here to change this group. I’m here to share myself with them. I can share my stories, my songs, my games and my time. But this group needs concrete, long term leadership and people that are invested in it’s purpose and youth – just like any other youth group around the world needs the same.
A parish staff – stretched thin
I can’t remember how much I’ve told you about how the church in Vrbovce operates, but I’ll tell you a little bit more now. At the church here in Vrbovce (as is typical throughout Slovakia) there is only one paid full-time employee – the pastor. How many employees does your congregation employ? Maybe a secretary, custodian, youth director, PMA? Some churches more, some churches less. Since the money to pay such employees is just not there, the church in Vrbovce relies on the pastor or volunteers to fill these rolls. I often call my host mom (Kristina) “Superwoman” because she acts as the pastor’s secretary/custodian/PMA/second hand man, all rolled into one. She spends hours and hours at the parsonage each week, doing tasks that would otherwise be left to the pastor. (She’s amazing!)
The church also employs workers that are paid through the government. *Remember that the government also supplies the pastor’s salary b/c there is no separation of church and state.* These workers are people employed part time (maybe 25 hours a week? some less I think) and paid a minimum wage. Around the parsonage, these are the men and women that clean the church, fix and build things around the Old School, and generally do basic maintenance work. This last year the Vrbovce congregation was also given the money to hire two “full time” workers. These women helped around the parsonage and helped with the local “lunch program.”
This lunch program is the one service that the church here in Vrbovce offers that I could actually label as outreach. The local restaurant and school prepares lunches for elderly shut-ins in the Vrbovce area. (The village of Vrbovce is very spread out – it has a town center, but other clusters of houses are nestled in the surrounding hills a couple of miles away. So it would be very hard for a person to travel into town to have a cooked meal that they didn’t prepare themselves) The church provides the car and people to deliver these lunches to the people. The people pay for the lunches but the church delivers them. So up until May these two women that worked at the parsonage helped deliver these lunches. Now their paid year is up and the church doesn’t have any money to hire either one of them. They are both currently looking for work, and the church volunteers (A german, an American, and a Slovak J) are the ones to deliver the lunches. Adrian, Zorka and I take turns helping to deliver the lunches. (I’ll tell you more about my experiences with these deliveries in the next newsletter! Think “sweet old ladies showering Katy, Adrian, and Zorka with more cookies than they can possibly eat J and saying the darndest things too! i.e. (when talking to both Zorka and I and asking if we were married) “well why not? you two are so pretty!”) So since the church doesn’t have the staff to help with these lunches now – it’s left up to volunteers. For the time being it’s working out okay – but it’s a daily challenge to make sure that two of us have time to help out.
Church staff being stretched thin isn’t something new either. I remember talking in a Christian Ethics class at Bethany about how a pastor is to balance work and health. How much should one person be expected to give? How should the church arrange itself so that it’s needs are met and it can still reach out to the people? I’m not exactly sure…but I think the answer lies in a community that is willing to give of themselves…work together…sacrifice for one another…
Some flowers: we share some of the same joys!
I just can’t resist using bullets this time. J Here are some of the common joys in life that we all share.
¨ Birthdays! Both me and my host mom Kristina celebrated our birthday’s over the past month or so. We both had a party of some sort. Mine was at youth group and Kristina’s was at her home with son’s, their wives and the grandkids. At both places there was a great sense of joy and celebration. I sometimes felt that “love” was in the air – or at least in the icecream we ate J. It seemed to permeate everything.
¨ Babies! I’ve been surprised this year at how often I’ve seen Kristina and Dusan’s eyes light up at the sight of their smallest grandson, Samuel. Dusan struggles with pain in his pain from ears of driving city vehicles. But when 10 month old Samuel enters the room and his bright, goofy grin meets Dusan’s face there is a change in the atmosphere. Is it possible to watch pain disappear? Because as Samuel grasps Dusan’s fingers and they go speeding around the house (this kid could win the baby Olympics!) Dusan doesn’t show any apparent pain at all. And Kristina delights in her afternoon walks with Samuel in the stroller while he naps! It’s the highlight of her day. There’s love there too I think – the babies wrap themselves around our hearts pretty fast. J
¨ New beginnings! Two weeks ago my most diligent evening English student, Monika, came to English class and told me (eyes beaming with pride) that she had a job. This is the same woman who several months ago was feeling pretty down because of the diagnosis that the doctors were giving her. She’s struggled with a type of disease (I’m not exactly sure what) for a long time and has had ongoing health problems. Now she’s about to work at a local car company as a manager. Thank God for the hope that is found in new beginnings!
One Loving God: something we all share
“There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” ~Ephesians 4:4-6
Our God is a God who is over all – over people that are suffering, growing, rejoicing. Over all countries of the world – whether it be small town Kansas, an over crowded city in Mexico, a thriving new village in Africa, or a small quaint village in northwestern Slovakia. We may share some of the same weeds and flowers, but we most importantly share the same loving God. Our God is a God who is through all – he’s our foundation, our rock, our water, our life. He will never leave us or forsake us. He’s with us through all circumstances, all challenges, and all joys. And our God is a God who is in all. God is in our hearts and minds, he’s in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Christian’s all around the world are connected by this one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. If there is one thing that I’ve learned this year it’s that the Lord is with me where ever I go, whatever happens, and whatever lies ahead. He prepared me for this journey, he’s walked with me every step of the way, and he will be there to carry me safely home.May the greatest of God’s presence be with you today and always.
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