Day 48 – June 2 Thursday

First up this morning, Ron turned the mobile on & gave his mother a call for her birthday – amazingly crystal clear – from one side of the world to the other.

After breakfast we walked to the village church, there was a special service to celebrate Jesus Christs’ return to his disciples 40 days after his death. As it was a working day only about 25 older folk turned up so it was held in the rectory instead of the church.  The Minister held a lovely service, his wife played the organ very well, she had a lovely singing voice & the village folk toned in beautifully.  We were introduced to & welcomed by the Minister, his wife & some local community members, we enjoyed some coffee & chat with them.  The Minister showed us through the church which is the plainest we have seen yet.  The Reform churches are painted white inside & out with no adornment except for the organ & a beautiful wooden pulpit which was mostly covered up because it was not in use.  The Minister told us that the town is 225 years old & the church was built in 1866.  They just put new roof tiles on & they were painting the outside. Ten years ago they replaced the bell tower.  We love hearing the bells ringing. We gave a donation but wish we could have given 40,000 Euros as that is the amount they need to stop the rising damp which destroys the rendering & paint work & the structure of the building.

My grandparents, my mother, her sister, cousins & I have all been baptised in this church, the day my mother passed away my aunt had the church bell ring for her & on Sunday there was a service for my mother – this church is very special.  On our return Antal was ready to take us to the farm with some concern that there might be a blockade by the farmers, they are blocking most of the routs from cities & towns because the government can’t afford the subsidy that they have been getting.  There wasn’t a blockade to the farm.  We had some difficulty finding where the farm house used to be.   It was so sad that my beloved little birth home wasn’t there any more, the creek is overgrown by scrub.  The canal that flows in front of the farm where my cousins & I enjoyed swimming in on those lovely lazy summer days is now grown over by reeds & algae instead of the beautiful water lilies that used to grow this time of the year.  The fields are well tended & the crops look good.  It started to rain so we hurried out so as not to get bogged.  After lunch we went to visit some more people, Ron stayed at home to copy some photos my cousin has & I haven’t.

We returned around 6pm, my cousin & I took Ron for a nice stroll around the town, it is so nice & peaceful, hardly any cars around, everyone says good day to everyone, some people sitting outside in front of their house chatting with friends – a few people remember my mother even me when I was young (this could only happen in a small village where they remember you after 51 years). We returned at 8 pm just as the church bells were ringing (again).  We had dinner & a lot of laughs (we laugh a lot as I am trying to talk in the village dialect & remember some of our escapades from the past.  Antal is a hoot he can tell jokes nonstop).  Tomorrow we will try to get back to Kikinda, hopefully the blockade will be over or that somehow we will get through.  Next week we are supposed to go to Buda Pest & leave for home on June 10^th.