Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Ash Wednesday 2022

It’s been a couple of days, friends. I began writing this yesterday, but finished today, on the evening of Ash Wednesday… It was the last day of Epiphany, or “ordinary time,” the day before Ash Wednesday, otherwise known as Fat Tuesday. No paczkis this year, or any other Mardi Gras type celebration. I thought it might be nice, or at least therapeutic for me, to write down the events of the past two days as I remember them, as they have been memorable in many respects. At six on Tuesday, as I was waking up, I was planning out my morning run. But as I ventured into the normal routine of checking out what’s happening in the world (online), I was confronted with the fact that I had missed something overnight. Even though I had been in close conversation with colleagues from church about what to do about arriving refugees, the last thought I had before sleeping was that we would tend to the question more in the morning. As it turned out, one of our international students (a Kenyan) had met several Nigerian students at the train station who did not have anywhere to go. He called our pastor, very late, and was able to get permission to bring a few over to our church, which is a five-minute walk from the train station. One thing led to another, and soon there were about fifteen, all medical students who had until last week been studying medicine at a university in Kharkiv, Ukraine. They had been traveling three days continuously, and therefore were happy with what we had to offer, which was basically a place out of the cold, with internet, toilets, warmth, and welcome. So when I woke up, I was greeted with a question, “can you get to church by 8am to open the kitchen?” Of course I could. So I got up, decided to forgo the normal routine of a 5-mile run, and went to church to open the kitchen. There I met our pastor, my friend Aaron, and then Edward, the leader/pastor of this group of Nigerian students in transition. He was grateful for the place to sleep, and very clear in his goal to see the younger members of the group fly home to Nigeria sooner rather than later. The more senior members of the group, especially the ones who are slated to graduate with their medical degrees this May, he was more circumspect about. They may hang around and hope for the ability to return in time to get their degrees. How long will it last? We wonder. I offered to reach out to an undergraduate student here in Budapest who is from Nigeria, and who has been a regular member of our Thursday evening fellowship, to see if she might be wiling an interested in serving the group as a sort of tour guide, to help them find local charity and second-hand clothing shops for their journey. I texted Julie to ask if she can put together a list of these shops, and within minutes I get a detailed reply with all of the shops listed neatly and helpfully. After this I went home, a short walk, and I got ready for the day’s Hungarian lesson, starting at 10. Today we looked at ways to say “I need to,” or “I have permission to,” in various ways, and it was fun, and it was hard at the same time, as it is every day. But today I was more distracted than usual. After class I had a quick lunch. We had bought a loaf of fresh bread on Monday from the Mexican-Hungarian bakery nearby. They are the ones who last week found Julie’s wallet in their shop, and they took the time to reach out to me on Instagram to return the wallet. We will be in their debt for awhile, and it’s a good thing their bread, and other pastries, are A-1 quality. After lunch, I went to the university where I taught the small group of intermediate English students, using a favorite poem of peace and hope by Lithuanian-Polish poet Czesław Miłosz “This World" It appears that it was all a misunderstanding. What was only a trial run was taken seriously. The rivers will return to their beginnings. The wind will cease in its turning about. Trees instead of budding will tend to their roots. Old men will chase a ball, a glance in the mirror– They are children again. The dead will wake up, not comprehending. Till everything that happened has unhappened. What a relief! Breathe freely, you who have suffered much.” Czesław Miłosz After the English class, I prepared for the second class, on service-learning, and when I got there I learned that one of the students is going to have to drop the class – his family are from Ukraine (he is from Hungary, but there are many connections between the two countries), and he is very busy and worried trying to help them find ways to safely leave. Even though he has to drop the class, he is still eager to complete the service-learning hours. An atheist, he is intrigued by the concepts we had begun discussing last week, about how service, justice, and faith can intertwine. Today was even more exhausting, and rewarding. We spent much of the day, beginning at 7am, at the church. There were 27 guests last night, and we helped get a breakfast ready, prepare and clean up the kitchen and common area. Around 8:30 or 9, we learned that a new family had arrived, with a 45-day old baby, and that they were trying to keep warm in a bus at the train station nearby. I quickly went there, naïvely expecting a mom, dad and baby. When I found them, I learned that there were two families traveling together, with a total of six adults and five children. As we walked the short distance back to the church, I carried the sleeping two-year old, and her weight reminded me of the physical exhaustion that so many have felt these past 6 days of flight (and many years for others). Traveling, especially forced traveling when you do not know your destination, is cruelly confusing and exhausting. We arrived at the church, and they were able to sit, clean up, charge phones, eat, and begin making plans for their next step. I later learned that the father in the family of the baby is a cardiologist, Nigerian born, but living in Ukraine – all of the children are Ukrainian citizens. By day’s end, they had made their way to a nearby hotel. Others have taken their places at church – Julie and I return there in a short while to spend the night. We have also learned that a neighborhood restaurant has offered to begin providing lunch for up to 25 each day for our guests, and that the neighborhood laundromat has agreed to offer discounts for our guests. We joined our regular on-line Bible discussion tonight and participated in a service of Ash Wednesday observance. My most poignant moment in the discussion came when our pastor and friend Aaron made the connection between our conversations with refugees that often centers around questions like “where are you coming from?” and where are you going?” These are the same questions that we are asked to ponder on Ash Wednesday. And the answers are that we come from dust, and we are returning to dust. And for the next six weeks, we have the opportunity to ponder how that grim reality of our “dustness” is shaped and given redemptive hope in the reality of the events of Good Friday and Easter, those most important of moments in the Christian experience. In these moments of crisis, we are witnessing moments of great human compassion and empathy. We are praying earnestly for weapons to fail, for hearts to change, for the resistance both within Ukraine, but also within the Russian people. Join us, won’t you? (photo of a museum photo at the Busó museum in Mohács, depicting the arrival of the Busós by boat)