In November 2017, we received a letter from Follen’s Partner Church in Transylvania. Translated by Kathy Spang, the letter gives a full picture of current church life and events. It is addressed it to the members of Follen who visited last April and signed by the church’s minister, Rev. Jozsef Dimeny (right), and two church elders.
Dear Barbara, Sarah, Susanne and dear members of the committee,
The leaders of our congregation think of you with great love, and from time to time reminisce about your April visit and we are very grateful for the time spent together. It is nice to look at the pictures of the group, and to reread Susanne’s blog. We really like Facebook because we see there your life. Barbara’s great grandchild, Sarah’s travels and family, Susanne’s valuable account of happenings at Follen. We think that you also must see our life, the most important happenings, these can be found on my page (Dimeny Jozsef on facebook.com)
You may have already seen, our community’s life is many layered and something is always happening. A few of the things that we have posted pictures about:
September 9 – Unitarian Gathering at the Torda Gorge. I planned this as Dean of the district, and it is the most important thing we plan each year. More than 800 people came together from the various towns and villages. This is a whole day’s program with cultural and entertaining programs. For the competition of Gulyas cooking, Szentmihaly competed with two pots – one from the congregation and the other one from the chorus. The gulyas tasted just as good as when we made it together.
September 15-16 – The Sunday School students’ camp. We planned this also in the Torda Gorge with their teacher, Kereki Katalin. More than 20 children took part, we had handiwork like stitchery, singing and playing and in the evening a campfire. Even the parents enjoyed it.
My family celebrated two round anniversaries, my father’s 80th birthday, and Artur’s 18th. (Artur’s surprise gift was a tandem flight in Torocko. He had wanted to do this for a long time, and he enjoyed it a lot.)
September 24 – Afyter the annual Thanksgiving celebrations, we also celebrate those who have a round anniversary of their confirmation (10, 20, 30, 40 50) This too was a lovely and uplifting togetherness.
October 7 – We held the Congregations’ musical competition. For years now we are creating an opportunity for singing together. It is good to see the other chorus’ development also.
October 15 – This was the Sunday for celebrating the Elders in the congregation. I have talked about it to you in the past I think. We invitee all the elders from our congregation and give rides to anyone who needs it, this year a group of Unitarian Seminary students gave a performance, there was a dinner and singing.
On Facebook there are pictures also of:
October 21 – Kidei – a small village where only three Unitarians live, 40 of us went there and we cleaned the church and the church yard
October 29 – Sunday school children glued Unitarian symbols
The celebration of our 500th anniversary in the theatre in Kolozsvar. We planned this with 5 other Deans.
November 5 – Our monthly “Together in God’s Valley” get together in Kercsede, that we plan each month.
Now I am thinking that it would be good to write a few lines in English about what is happening, so that the other members of your committee would understand what is on our Facebook page.
During our talk (on Skype) in September, Barbara said that now she is the chair of the Partner Church Committee. We congratulate her and wish her fruitful work.
We are sending the list of students who are elegible for a scholarship. There are two more people who have not replied, but if there are any changes, we will let you know immediately.
We greet you with love,
Bela, Sandor and Jozsef