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Hungarian Ministries


Mission History

World Missions responded to the changes in Eastern Europe during the 1990s by sending Christian teachers to various schools in Hungary, Romania and Ukraine.

Since 1992, Dr. Frank and Mrs. Aria Sawyer have been teaching at the Saárospatak Theological Seminary. This school had been closed for 40 years.

Christianity was present in Hungary as early as the 900s. The Reformed tradition in Hungary dates back to the 1500s when whole parishes and towns of the Magyar people embraced the teachings of John Calvin. Today about three million people claim membership in the Hungarian Reformed Church, which includes congregations in Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia, and the former Yugoslavia. The Hungarian Reformed Church is divided into autonomous regional synods in each of these countries.

Persecution of Protestants during the counter-reformation, harassment by the Nazis, and subsequent communist rule damaged the prestigious Sárospatak Academy and other Christian schools affiliated with the church. Before the arrival of communism after the Second World War, most schools in Hungary had been Roman Catholic or Reformed. Since 1990, some schools have been returned to the direction of the churches. During the 40 years of communist rule and functioning as a state school, thse schools lost their Christian Identity. The greatest challenge for them has been finding Christian teachers. CRWM now sees many young Hungarian Christians taking up this challenge. 

Mission & Vision

World Missions seeks to help Christian high schools in Eastern Europe recover a Christ-centered witness in their education. As funding allows, we continue to recruit and place associate missionary teachers, with a preference for teachers with cross-cultural interests and E.S.L. (teaching English as a Second Language) training. All our teachers have an opportunity to affect the lives of numerous young people through classroom instruction, showing them a Christian lifestyle, extracurricular Bible studies, sports activities, and other uses of their gifts.

There has been a shortage of Reformed church pastors but today we see many young pastors starting out, often in difficult situations where there is still a lack of funding for ministry assignments. But each year seems to bring a number of improvements and warm hearts are restoring vision to the church. Similarly the Christian high schools are producing a new generation of young people with a better grounding in their faith.

Results

The Sárospatak Seminary has graduated a hundred students between 1996 and 2000. We can say with thankful hearts that the vision CRWM has for such projects is now producing many workers who go into fields ripe for harvest. The new work via Russian language is just beginning to open up a whole new area of Christian witness. The many students who have now been nurtured by Christian teachers are going into all parts of society and the opportunities for service are abundant.

Prayer

The most important gift you can give missionaries is a daily prayer for their lives and work. At any given time Christian Reformed World Missions supports over 200 long-term and short-term missionaries located in over 20 countries around the world. Through partnerships, our work extends to over 30 countries. These people have been called, commissioned, and sent by Christian Reformed churches to represent our devotion to Jesus Christ, and to urge others to accept His offer of salvation.

Here’s a partial list of items to pray for on behalf of missionaries:

Financial Support

Financial support is also crucial for the ongoing work of bringing the Good News around the world. Support can be given for specific missionaries or specific projects can be found in the “Project Giving Guide” online.

The Christian Reformed World Missions Team in Hungary

Frank and Aria Sawyer, Field Leader/Teacher-Sarospatak
Jack and Cindy Ipplel, Partner Teachers with Teach Overseas - Check out their Blog
Andrea Meszaros, Partner Teacher at International School of Budapest

More Resources

Videos
Video-1998 The Magyar's Faith: Rebuilding the Hungarian Reformed Church (17 min.)

Proclaim: August-September 2003

•Download the Word Document(16pg, 180k)
•Download the PDF (15pg, 544k)

CRC Source: Summer 2001
•Download the PDF (16pgs, 832k)