Our group arrived in Mukachevo late Monday evening and had to show up to teach at St. Stephen’s Lyceum for class at 7:30 Tuesday morning!  We made it.  Mukachevo has been cold and rainy, but that has not dampened our enthusiasm, and our students have been warm and sunny.  Dut to our inability to say ‘NO”, we managed to teach 7 classes at the Lyceum, with diferent levels.  We had 3 after school classes, open to all ages, and had 39 students there.  We also had 3 classes at the Art Institute for college age students.  There was also 1 class at Public school # 4 for the English students there.  Several of thos students also attended the after  school sessions.

It has been a wonderful opportunity to meet students of different asges, backgrounds and interests.  The students welcomed the chance to converse with native speakers of English.  We did have to explain in one class that we are not “Native Americans” as we were introduced.

Pen pals from middle school students in Ohio were distributed in the afterschool classes.  Responses were written and will be mailed when we return home.  Who knows what lasting friendships may be formed.  Sadly classes here have ended until next year.  We know many of the kids who return every year for the classes.

In addition to teaching, we did other things.  We renewed old friendships and met new friends.  Kati, our friend and interpreter, has done her best to keep us on schedule….not an easy task.  Everyone at the Lyceum has helped also, but may be tired of directing us to the restroom.  Bishop has been a gracious host, providing us with with lunch, transportation and a place to store supplies that were shipped.

His father, also a colonel, was a physician. He  served as medical Director for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Our deepest sympathy to Csaba and his family.

Go to the Donations page listed on the SARA homepage at www.saragroup.org and show your support for children like Valentyna who just received life changing scoliosis surgery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAhCg1OF9ik&list=UULsLwLHmA2ZIdy4xWsntIlQ&index=1

From: Alexander Danyluk

Medical student of residency program

Uzhgorod National University, Ukraine

Dear Sir or Madam,

My name is Alexander Danyluk. I was born on December 28, 1988 in Transcarpathia, in the district of Rakhiv, in the village of Velikiy Bychkiv.

My father Miroslav Danyluk is a turner. He was born in 1955. My mother, Lydia Danyluk, was born in 1956. She is a seller in my native village. I have one elder sister Romena Danyluk, who is a pharmacist.

In 2005 I graduated from the secondary school of  Velikiy Bychkiv №2. In the same year I entered the Medical Faculty of Uzhgorod National University, on a contract basis. During 6 years of my University study my cost were covered by my parents.

In 2011 I graduated from the University with a medical degree and an additional degree from biomedical electronics.

In the same year, I started my medical residency training in the specialty of “general surgery” on a contract basis, where I am learning/working till the present. My practical internship I continued in the Central Hospital of Uzhhorod in the surgical department №1. In parallel, I am working on my Master’s degree on the field of general surgery.

During my childhood I visited the local Roman Catholic Church. I was the member of this church and here I received my first communion in 2000.

During the last 5 years I lived in the Roman Catholic Hostel in Uzhhorod. I currently attend the Roman Catholic Church in this town.

I am a member of the Transcarpathian Christian Doctors’ Society and a member of the Christian Youth Medical students’ Association of Ukraine. I regularly take part in spiritual, scientific conferences that are organized by them. I participate in medical evangelistic campaigns that are organized by the local churches and Christian organizations. After my residency study I plan to return to my home region in Transcarpathia and practice medicine in Rakhiv.

I am writing to you to thank you for the great financial support that I have got from your organization. It was provided through the Christian Physicians Society in Transcarpathia. At this time I do my medical residency training in the specialty of “general surgery” on a contract basis what was a great financial burden. My curriculum vitae you can find in an attached file.

My parents, who supported me financially during the 6 years of my university studies, had to continue it over the next years of my practical internship. In Ukraine these years does not involve payment of the beginner doctors, but we have to pay for our first years of practice (residency) in the hospitals. Furthermore, there is a lack of part time jobs for students and the few that can be found is extremely low paid. So I could not take a great part in the payment of my tuition fees.

Your financial aid covered all my accounts that remained for the 1.5 years of training and allows me to concentrate on my professional development without worrying about the tuition fee and spending all of my free time and energy on raising the founds not on my development in the surgical field.

Thank you for the incredible support and I hope that I can fulfill God’s plan and the professional mission that God put on me among my nation, country.

God bless you!

2013. February 27.                                             Alexander Danyluk

Családunk nevében áldott húsvéti ünnepeket kívánok!

Győri József

Jeannie

Dear and highly honoured Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

If we have our eye on the way nature is offering us weather with its dipping temperatures we might think that we need to be preparing for Christmas, but in looking at our calendar we can see that we are in the midst of Easter celebrations.

It is now that we may experience the very much closed unity of the two great facts of the history of salvation.  The Word became flesh and His flesh was broken and then resurrected.  It is all a mystery but when perceived through faith it becomes a way of hope, a blessing, trust and testimony in our daily life and grace for our eternal life..

The work in which I am involved is growing and multiplying every year, which means that the Lord has been gracious to bless that which we have begun in His name.

At this point in time we wish to and should express our gratefulness to you for everything which we have received from you in love, in prayer, in support, in vision and good examples in many different connections.  We truly miss your kind brotherly and sisterly presence and your previous visits but we need to also accept our limitation.  How wonderful to know that in spirit and in our future life these limitations will be absolved.

May the Lord’s grace and blessing be upon you life and may it help you and each of us to be fruitful in the work we do for Him, committed to and believing in His promise:  “I am always with you, even to the end of the age.”

Please be so kind as to extend my warm greetings to all those whom we know and may we, in this way, be united in His love.

In His name,

Daniel Szabo

A service for Bill will be held on Wednesday at 11:00 at St. Paul UCC in New Bremen.

Jeannie

Dear family and community of SARA. Esche just want to thank you sincerely for helping Valentine. My all very happy that began long-awaited treatment docheri.Blagodarim our God and we pray to him for further pomoschi. Now currently Valentina felt already better but still weak.

Director of Bethesda Ministries in Backa Topola, Serbia

“Then he set before them, and they ate and had some left over,

According to the word of the LORD.” (2 Kings 4:44)

Dear Friends of SARA,

In conversation with Jelena and Mrs. Roza Cipo

We greet you in the name of Jesus.  It is our prayer that you enjoy these beautiful summer days to full advantage and have ample opportunity for play and relaxation. I would like to introduce you to a new friend that I met just a few short weeks ago while on my trip to Europe.  Christ Church Orville UCC collects regularly around Easter time generous amounts of money and sends it to the Bethesda Day Care Center a ministry reaching out to individuals with disabilities.  Together with the S.A.R.A. mission board we have known all along how vital and important this mission is but it was driven home to me on this last visit in a special way.  In a sense it was a lesson seeing with new eyes what I had already known.  I went to visit with Mrs. Rózsa Cipó  the director of Bethesda on Wednesday July 4th in order to see how everyone was doing and to receive a progress report.  We toured the facility in Bačka Topola and I delivered the $1,200.00 that Orville UCC sent.  We were just about to say our farewell when I was introduced to Jelena (Helen) one of the Beneficiaries at Bethesda Center.  With a fragile body, braces on her legs Jelena was walking the hallway with assistance when I was told that she had been a recipient of Bethesda’s services from the very beginning.  Which started now almost a decade ago.  It was now lunch time so we sat down together and had an amazing conversation and I now have a new friend whom I almost missed meeting.  Jelena enjoyed talking English to me with much pride rightfully so for she spoke it very well, although formulating words in itself was often labored and most difficult for Jelena.  She shared her life story with me.  In the oldYugoslavia there was only one single school for the blind which was able to meet her educational needs, for Jelena can’t see.  So she had to leave home, her parents the familiar and secure for the unfamiliar while still quite little in order to attend a boarding school for the blind practically on the other side of the county in Zagreb.  With a very serious expression on her face she told me: “That was very hard, my parents would call, write letters, visit and I would come home for visits as well but I was there for 8 years.” Wow, I had a hard time holding back my tears and realized how important Bethesda’s ministry and outreach is to all involved.  We also had some good laughs.  Jelena had just returned from a church sponsored respite conference near Belgrade where she spent several days with many other families and her own family, returning recharged.  What did we laugh about? Just how the foreigners were amused about the name of the Hotel where the conference took place “Hotel Babe” (The Serbian word “baba” means grandmother) translates as Grandmother Hotel.  Jelena translated the name well and we had a hearty laugh about the funny name.  I am so glad to have met her, for I realized once again the importance of S.A.R.A.’s mission, impacting and transforming lives such as that of Jelena and her family who otherwise would have very little chance of coming out of isolation and would find themselves all alone.  THANK YOU Orville UCC and to all of you who so generously give to S.A.R.A. and our church’s many outreaches.  GOD BLESS YOU all abundantly ! I thought I would include a photo of my visit so you can connect the story with a face also the receipt for the $1,200.00 that I had the privilege of delivering that day. “Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.”

(2 Kings 4:44)

Shalom to you and yours :

Attila Szemesi

Attila Szemesi / Pastor