“First Parish Makes Third Trip to Partner Village:

Abásfalva Trip Report”

Part I

On August 19- 31, twenty-four of our parishioners traveled from Boston-London-Budapest-Kolozsvár-Abásfalva. The count of first parishioners was 26 by the time we got to Abásfalva because Cathy and Ron Cordes were already in the village following their chaperoning/ sponsoring a youth trip in Transylvania. This was the third partner church trip by First Parish since 1994. On this trip the age of the youngest pilgrim was 12 (Greg Boczenowski)… the oldest 81 (Eva Schafer). Nine of the 24 were youth ages 12-17. For six of the 24 it was their 2nd or 3rd trip. Since 1994, thirty-eight people from First Parish have traveled to our partner church village, in the Homoród River Valley of Transylvania.

Modern Travel Facilities Were Enjoyable

On this trip, for those who had been before it was an emotional renewal of old acquaintances. This third trip showed that we have finally figured out how to make things work somewhat smoothly. Emory Lazar, the Partner Church Committee Travel Resource Person, arranged for us a modern, well-equipped bus from Budapest to Abásfalva. Such comfortable travel certainly helped support a positive outlook for the trip.

Why Do We Keep Doing This?

Over the years, our partner church relationship has positively influenced both of our congregations. It boils down to a very simple and heartfelt human experience which elegantly stated has become our partner church theme song “From thee I receive, to thee I give, together we share…” We share with the people in Abásfalva our selves. For our friends in the village they give of themselves, their food, and their time. They almost stop the whole of village life to tend to us while we are there. On this trip we had three and sometimes five translators available so we could actually share opinions about many things. Our young and older people had an opportunity to really develop friendships. We all had the opportunity to experience each other's cultures and to “fall in love.” We got to talk about schools, inflation, exchange rates, crops, weather, government, food. It turns out the village planned a grand homecoming (“Falutalálkozó”) during the same time we were there. The homecoming church service was held on Saturday, our third day in the village. The church was packed with almost 300 people. That same day we went to an all-night party in the cultural center where we danced to a live Gypsy band playing Hungarian folk music.

During walks around the village we see the combine we helped purchase in 1996. It was parked and “resting up” following its third season of use; we met the kids that our parish is sending to high school this year through a program that simply states: “any child from the village who wants to attend high school may do so with financial assistance from First Parish, Bedford.” We keep visiting Abásfalva because both our communities have developed a caring and loving relationship.

Here is an abbreviated travelogue of the Bedford trip. We hope it will give churches which are planning to visit their partner church communities a sense of what it's like.

Day 1-3  Travel and Shake the Jet Lag

Leave from Boston on Thursday night, pass through London on the way to Budapest and arrive at Ferihagy Airport mid-Friday afternoon for the beginning of our jet “delagging.”

By now John Gibbons knows how to arrive rested in the village: adjust to the jet lag by spending a few days (Fri, Sat, Sun) in Budapest-lounging, eating, touring, doing the baths, visiting the museums, and riding the trams to the end of the line. Prior visits by some from this group and information from other partner churches, let us know the restaurants we would enjoy. On Monday the long journey from Budapest to Kolozsvár is best done in an air conditioned, roomy, luxury bus with two drivers who know the roads and the border-crossing processes. The bus only cost us $3,000 for eight days… $15 per day per person! Of course we know the dollar will not forever buy so much more in Hungary and Romania, but for now “deals” like this are great. Farkas Dénes, as usual, had us scheduled for an evening arrival at his favorite bistro west of Kolozsvár. It's Bedford's third visit to this restaurant in five years and they were prepared to serve us with magnificent Transylvanian food. It was very interesting for those who had been there three times to note the changes that have taken place at this restaurant. They've gotten indoor plumbing and have expanded to include a huge dining room that could indeed serve 30 people quite handily. (By now the bus drivers and Dénes have become part of our party.)

