Busy July

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

I'm just surprised that after a few years of working with schools and refugees, there are still surprises along the well-trodden paths. Discrimination and prejudice are common. Within the church as well. That saddens me. But there is victory in Jesus. The laws in Hungary are slowly changing and we have them behind us when we speak to schools and school staff about receiving our kids.

I like to be busy and to have many things to do. July was generous in this respect. Thankfully it wasn't as hot as it was last year.

Although the school year had ended, preparations needed to be made for the following school year. The school with which we had worked in the past two years had "narrowed" it's thinking and had become more resistant to receiving new children. There was a change in the principal resulting in this new negative attitude. So, after much searching we found two other schools in Budapest willing to take our kids. One is a Reformed School (operated by the church) and I am sad to say it is the least open of the new schools. The other school is a remedial school which specializes in young people who have a tough time fitting in to the "traditional" school structure. They were willing to take our Somali kids who have had little or no formal education in the past. This is a positive point because the Hungarian educational system is normally quite strict about students presenting written records of their past education. You can understand the challenge when we have kids from countries with no functioning government system in the past 20 years.

So, we transferred two of our young iraqi Christian kids to the Christian school and placed a new persian young girl here left the kids from last year at the original school, and welcomed the rest of the kids at the other new school. Yamisi, the young woman from Nigeria who wanted to be a nurse, transferred to a school where she can train to be a Nurse's Aide.

We currently have 18 kids in our school integration programme. This was all sorted out between June and September.

In June, the European Refugee Fund posted it's call for grant proposals. This is the fund which provides us with the financial means to operate both the school integration programme and our housing programme. We were in a bit of a panic because our programme coordinator was out of the country and would not return until after the grant submission.

At the same time, Ron Wallace from PCC, International Ministries came to visit along with the Moderator Rev. Cheol Soon Park and his wife Karen. Also, Alex Macleod was here with a team from Knox Spadina doing a Vacation Bible Study for kids at a local church. It was a pretty chaotic time but thankfully all went well (I think) and everyone enjoyed their work and their visit. There was time when the entire "Canadian contingent" could meet at the VBS. I was happy that for the first time "official visitors" could actually see my work instead of just watching a powerpoint presentation. They visited the VBS, met with my colleagues and sat in on one of my Hungarian language classes.

We burned the midnight oil and were able to complete our grant proposal and submit it in good time. Praise God, we won the grant!

I thought that August would be calm and uneventful but this was not the case. I had more visitors in the form of one of my best friends from home. It was truly a blessing to spend time with her. August was also filled with preparations for the school year. This included arranging visits to the schools by the potential children and young people, speaking with dormitories making arrangements and shopping for school supplies.

Now it is September and I am trying to sort out my daily routine. I seem to a have a lot of free time as because of the expansion of our programme we also have more staff. I still have to figure out what I am to do. I primarily do tutoring but that takes place after school (in the afternoons) so my mornings are quite free lately. As I wrote, I like to be busy so I don't like to have so much free time. I will have to figure out a way to fill that time.

Where did the summer go?

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." Eph 3:16-17

I'm struck by the phrase "strengthen you with power through his Spirit" I don't know why other than the simple awesomeness of it. Maybe it's because I've been feeling weak lately.

The summer was an extremely busy one filled with some business related travel, visitors, short handedness in the office because of staff absences and a few parental tug-of-war sessions.

A few months before the end of the school year, my colleague, the coordinator of our two refugee projects went away on an exchange to Palestine. Initially we were a little worried about how we would function without Enikő but thankfully we managed fairly well.

Late may, I attended training held by UNHCR in Hungary on Sexual and Gender Based Violence. The point was to set up a protocol and a network where refugees could go for help in cases of SGBV. It was a good weekend and useful both in terms of the material learned but also because I was able to meet individuals from many different agencies who worked with refugees as well (NGO's, schools, government offices).

In early June the children in our school programme had a Hungarian as a Second Language exam. The exam was very formal and very serious and it would determine who would remain in our programme next year. There were no surprises, the children who had worked hard during the year did well and those who did not work did not do well. After the exam we all went out for pizza and celebrated the end of the year.

This month is also focussed on World Refugee Day. While we didn't organize anything this year for lack of time and finances, we helped to arrange a discussion forum in the city of Debrecen on the issue of refugees. This city is the location of one of the refugee detention centres and because of administrative problems and management problems, there were a few incidents of dramatic events in the centre resulting from ethnic conflict and frustration. Fights broke out between two ethnic groups and members from another ethnic group climbed a pole and refused to come down until they were heard. These events received a lot of attention in the media, written from an angle that was not favourable toward immigration. The forum on refugee day brought together church leaders and other officials to discuss key issues.

World Refugee Day itself was celebrated in another detention centre with NGO's, governmental organizations and refugees gathered together in celebration.

Also in June, I was asked by my colleauges in Hungary to attend UNHCR's international consultation with NGO's held in Geneva, Switzerland. Another colleague and I attended. We felt it was quite an illustrious occasion and that we were too small an organization to be present. Initially we wondered how much use we would get out of the week but aside from interesting presentations on a variety of topics related to our work, the week was also about us being salt and light and telling others about what we do. There were opportunities for this; meeting with other church linked NGO's and other organizations. An added bonus to being there that week was being able to watch the European Football Championship semi final games in one of the hosting countries. Truly a treat.

Of course the best of all and the most moving experience would have to be visiting the Reformation Museum, the Monument to the Reformers and the church were John Calvin preached and lived. We were encouraged and our mission was affirmed when we saw how much the advance of the reformed faith and the growth of Geneva had to do with the way refugees were received into the churches and the city. Calvin himself fled from France to Geneva. It was truly inspiring and amazing to learn how God used the great migrations of people for His purposes.