Due to the war in Ukraine, human lives are at risk, people lack basic supplies and have been forced to leave their homes. IDPs have reached the Western part of Ukraine and refugees are arriving to Hungary in growing numbers. The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid has been providing emergency response from the first day. Daily update.
Reformed Church in Slovakia is also preparing to welcome refugees fleeing the war (09:17)
The Reformed Presbytery of Bratislava, Slovakia, in cooperation with the Hungarian Presbytery of Veszprém, is collecting donations for those who have remained in Transcarpathia and for refugees fleeing the.
The collection of in-kind donations in the pastor's offices of the Hungarian speaking community in Slovakia, but the community centres were already outgrown, so they started storing the donations in a large warehouse.
András György, reformed pastor, told the Public Television that hundreds of people are helping continuously not only in Bratislava, but all the congregations in the Reformed Christian Church in Slovakia started kind of initiative - now coordinated under the leadership of the Bishop’s Office.
The Reformed community is also preparing to welcome refugees fleeing the war. They are looking for temporary accommodation and homes for longer stays.
The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid opened a new helping point at Liszt Ferenc Airport (10:11)
After the previous eight locations, from sunday onwards the staff of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid will also help at Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport. They distribute food and water to people arriving from Ukraine and travelling on by plane, and if necessary, they can also interpret and direct people on their way.
According to the organisation's data as of monday morning, more than 116 tonnes of donations have already been distributed, of which 35 tonnes have been delivered to Transcarpathia.
The National Association of Large Families also supports HRCA (14:15)
The National Association of Large Families (NOE) has offered its cooperation to the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid. Katalin Kardosné Gyurkó, President of NOE, personally visited the Western Railway Station in Budapest, where the staff and volunteers of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid have been working tirelessly for more than a week. The association has 15,000 families as members. They are trying to support this work by offering accommodation and making donations throughout the country.
The Bishop of the Reformed Church in Trancarpathia, Ukraine, confirmed that 2022 remains the year of thanksgiving, as previously announced (16:56)
Transcarpathian Bishop Sándor Zán Fábián insists that 2022 will remain the year of thanksgiving. The reformed bishop said this to the Transcarpathian portal (www.karpataljalap.net), adding that we can also be thankful that Transcarpathia has not been physically attacked, that thousands of refugees have found refuge, have been welcomed and are being cared for in the Western region of Ukraine.
„We should also be grateful that at the border crossings Hungarians, often members of the Reformed church, take care of those waiting in line: bringing them food, warm tea, helping them to find their way around. Of course we have thousands and thousands of reasons to fear, we are concerned for our loved ones, we have to be more vigilant, we have to think about how to put them in a humanly safer place. But I believe that God's caring love will remain with us, for which we can give thanks," said Sándor Zán Fábián. He said that we can be thankful for our lives, for our families, for the fact that many Transcarpathian Hungarians have found a host family, a house, a temporary home in Hungary.
Trusting in God, he looks forward to the future with hope and prayed for peace, and to those who were forced to flee, he told, not to sit idly by but to help others. The Bishop is not aware of any Hungarian reformed pastors who would have fled Ukraine.
"We are helping as much as we can, regardless of the fact that we have often felt that we are second-class citizens of this country; the Hungarian community is not making this felt to those who have been seeking refuge in this region", he told the portal.
Edited and translated by Anna Derencsényi, international officer of the Diaconia of RCH