Saturday, December 3, 2016

Czech Republic & Germany - first insights


Hello, I am Sándor, one of the EVS-interns with Atlantic Bridge this year. 

My EVS with Atlantic Bridge started a little bit different; I joined the group later in the Czech Republic, but before I was going to meet them, I decided to visit Prague, because I hadn’t been in that country before. One thing I recognized at the first moment: The city had a much deeper religious history than Budapest or I don’t really know, I did not expect to experience this in just two days. I thought that is why we are exactly in this country; if somewhere, here we could find people who would like to get to know other’s beliefs, so I was really looking forward to meet the group. 

On Thursday afternoon they were waiting for me and then everything speeded up: in an hour I was sitting at a table for dinner, we prayed and I got a question whether I am a member of any church or not and when I said, I was not, our host offered to help, jokingly, to solve “this little problem”. “we have here at home water, so if you would like… he said” That was the “deep water” how we say it in Hungarian and I think I could not have prepared for that, it was so far from me. And then no stops: little villages in the Czech Republic I had probably never visited or even heard about. Everywhere we put our feet, we were welcomed, which was really amazing. It was a kind of self-evident hospitality from people I have never met before.

In our one week long trip we visited local schools and did presentations about our organization where I had the same feeling, although it was really difficult to involve the pupils, compared to the Germans we met in our trip later. Of course it did not mean we could not arouse their interest, but it was harder. If there was a wall between west and east: in Hungary I experienced the same here. Personally the most meaningful experience I had on our trip was in Dresden when Timo hosted me. He and his housemates were Christians from a Mennonite church. We had a really open, but at the same time deep conversation about our personal faith. It was something I have never had before. 

Sándor

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