Days 4-5  Kolzsvár, the Transylvanian Capital

Denés has found very cost-efficient accommodations for us in Kolozsvár. We arrive pretty late on Monday, but the place is used to handling such groups as ours coming from all over the world to stay for bed and breakfast and then doing something “ecumenical” while visiting Transylvania. Breakfast is different than most of us are used to, but all including the youth give it a try. It'll do to get us started for the day. We visit Unitarian headquarters and meet the bishop of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church. His words were inspirational and made us feel good about being there. John Gibbons and he have worked together through the Partner Church Council. It's really nice to be so far from home and receive such a warm welcome. We visit the room where pictures are displayed of many of the important movers and shakers for Unitarianism throughout its Transylvanian history. We are told how the pictures were simply covered with cloth during the many years of communism and were not harmed. It kind of makes you appreciate what even the oppressed human spirit is willing to do. You got the feeling that everybody including the bosses during the communist era knew they were protecting important artifacts to be brought out again in another time when things were better. We have pizza at the “Unitarian” pizza restaurant… so called because the church owns the building where pizza is prepared and served. We are told the Romanian government is still in the process of sorting out who owns what real estate following the 1989 “revolution” so ownership of church real estate is not totally resolved.

We visit the Unitarian church where the rock is displayed on which Francis David stood to present his winning argument to the king about Unitarianism and reason. It is here that you begin to appreciate how the human spirit survives the meanness and persecutions perpetrated by the likes of Ceaucescu; how ethnic rivalries and hatred persist generation after generation. In this Transylvanian capital you begin to really know how lucky you are to be American; to have freedoms that Transylvanians have only recently experienced; you see the building where the Mayor of Kolozsvár has ordered the front lawn to be excavated looking for Roman Artifacts; but what he really wants to do is destroy the Hungarian Statue of Freedom which occupies a prominent place on the lawn. Amidst all this we find an all-night Internet Café where we get an email message out to parents and friends that we're okay.

Part II

Day 6   On to Abásfalva

We spend another night in Kolozsvár and have another “different” breakfast and then on Wednesday we begin our trip by bus from Kolozsvár to Abásfalva. We stop in the “Alabaster Village” to visit the church where Zsuzsa, whom we have met in the U.S. this past year, and whom we'll see again in Abásfalva, has recently accepted a job as minister. We see signs of progress in this village in that recently, natural gas has been piped in. We hope that someday Abásfalva will get such a luxury delivered to their village. We make a short stop in Torda and view the church where Francis David made his winning argument in 1596 (or thereabouts) and thus established Unitarianism as a major aspect of life in Transylvania. We stop in Sigisuara, Dracula's birthplace, and have lunch at the same restaurant we visited in 1994.

We stop in Udvarhely, a major mostly-Hungarian town in Harghita (sort of like a state or county in the U.S.).There are several high schools in this town. This year all students who receive financial assistance from First Parish, Bedford go to high school here. Csilla, one of our translators, joins us here and we head off for the last leg of the trip to Abásfalva. We notice a major section of the road between Udvarhely and Szentmarton (Szentmarton is only about 3 miles from Abásfalva) is being rebuilt with help from the European Union. We can't really figure out how this is occurring since Romania is not yet in the EU.

We pick up another translator, Rob, in Szentmárton. We inadvertently come across a family we know from Abásfalva. They speed back to the village to announce our pending arrival. We then bounce across the last three miles of road from Szentmárton to Abásfalva where we are met by about 100 villagers in a heavy rain. There are a couple of welcome-home speeches and then some of us seek out old friends to walk arm-in-arm the rest of the way into the village. Some of us are given flowers and grabbed up by others to escort us into the village. We get out of the rain and into the dining hall of the parsonage and hear more welcome speeches. We meet our host families then about 9:00 pm, sit down to a king's meal in the parsonage dining room with our host families. Around 10:30 pm we walk through the unlighted, unpaved streets of Abásfalva to our host families' houses.

Days 7-10  In the Village

The first day in the village we spend time with now 4-5 translators (Éva, Robi, Csilla, Áron, Zsuzsa) talking to our host families and others in the village. Having this many translators available (at $20 each per day) really made the visiting meaningful. We are joined by several of the kids whose families have returned for the homecoming and bus to a town (Prajd) where there's a salt mine that's been in operation for hundreds of years. We tour the caverns and find ourselves in a cave whose ceiling is 50-60 feet high and as wide and long as a football field. We wind around the high-ceilinged underground and come across a playground, a chapel, and a food service place (not open today). We understood that many people come here under prescription from their doctor to breathe the salt-fumed air. We lunch locally and get back on the bus to Korond-to shop for local pottery and other souvenirs.

During the course of our stay in Abásfalva we have several community-prepared and community-served meals at the parsonage. We always have breakfast with our host families. Mostly they are real hearty country breakfasts with eggs, bread, some kind of pork, coffee, peppers, and tomatoes.

On Friday the Americans, armed with simple farm tools, head up the hillside to clean up a section of the village cemetery with instructions from Reverend Barabás.