{"id":758,"date":"2018-08-20T18:12:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T23:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/?p=758"},"modified":"2018-09-07T09:14:57","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T14:14:57","slug":"refugees-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/?p=758","title":{"rendered":"Refugees Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I came to Whitehall and went with pastor Doug to the Lake Michigan\u2019s beach for the first time, I realized how much I needed my sun glasses that I left in Bratislava on the table when I left for the airport on the morning of June 30th. Going somewhere without them, feels like a punishment. You surely ask what do I mean to say by the name of this blog, why do I mention glasses at beginning and what it has to do with my stay in the US.<\/p>\n

After my first day at Lake Michigan, pastor Doug gave me sunglasses that he brought from Houston, TX \u2013 from ELCA Youth Gathering. On one side of these glasses is written #refugeeswelcome. Word refugees is noting strange to me. We have several of them in Serbia, even one part of my town is home for couple of refugees (not one family, maybe about 50) from the states of former Yugoslavia who have been looking for their new home after the wars \u2013 in the past it was a separate town (Tankosi\u0107evo), now it is part of Kys\u00e1\u010d. I remember how I went with my mother to one of these families who used to live in the old school building at the end of the town \u2013 in some way, we supported them. It was a nice family; I admired their modesty and humility but also the high ceilings in every room \u2013 I didn\u2019t know that it was the old school building. Even before I was born, there were \u201crefugees\u201d who stayed with my family in Kys\u00e1\u010d for a while and then they moved to Canada \u2013 my family kept in touch with them, but after the death of a married couple (that was in Kys\u00e1\u010d with their kids) we lost contact \u2013 the last time they lived in Vancouver, BC. You often hear in the news about refugees (the most about them two years ago). I even lived with them. Our Seminary, in cooperation with Diaconia<\/a> in Slovakia, housed several refugees \u2013 they lived with us in the dorm \u2013 most of them are no longer there, but there is still one lady and she is really nice. Now you\u2019re probably asking what\u2019s my problem with refugees(!?). Do I want to respond to Trump and his policy? No. This week (on Saturday, 8\/18) we had a wedding in Lebanon Lutheran. It was a couple who came here from the Washington State \u2026 actually, this wedding would not have been here if after more than 20 years two people did not find contact with one another. It\u2019s more of a private matter, so I\u2019ll be brief and I won\u2019t go into details. More than 25 years ago, pastor\u2019s family (before he went to the Seminary) in Springfield, OH supported one refugee family that had come to the US from Cambodia. They shared their story with us on Wednesday (8\/15) on the potluck dinner that we had at the church (by the way, they prepared Cambodian meals!).\"\"<\/a> This family moved from Cambodia to Thailand, from where they went through the refugee camps to the United States. Actually, they got to know each other at that time in camp. The story was long \u2026 On this Wednesday, when this family came to the church, pastor\u2019s mom also came here from Ohio because of this. What was most wonderful to me was witnessing the meeting of this family with pastor\u2019s mother after more than 25 years. If I\u2019d blinked there would\u2019ve been crocodile\u2019s tears\u2026 WOW. Pastor Doug has been trying to find this family for many years and after a long-long search this May a miracle happened, when he finally found them and went to visit them in Seattle. Before he left them, daughter of this family and her fianc\u00e9e announced that they wanted to get married \u2026 in his church \u2026 in Whitehall \u2026 2,000 miles away. So we were hosting the Cambodian wedding in Lebanon Lutheran. It was a really nice event. I\u2019m glad I could be a part of it. It was also my first wedding, where I could do something during the service. Thanks for this opportunity! The words are fulfilled: Reside in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and will bless you (Gen 26: 3). So, the whole week was about this wedding, but we had a Food Pantry on Wednesday; on Thursday there was Backpack event in the courtyard of the church. \u2013 I liked this event. Lebanon Lutheran Church really knows what the church needs to do for people.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, during the both services at 8am and 10:15am at Lebanon Lutheran, Michele (lady with whom I was with last two weeks) and I decided that we need to surprise people and show them that I know how to play on the organ. Michele pick up\u00a0Adagio<\/em>\u00a0and we played it as a prelude. I played this piece for the first time on the Thursday before Backpack event and after this \u201crehearsal\u201d we decided that we will play it on coming Sunday. Originally, we wanted to play this during my last Sunday here at Lebanon Lutheran, but I already have got some other plans for that services \u2013 and Michele will have concert somewhere. But back to the story, Michele played on oboe and I on the organ and people really appreciated this very much. It was a piece from 1980s written for Michele by her friend organist John Upham. Michele just now found out that her friend, who was an organist in her church in past, was installed as Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Atlantic States of the Anglican Province of Christ the King in Services at All Saints Anglican Church in Bolingbrook, IL! OMG! He is now bishop! Could you believe that?! \u2013 she said.<\/p>\n

After the 10:15am service, Kathy Keller told me that today I\u00a0need to go to Michigan\u2019s Adventure. I began to suspect that someone in the church reads my blogs here (especially the last one), hehe. But never mind. She took me there after the service \u2026 and after the \u201centrance\u201d to Michigan\u2019s Adventure I was supposed to wait for her son Josh and his friends. I waited and waited for over 20 minutes and then I just went to look for them \u2026 and found them faster. I\u2019ve tried all kinds of rides and roller-coasters (not only one time!). Even now, I think that my organs are moved to other places \u2026 but my head is still here\u2026 IT.WAS.AWESOME.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m staying with the Crouches this two weeks in North Muskegon. You already know them \u2013 it is that family that owns a pool. They are already my fifth \u201cstep-family\u201d. We just finished having dinner and now I\u2019m watching The Walking Dead with their dog Gandy \u2013 it seems that he doesn\u2019t like it very much, because he fell asleep.<\/p>\n

Take care! Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I came to Whitehall and went with pastor Doug to the Lake Michigan\u2019s beach for the first time, I realized how much I needed my sun glasses that I left in Bratislava on the table when I left for the airport on the morning of June 30th. Going somewhere without them, feels like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americantime","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}