Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Religious Education -- Hittan Órák


The Lord has opened up a great open door for us to teach the religious education classes in an elementary school in Eger which is almost exclusively attended by Roma (gypsy) kids. The school is known as one of the worst schools in town, and is located next to the largest Roma neighborhood in Eger. Even in the school there is a display with the Roma flag and some texts in Hungarian and Roma language.
Az Úr egy nagyon jó lehetőséget nyitott számunkra, hogy hittan órákat tartsunk egy egri általános iskolában ahol majdnem csak roma gyerekek járnak. Ez az iskola Eger legnagyobb roma negyede mellett van - az iskolában van egy kirakat egy roma zászlóval és magyar és roma nyelvű írásokkal.

Yesterday was our first time at the school, and we had a good time. Rosemary and I were able to go together, which was nice because she is very gifted at working with kids, and these kids really responded well to her.
Tegnap tartottuk az első órát, és nagyon jól ment. Rosemaryvel együtt mentünk, ami jó volt, mert ő nagyon áldott ilyen téren, és a gyerekek jól viszonyulnak hozzá.

At our first meeting we had about 15 kids, all Roma, and we had a very good time. The kids were super excited to be there and learn about the Bible - which most of them knew nothing at all about. Only a few of them said that they have Bibles at home, and when we asked them about Jesus had done, they all agreed that he came to help the poor people, and about 5 of them agreed that Jesus cut his hands with a knife and then rubbed it together with other people's cut hands to mix their blood, or that he squeezed out his blood into a bowl.
Az első alkalmon kb 15 tanuló volt, és nagyon jól éreztük magunkat. A gyerekek nagyon örültek, hogy ott voltak és hogy tanulhattak a Bibliáról - amiről a legtöbbjük nem túl sokat tudott. Csak egy páran voltak akik mondták, hogy van otthon Bibliájuk, és amikor megkérdeztük tőlük, hogy mit tett Jézus, mindenki egyetértett abban, hogy Jézus azért jött el, hogy segítsen a szegényeknek, és vagy öten azt mondták, hogy Jézus késsel vágta a kezeit és össze nyomta az ő kezét mások vágott kezeivel, hogy összefolyon a vérük, vagy hogy ő vágta a kezeit és egy tányérre nyomta a vért.

Each week we will be playing games with them and teaching them Bible verses and basic aspects of Christian faith. This week we talked about Jesus, next week we will talk about faith, and see how it goes from there.
Minden héten fogunk járni, játszani velük és tanítani nekik igeverseket és Keresztény hitnek az alapjait. Ezen a héten Jézusról beszéltünk, és jövő héten a hitről fogunk beszélni, és aztán meglátjuk.

We hope that this will give us the opportunity to impact both these kids and their families, and give us some open doors to minister to the Roma community in Eger.
Please pray for us!
Reméljük, hogy így lehetőségünk lesz nyomot hagyni ezeknek a gyerekeknek és a családjuknak az életén, és hogy ez által nyilnak majd ajtók arra, hogy szolgáljuk az egri Roma közösséget.
Kérlek, hogy imádkozzatok értünk!

3 comments:

  1. Ez óriási lehetőség, egy nagyon "tág ajtó". Nem csak azért, mert (véleményem szerint) egy hívő roma közösség óriási húzóerő és példakép lehet (lásd Uszka), hanem mert ez nekünk is lehetőség nyitni feléjük, a kultúrájuk felé, lehetőség egy kis szemlélet- és "imidzsváltásra" is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am surprised by responses such as the ones your Roma kids gave you (blood in the bowl) less and less lately, but when I started at the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox church, almost 2 years ago, I was blown away at how much it seemed like they hadn't ever learned. I kept thinking, "It's like these kids have never even seen a bible", and that was actually true, kind of; they had just never seen a bible in English, and so had not really learned much about anything, because their Amharic bibles are in language too complex for them to quite get, even at 12 years old, though they speak the language.

    Nonetheless, 2 years later, if you ask them who Jonah is, most of them can tell you he was a Ninevite, and if you ask them what part of Isiah talks about the Devil, most of them can tell you the 13th chapter, and they can recite the "very important equation" that we repeat as a mantra: 'Sin = death', but I still often hear things that either blow me away completely. Within this month, I still heard my students say these things:

    "Satan was the brother of Jesus...right? But they must have had a different mom, because Saint Mary woulda beat his butt so hard, everyday, and he woulda been good then."

    "I think the devil will be really sorry someday, and he will totally ask Jesus to forgive him, and that happens in Revelation, right?"

    "King David was a disciple of Saint Paul."

    "Jay-Z works for the Illuminati, and if you listen to his music, you sell your soul."

    (that last one cracks me up, because these are the words of a high school kid who has never missed even a week of my class, and when I asked him "okay, say it does actually claim your soul. What happens then?" and the answer was, "well, I think after you sell your soul, the devil probably hands it over to Muslims, and then you're really screwed". XD

    So yeah...It may take a while, LOL!
    But God bless you both for doing that, it's really important work.

    ~Audie

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Audra - that's super interesting; I especially like the part about the Muslims!
    That's cool that you're teaching them the Bible. God bless your work.

    ReplyDelete