WELCOME TO THE TABLE
We are sitting at our table this Thanksgiving morning with full hearts for family and friends. The dough for Nazarene buns is rising, there are turkeys soon to be roasted, and more people than beds spread over 3 homes. We expect around 30 guests today and more than 100 tomorrow. These will be beautiful days of making memories. We wish that you were here with us at our table.
For as long as we have been living away from our passport country, we have been going big with Thanksgiving. As Jenna and her mom passed this dawn putting together the dough for our traditional buns, Teanna was telling her that it brought back memories of the Dachas outside of Moscow where she and Aunt Carla would repeat the same ritual - that was more than 20 years ago. And that tradition was passed down from Jay's mother - a precious connection to the generation that journeyed before us.
Today, we will gather around our Budapest table from at least 6 countries. We tell our girls that we keep this ‘American’ holiday alive wherever we are because it beckons us to intentionally pause and think of all that we have been given, wherever we find ourselves in this big world.
This table where we sit this morning, currently cluttered with a coffee mug and a pie shell, has heard a lot of stories that enrich our lives. If those stories, especially those this year from our refugee friends, have taught us nothing else, they have taught us the importance of family, of home, of hope and of hospitality, even in the midst of exile.
To be honest, our hearts are torn today as we celebrate at a table that is woefully incomplete. We now have friends who cannot join us in our home, cannot gather in their homes, and indeed, are without a home. They do have Middle-Eastern names, and some of them do not share our beliefs in God, yet, they are being grafted into the fabric of our gobal family. For this abundant gift, we are so overwhelmingly grateful.
Perhaps more than the taste of the buns, it is the beauty of being welcomed to the table that motivates us to rise early and prepare the dough. In the midst of our exile, in response to the mixing and the stirring, to the quiet conversation in the still dawn hours, to the gathering together, we receive an invitaiton: find a place at this table and partake in remembrance with thankful hearts. No matter who you are, where you are from, and how you came to be here, there is always room at the table where the bread is broken for all of us.
Journeying with thankful hearts ~ the Sunbergs
Jay, Teanna, Lexi, Sophia, Lydia, and Jenna
TRADITIONS
The Christmas Market opens on Thanksgiving weekend in time for Advent.
This is part of our family tradition - a trip to the Chrismas Market after Thanksgiving.
On the metro.
Our Ministry Spotlights invite you to help us reach up in prayer and to help us reach out with resources that welcome people home to the family. ----Click on the title for donation information----
MINISTRY SPOTLIGHTS
Anti-Trafficking Yesterday, a Nazarene, Romanian colleague and friend, Monica Boseff, shared that they currently minister to more than 60 individuals: children, women, and now a growing number of men. All of them are victims of human slavery, whether that be sex trafficking or illegal labor.
Earlier this week, Teanna took part in an anti-Human Trafficking task force -a meeting of people across multiple continents who are part of various denominations but linked by the World Evangelical Association; they are fighting to help people battle the human trafficking industry on a global scale.
Directed donations to The Open Door for Romania's trafficking victims helps meet their $40,000 need by the end of 2016. One donor has offered to match donations up to $15,000. Please consider a gift. (TAG for OPEN DOOR)
Refugees Two nights ago, the team from Serbia sat at this very table and talked of the worsening conditions for refugees stuck in Belgrade. As winter comes, the situation grows graver.
In Bulgaria, camps are overcrowded and desperate.
In neighboring Romania, one of the families who left Syria after a bomb fell on their home, and after months of waiting in a Greek camp, has now been relocated to a town on the border with Hungary, Ukraine, and Romania. The father expressed to us that the situation feels very hopeless, and he feels helpless to provide for his family. In Syria, he ran his own business - an English school, but here in Europe, there seems to be no way to adequately care for his young family.
Donations provide aid for people stuck along the Balkan Route & resource initiatives to help families become self-sustaining. Any amount, small or large helps!
Greenhouses Three weeks ago, we sat around another table, this time in the country of Kosova, where we visited a family with a new greenhouse in their backyard. The greenhouse is the tangible realization of a dream put into motion by Pastor Selim Kolgeci and the Thibaults, in partnership with NCM.
Five economically challenged Kosovar families are part of a new micro-industry project hosted by the church. The families construct and cultivate produce in the greenhouse. A local Nazarene provides a conduit to grocers that will buy all of the vegetables that the greenhouses can produce.
The families contract to keep a percentage for their own consumption, a portion is shared with people in their own neighborhood who need help, and another portion goes to market. Greenhouse partners also pay a percentage of their earning back into the original project fund, so that another nursery can be built for another family.
Donate to help start a new nursery in Kosova. Cost of 1 greenhouse = $3,000. (TAG for GREENHOUSES/KOSOVA
Volunteers We currently have two young women who feel called to minister to refugees. Both of these Nazarenes come from Balkan countries that are economically challenged and they have no way of supporting themselves in ministry. One of them said to us, “Send me to Syria or Iraq, where the need is the greatest.”
That God is calling Balkan women is a beautiful message of the character of the God that we serve. As a church, we believe that God’s call is no respecter of ethnicity, age, gender, economic or educational background.
Donate to support a Southeastern European volunteer. Monthly needs = $600. (TAG for SE EUROPE VOLUNTEERS)
THE SEASON THAT BIRTHS HOPE
We promise more Christmas Market photos in our December letter - and a family photo too.
Have you ever considered VOLUNTEERING with Central Europe?
Refugee Ministry. Roma Ministry.
Got English, sports, or music skills?
SHORT TERM : photography, videography gifts?
FROM HOME : IT and graphic design projects to explore opportunities, click here
follow our blog
ACROSS CULTURES
The Global Church of the Nazarene
Central Europe
Mandulafa Utca 10
Budapest, District 22 1224 · Hungary
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment