This year, for the first time, a tournament for church schools was organized in the Erzsébet camps in Zánka. Program advisor Janiné Sándor Kincső and brother Bendegúz Kovách were asked about the brothers who have served since last year and the programs that convey Christian spirituality.
For the seventh year in a row, the Erzsébet Foundation for Children of the Carpathian Basin (Erzsébet Foundation), founded by the Diocese of Szeged-Csanád and the Danube Reformed Church District, has organized the Erzsébet camps program. During the "church week", between June 26 and July 1, about three thousand campers came from more than forty settlements, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Reformed schools, as well as church schools beyond our borders (Highland, Vojvodina, Transylvania).
During the church camp week, the newly built open-air chapel of the Fonyódliget Elizabeth camp was blessed, László Kiss-Rigó, bishop of the Szeged-Csanád Diocese and Zoltán Balog, bishop of the Reformed Church District of Dunamellek, held an ecumenical service at the Elizabeth camp in Zánka. The two bishops also brought a beautiful Bible as a gift to the chapel of the Zánka camp.
Since last year, in addition to the TESOs who organize the programs, brothers (monks, catechists, deacons and pastors) also travel with each tour, and with their help, Christianity has gained even more emphasis. By holding religious events and spiritual programs, campers can be enriched with new and intimate experiences, and they can also gain closer impressions of ways of life dedicated to God.
It is a great joy and a test that we can hold programs with a Christian spirit for children from a non-church background
- said Janiné Sándor Kincső, program advisor of the Erzsébet Foundation, who is also responsible for the selection and preparation of the brothers. They face completely different difficulties here than, say, in a religious education camp: they have to "compete" with many different programs, so every moment, every small encounter, when it is possible to get the children to experience some small slice of God, must be captured and appreciated.
Children's musical activities in the camp/Forrás/reformatus.hu/Todoroff Lázár
I would like the camps to have as many Christian staff members and programs as possible. Their long-term goal is clearly to be as natural a presence as possible in the camps, so that many young children, chaperones and co-workers can feel something of the good fragrance that they want to spread as co-workers of Christ, and seek and follow this fragrance even after they return home.
According to Kincső, we still need a lot of brothers, and it would be good if there were more Christians among the TESOs. He also shared that while the brothers are roughly half Catholic and half Reformed, during the church week about one third of the children were Reformed.
At the same time, according to him, it is important that the others also hear the gospel, because maybe it will change their lives later. "It is very important that they hear during a morning devotion that God needs them as they are, they do not need to cover up their mistakes. Maybe later, at a critical moment in their life, in a crisis somewhere, they will remember that a long time ago in a camp, the pastor or the brother said that God is a merciful Lord and you can ask him for forgiveness. Perhaps this will lead him to the Lord.
Source and image, full article: reformatus.hu
