ROHOD, Hungary — Daily life brings many challenges for the residents of this small town in northeast Hungary. With limited infrastructure and very few jobs – Rohod has the highest unemployment rate of the whole country – people can easily feel that they have been cast aside by the rest of society.

While Hungary’s half a million Romani people are becoming increasingly recognised as a significant part of mainstream society, there are still few opportunities for social interaction in Rohod. Indeed, almost the only place where members of different ethnic groups, both children and adults, come together is in the town’s church. Recognising that this congregation needed particular support, a team from the Hungarian Bible Society decided to make a visit there in July to personally distribute copies of a special edition of the Gospels in Hungarian, with illustrations by Romani artists (see World Report 374/30).

Here, Pastor Ildikó Magyar explained to Bible Society General Secretary Ottó Pecsuk just how significant the church’s mission to the Romani community is. It has recently been able to set up a computer room which provides children with a source of entertainment. It also has a meeting room, and the Scriptures provided by the Bible Society will be placed there so that they can be read at any time by both Romani and Hungarian Christians.

Thriving

The city of Szolnok in eastern central Hungary is thriving compared with Rohod. Nevertheless, the Bible Society still felt it important to support one of its partners working with the Romani community there. At around the same time as it visited Rohod, the Bible Society team also travelled to the ‘Roma Chance’ school in Szolnok, where, once again in collaboration with a local church, it distributed its specially illustrated edition of the Gospels.