Signs of Life from Hungary Volume XIII No. 99
Prayer update on the ministry of the
Dr. Anne-Marie Kool
Budapest, 28th May 2006
'Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit you way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.'
Ps. 37:3-7
Dear Friends and Family,
After seven months of a 'lull', the time is ripe to give another Signs of Life from Hungary, and a long one! It has been a time in which Ps. 37 has constantly provided me with something to hold on to. 'Commit you way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.' For someone who is used to actively taking steps in sorting out difficulties, this is an important lesson! Waiting, being quiet, expecting, trusting, handing over, letting go. Anyone who has ever experienced the reorganisation of a company or organisation knows that this is usually accompanied by times of vagueness, confusion and misunderstandings. In itself, I wasn't surprised about this.
But after a period of nine months in which hardly any progress had been made in the clarification of my new job, in December the Reformed Mission League in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (GZB) took the difficult decision to withdraw me from the Protestant Institute for Mission Studies and asked me to concentrate my activities more in the Reformed Theological Academy in Papa. After a period of eleven years a door was closed. A period of letting go, which actually began already in April of last year, entered a new phase. I had peace about it. It was not possible to work in such an unclear situation. At this time of 'loss' and in a sense a ‘divorce’, I again realised how rich I am: good health, family and friends worldwide who were prayerfully supporting me, and a very supportive local congregation in Hungary and a fellowship group in which I really feel at home.
'Trust in the Lord and do good ...'
In the meantime, my lectures and responsibilities as a supervisor continued as usual. I found great satisfaction and joy in this. The sixth year students from Papa returned with contrasting experiences of their field placements. In a role play, they depicted in which two ways you can pass on the gospel to young people today: either 'preach' at them, or try to build a bridge between their world and the gospel. My visits to some of them took me as far afield as Belfast in Northern Ireland, and a village near Belgrade in Serbia.
In the second term, an experiment was begun with 'e-learning', the use of the internet in teaching, though a collaborative project with Western Theological Seminary in Holland MI (USA). It was a completely new experience to explore the possibilities of the internet for missiological teaching. During a course on “Internet and mission”, the students from Papa discovered that they are not at all living in such great isolation as they thought, in a small town in the west of Hungary, but that they have a huge library 'in their back yard', which also contains a lot of material about mission and evangelism. Literally and figuratively, a new world opened up to them.
For the first time, I was asked to give a required Missiology course at the Gaspar Karoli Reformed University, for thirty fourth and fifth year students, a record number for me. They ventured to jump in at the deep end by participating in the 'Angel' experiment, 'Angel' being the name of the e-learning programme. We discovered that it can, of course, not be a replacement for personal contact and discussions with one another, but that it does simplify communication with the lecturer, because teaching material can be made available electronically, and assignments can also be submitted electronically.
Surprises (1)
Over the last few months there were constantly surprises, too. At the end of a visiting lecture at the university of economics at the department of sociology of religion, which was attended by eight students, three students came up to me who indicated that they were seriously considering going into mission! They were all active in the Hungarian Christian student movement, which I had known in its infancy, since the late 1980ies.
Four students from the Masters of Theology programme were visibly relieved when they handed in their theses after a time of extremely hard work. In parenthesis, to be honest, their supervisor then often breathes a sigh of relief as well! It is fascinating to go into all sorts of relevant themes with your students, e.g. the role of the laity in the Church between 1945 and 1956 (from 1945-1949 in a time of revival, and then during the first years of Communism); the functioning of discipleship in the local Church fellowship, often a forgotten concept in the Church.
The fact that this is not just theoretical is illustrated by the story of Janet, an American missionary, who told me a few months after handing in her thesis how she was trying to put into practice what had been taught about discipleship at a recently established weekly Bible study group for Mongolian migrants. What a surprise! Janet did not know that the first Mongolian Christians had come to faith in Hungary even before the 'changes', or that I had been in contact with a few Mongolian girls in 1994/95, of whom one had also come to faith.
Three students, busy with their doctoral research, have also made considerable progress, and presented the first version of their dissertation. However, they quickly realised (after I, as one of their supervisors, had been through it with a red pen) that this is only the 'beginning of the end', and that “a lot of water still has to flow down the Danube” before they really finish off their work. To some of them that may have been a surprise too!
New doors opened
A request from the Gaspar Karoli Reformed University came as a complete surprise. Last year I had heard rumours every now and then that the founders, the board and the chairman of the PMTI are considering that PMTI and the Karoli University, one of the founders, would work together more closely. But you hear all sorts of things... In March I had completely reached a point of letting go entirely: Lord, what new ways do you have in store for me? I realised that I had enough work on my plate until the summer of 2007: teaching courses in Papa and at the Karoli, supervising students, preparing my second thesis for publication, giving lectures etc. There was a deep peace in me, that the Lord would show me the way in His time.
