Hungary, Brazil, Ukraine, and Jesus

For the past couple of years, at the beginning of the year, we have dedicated a few chapels to celebrate Christianity in a few specific countries represented at our school. Last year, we looked at Christianity in Kenya and Korea. This year, we celebrated Christianity in Hungary, Brazil, and Ukraine. 

 

 

Hungary

 

For the Hungarian Chapel, Hungarian worship leader Mr. Dani Barbarics, from Budafoki Baptist Church, led our Middle Grade and Upper School students in worship in both Hungarian and English. He also shared his testimony with Hungarian ICSB staff members, Ms. Ildikó Appel, Ms. Ibolya Sági, and Mr. Hajdú Attila. Ms. Lívia Német and Ms. Ildikó Appel led music for Early Grades, and Upper School student Zsuzsi M. also shared what God means to her and what it looks like to follow Him daily.

 

 

Ms. Sági shared her story of being a refugee from Yugoslavia. She grew up as a Hungarian living in Serbia but had to flee the country to escape the Yugoslav War. She briefly described the difficulties of living in the refugee camp. When missionaries visited the camp and explained the message of Christ to her,  she decided she wanted to follow Christ and become a Christian.

One of the challenges Christians faced in Hungary for many years was being unable to share their faith openly. They had to keep it a secret due to persecution from the Soviet secret police. Ms. Appel shared that it was dangerous to talk about Jesus when she was young, but this secrecy made her very curious about Him. The restrictions only deepened her desire to seek Him out and understand who He was, even though everything had to be kept hidden then. Now, one of the things they love most about being Christians in Hungary is the freedom to have faith in God and express it openly.

 

 

Growing up in a different, free Hungary, Mr. Barbarics shared his journey of growing up in a Christian family, believing it was enough to be raised in a Christian home with Christian parents. However, one day, he heard a pastor explain that Christianity is not inherited; it cannot simply be passed down from parents. Instead, it must be a personal decision. It was then that he chose to make Jesus the King of his life.

When asked how he shares his faith with others, Mr. Barbarics said he simply focuses on building relationships with people so they can see that he genuinely cares about them. Ms. Sági shared a similar experience, saying that the missionaries she met showed her great love and care, which had a lasting impact on her. Their stories conveyed how building relationships with people creates opportunities to speak truth into their lives.
 

Brazil

 

Last week, while Upper School and Middle Grades had exams, Early Grades got to experience a Brazilian chapel led by third and fourth-grade teachers Ms. Dai Da Silva and Ms. Luiza Sekkar. Brazil is predominantly Christian, with Catholicism and Evangelicalism being the major faiths. However, as Ms. Da Silva and Ms. Sekkar shared, there are still many areas where people have not heard the Good News, leaving much work to be done to spread the gospel. Religious persecution is not a significant issue in their home country. They emphasized three key elements of being a Christian in Brazil: deep theological study, evangelism, and togetherness. 

 

 

Ms. Sekkar and Ms. Da Silva shared their passion for personal and collective Bible study as they explored what it means to be a Christian in Brazil. Deep theological study is an integral part of their faith. In terms of evangelism, they each shared different approaches based on their personalities. Ms. Sekkar, an extrovert, spreads the gospel through theater performances and missionary trips—she even traveled to Colombia and shared pictures of her experiences there. In contrast, Ms. Da Silva, an introvert, uses art as a means of evangelism by creating handwritten cards with Bible verses to distribute in the city and during her travels around her hometown. She also draws portraits of her friends and includes prayers with them. Mr. Culbertson found such a drawing she had made for Ms. Hannah Hocutt and brought it to the chapel as an example. The presentation also highlighted the importance of togetherness in Brazilian culture. Celebrating and enjoying one another's company, sharing meals, and having fun as a community is integral to Brazilian Christianity.

 

 

The session concluded with worship in Portuguese and English, followed by an activity where the children created their own cards, making the experience meaningful and engaging.

 

Ukraine

 

This Week, we celebrated Christianity in Ukraine. The Upper School chapel burst into applause when they realized Sasha K. and Nikkita K. were MC-ing the chapel. They opened the service by praying in Ukrainian and introducing speakers and worship leaders. Sasha K.'s mom, dad, and brother, Andrew K., led worship for Upper School. Mr. Sergei Klochkov translated for Mr. Sergei Pevnev, who shared his experiences with Christianity in Ukraine. He divided it into three periods: Seventy Years of Patience, Twenty Years of Joy, and Ten Years of Comfort. Seventy Years of Patience signifies the decades of hardship under communism, during which, like in Hungary, they faced religious persecution under the Soviet reign. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the past twenty years have been marked by joy as more people have found faith and whole families have come to Christ. Mr. Pevnev mentioned one elderly man who had lived through years of the communist regime,  who came to faith during this time, and asked him, "Why didn’t we hear about this sooner? Why did it take me fifty years to hear about Jesus?"

 

 

These last ten years, since the start of the War in Ukraine, the faith of many, including members of our community, is being tested. Some have struggled to maintain their faith in God and have understandably felt anger toward Him as they have struggled with losing loved ones to the war. Mr. Pevnev shared how this is a time for comfort, where the church is called to come alongside people, support them, and encourage them. He shared an instance of finding comfort in a Church pastor he did not know personally. As Mr. Pevnev and his family fled the War, a pastor they did not know personally opened the doors of his church to him and his family and gave them a place to stay when they had nowhere else to go.

 

 

These Chapels are intentionally timed to fall around the Christian Holiday, Epiphany. Epiphany is a Christian feast day commemorating the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, the moment Jesus Christ's physical manifestation was revealed to the Gentiles. When asked why we do these chapels, chaplain Mr. Dan Culbertson said he wanted this to celebrate the Good News spreading worldwide. He wanted us as a community to ponder...

"How we understand the gospel in our distinctiveness and how we communicate it to the world in light of that distinctiveness. [So that] people from different Christian traditions and nationalities would see their indispensable part in the body of Christ. It is easy for Christianity to seem very American and English at school, and it's not."