The staff of the National Reformed Roma Ministry will continue to organise a variety of events, meetings, and trainings in 2024 to promote the Gospel values and the importance of reconciliation between peoples.
Protestant Roma Mission Meeting - Gazdagrét Reformed Church, 9 March 2024.
The Protestant Roma Mission Forum is a cooperation of Roma ministry coordinators of Protestant churches in Hungary, including Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Reformed professionals. The forum is an annual joint event that has been organised since 2016. This year, the Roma Ministry of the Reformed Church in Hungary (RCH) will host the meeting of the Reformed Church of Gazdagret, in the capital. Another form of cooperation is MIRROR, the quarterly joint publication of the Roma Ministries of the Protestant churches, published by the Gypsy Methodology and Research Centre since the end of January 2014.
National Roma Prayer Day - Reformed Church of Káposztásmegyer, 13 April 2024.
RCH will celebrate International Roma Day in April, once again, organizing a dedicated meeting and issuing a call for prayer together with congregations in cooperation with the Refugee Ministry. The Day of Prayer is an opportunity for Roma and non-Roma to experience unity in God, to share burdens, and to be reconciled with God, ourselves, each other, and God’s creation.
"Together for the community" network meetings - 3-5 May 2024 (Berekfürdő); 27-29 September 2024 (Mályi)
Christian community development projects represent an approach concurrently combining mission and diaconia. Besides direct efforts in church community building, it is considered important to raise awareness, nurture local values, and strengthen mutual solidarity in local communities. The spring and autumn network meetings will provide an opportunity for exchanging experience and ideas for local churches and ministers involved in the Christian Community Development Programme.
“Golden Bridge” Roma poetry and prose recitation competition - Reformed Church of Káposztásmegyer, 25 May 2024.
Since 2019, RCH’s Refugee Ministry organises a competition every spring, where applications of children from communities, congregations, and schools are welcome, which actively participate in inclusion programs of the Roma Ministry, supported by HEKS, the aid organisation of Swiss Protestant churches. The competition is open to the recitation of poems and fiction written by authors from Roma background or the presentation of competitors’ own writings. The aim is to promote Roma literature among Roma and non-Roma alike.
The final will take place in Budapest, where contestants will compete in person in front of a professional jury.
Roma Holocaust Commemoration - Auschwitz Memorial Trail - 1-3 August 2024.
In 2024, it will be 80 years since the Porajmos, the extermination of the last 3,000 inhabitants of Auschwitz-Birkenau Roma Camp II/E on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944.
To help build and keep alive the memory of Romani Holocaust, a competition, "Outside the Gates," is being launched for secondary and higher education students of Roma and non-Roma origin. The winners of the competition will also participate in the study trip. Spiritual events (devotions, remembrance in Auschwitz) will be included in the programme to promote reconciliation.
Roma Mission continued training for ministers, ‘Re-source’ Conference - 22-24 August 2024.
The national team of the Roma Ministry has been organising practice-oriented Roma Mission training courses for local pastors since 2013. It aims to provide pastors and their staff education in Romology (Roma studies) and access to best practices.
In 2024, the training will take place in the Southern county of Hungary, Baranya, within the framework of the ‘Re-source’ Inclusion Conference, complemented by a one-day training event in Budapest in connection with the Year of the ‘Living Word,’ announced by RCH.
Study trip of student in theology – Baranya county, Autumn 2024 (training week organized in cooperation with the Károli Gáspár University of RCH)
The aim of the field trip is to prepare senior students of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Education for Ministry, to offer them an insight into the work of the Roma Ministry, to familiarize the future ministers with the social and economic situation, traditions, and the cultural and religious characteristics of the Roma community.
Roma Mission Conference - Berekfürdő, 22-24 November 2024.
In 2024, the team of the Roma Ministry of RCH will organise the 10th edition of the Roma Mission Conference with the aim of building relationships and learning from each other among those Hungarian congregations which are actively involved in Roma mission from Hungary and the neighbouring countries (Carpathian Basin), including Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, and Croatia.