A few weeks ago the financial director of the Karoli University asked me to come and see him. He handed me a letter of appointment as a professor, with the request to work out a plan by the end of May for an institute of missiology to be newly established, with an interdenominational and international perspective.
Only in the following days did I really realise what very special doors had opened: not only the possibility to give lectures at the department of theology, but now also to the about 2,000 students studying at other departments (including those who are studying Dutch). Also to be able to provide shorter courses for pastors and other graduates and to be able to continue the postgraduate program in mission studies, as well as to have the possibility to establish a PhD programme in missiology, possibly as the only university in Central and Eastern Europe. And all of this within a clear and stable university structure, providing for the necessary administrative support and infrastructure. I hope that in a later Signs I can report on the outcome of the negotiations of the KRE about transferring the library and some offices of PMTI to the university. 'Lord, my hands were empty; now they are overflowing. Is this not a bit much, all at once?'
There were immediately a few things which came to mind: begin slowly, step by step! Furthermore, how wonderful it is that there are already many more qualified people who can teach missiology than there were ten years ago. Also, that again a great miracle is needed, just as with many similar institutes and departments, to find the necessary financial means, because the university is not able to financially support the new institute other than by providing housing and administrative support. Again the words of Ps. 37 sprang to mind, 'Commit you way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this'.
Even more surprises ...
Within ten days after I had received this request, a number of remarkable surprises came across my path. On the same day, as when Janet shared her story about the Mongolian bible study group, the annual Dutch Queen's Day celebrations were held at the residence of the Dutch ambassador. It was raining cats and dogs (that's what you say, isn't it?), which meant that the garden party was partly a washout. Most of the guests, including many ambassadors, had taken refuge in the marquee. Towards the end of the party, I got into conversation with an African guest, who it turned out came from Nigeria. Already after a few minutes it became clear that he was the pastor of an African Church in Budapest; and that his wife has a high position at the Nigerian embassy. The very day before, I had been giving a lecture about the fact that Europe has become a mission field and that increasing numbers of missionary workers are coming to Europe from, for example, Asia (South Korea) and Africa. I had recently discovered that in Kiev a Church has been started by an African, which now has 25,000 members! And now, at the embassy of all places, I had met such a person in the flesh. I did not even know that there was an African Church in Budapest! Spontaneously I enquired if he would be willing to accept an invitation for a guest lecture at the university, which took place two weeks later. Most students listened attentively. Some students were visibly touched by his testimony of how he was called to come to Europe as a missionary worker.
A few days later, I attended a lecture about the Church situation in China, which was referred to as historical. There appeared to be such a vast interest in China, that for more than an hour, one question after another was posed. Rev. Aiming Wang, vice president of Nanjing Theological Seminary, emphasised that the contacts between the Chinese Church and the Hungarian Church date from a time long before the 'changes', and he made a plea for these to be renewed and strengthened. At the end, in a personal conversation, it turned out that we had many mutual acquaintances.
At the reception, following the lecture, I met the pastor of one of the five Chinese Churches in Budapest, and an elder, also Chinese, who turned out to speaks fluent Hungarian, and Flemish, because he had been born in Belgium! When I told this story later on to the head of the department of Dutch language and culture, she immediately responded, 'But then I'll invite him to give a visiting lecture!'
Finally
In my last Signs of life, I referred to the hymn from which the title of my thesis is derived. In recent times, I have often sung, 'God moves in a mysterious way'. What particularly appealed to me were the words, 'His purpose will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.'
In the past year, I have learned a lot about letting go, to rely on Christ in a new way as well as a sort of holy 'independence' from what others think about you, and a new sort of freedom from the time pressure under which we are so often living (of the chronos) and learned to wait more for God's time (the kairos) and to allow my life to be determined by the latter. Of course this does not mean that I do not sometimes really feel the pressure of time, particularly now in with the end of May deadline approaching!
Please pray in the coming days and weeks for wisdom to finishing the plan for the new Institute for Missiology, especially in the light of something a good friend recently asked me, 'What would you like to do with the next fifteen years of your life?' This set me thinking, 'What does the Lord want me to do?' Pray also for the rounding off of the academic year, for the conducting of oral exams, the assessment of theses etc. Pray also for someone to help me for about ten days with filing and organising my administration, preferably in the first half of June.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Anne-Marie Kool
Anne-Marie Kool was seconded by the Reformed Mission League in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (GZB) in 1993 to the Reformed Church in Hungary, with the assignment to establish the Protestant Institute for Mission Studies (PMTI) in Budapest. In 1998, she was appointed as a professor of missiology at the Reformed Theological Academy in Papa, and from June 2006 at the Gaspar Karoli Reformed University. She is also actively involved in the Reformed Church in the high-rise residential area where she lives (Gazdagret, Budapest).
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The Karoli Gaspar Reformed University / MKI, Kalvin ter 9, P.O. Box 64, 1461 Budapest, Hungary. Tel. +36 1-455 90 60. E-mail: anne-marie.kool@kre.hu or amkool@t-online.hu.
