Archive through September 25, 2003 Log Out | Topics | Search
Moderators | Edit Profile

Former Adventist Fellowship Forum » ARCHIVED DISCUSSIONS 3 » ANGER & FRUSTRATION ABOUT ADVENTISM » Archive through September 25, 2003 « Previous Next »

Author Message
Chris (Chris)
Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 1:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Include the midwest in regions where potlucks are common (nearly every week). I've lived in Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan, and Missourri and we had potlucks in all those locations. For the most part pretty good.......at least if you've grown up with cottage cheese roast.


Chris.
Denisegilmore (Denisegilmore)
Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 3:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Dear Doc,

It's a good day to meet someone new. Nice to meet you as well.

You mentioned that we have a commonality and you are one blessed human being to be able to have neighbors, friends and family that know you and about you, and you know them in like manner. This is certainly lacking in this world in many places.

And here you would think that these potlucks in California churches would bring people closer to actually 'knowing' their neighbor. Sadly, this isn't the case. Most folks around here know what you look like but they don't want to know your heart nor hear your thoughts on many things. Sad, isn't it.

So, when are you picking me up to take me to my new home in Hungary? :) (since it seems our sister Lydell, skipped this topic...tsk tsk. Lydell?? What have you to say? ::::chuckling again::::)

May Blessings of His Peace abound towards you Adrian. In Jesus Christ of Nazareth Name, this is my prayer for you and your household this day. Amen.

Your sister in Christ Jesus.

Denise
Denisegilmore (Denisegilmore)
Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 3:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"For the most part pretty good.......at least if you've grown up with cottage cheese roast."

Oh Chris,

You made my day with that line. Thank you! :)

It's very true though, isn't it? That and tofu meatloaf.....bleck!

Blessings in Christ our Lord Jesus.

Denise Gilmore
Denisegilmore (Denisegilmore)
Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 3:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

". She once brought a contribution to the dinner.....a cake....with rather green and fuzzy frosting. ew..."

What, you didn't scrape off the green fuzz? Well, I never!!

Poor lady, God saw her heart though. :)

Shalom,

Denise, your sister in Him who strengthens us.
Sabra (Sabra)
Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 6:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The cornflake, pecan, oatmeal, cottage cheese cracked me up. Yuck! I remember that stuff and there was always some green jello salad with cottage cheese in it and nuts too. Boy, we were really trying to get some protein somehow!

Did you notice the smell was always the same? And yes, the ladies that skipped service to warm it.

Bless their hearts. We are having a "potluck" choir retreat the Saturday that my mom is coming up and though no one has referrred to it as potluck everyone is bringing food. Guess there'll be pork and beans and fried chicken and hot dogs that aren't beef and who knows, maybe a pot of green beans cooked with ham.

I remember the first Christmas party I went to after joining the Baptist church. There was salad with real bacon in it and all sorts of really 'bad' stuff. It seemed so strange eating with church people and eating bacon and drinking Coca Cola with caffeine.

We are so warped.

Hey Denise, It's about time you joined us again! We missed ya!
Lydell (Lydell)
Posted on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 9:09 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Doc, would it be too nosy to ask how you, a Brit, ended up in Hungary? What differences have you noticed in the culture? It's got nothing to do with the topic waaaaay up at the top, I'm just interested. My hubby teaches helicopter flight students, currently mostly Germans. And we are always interested to hear reactions to the culture here.
Doc (Doc)
Posted on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 10:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Lydell,

I do not think you are being nosy at all.
I will get back to you later in the day to answer your questions,

God bless,
Adrian
Denisegilmore (Denisegilmore)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 4:18 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sabra,

I'm chuckling over your last three lines in your post. They go like this:

"We are so warped.

Hey Denise, It's about time you joined us again! We missed ya!"

:) Missed you folks too! As warped as we are..:::snicker:::

Love you in Christ Jesus.

Denise, your sister
Susan_2 (Susan_2)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 8:23 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Deniese, where in California do you live? I'm in California. Maybe we can hook up sometime. My e-mail; is: susan1555@webtv.net*****let me hear from you. I attend a local Lutheran church and the Lutherans refer tp potluck as "hotdish". They don't seem to know the word, "potluck". I have relatives who are Korean by ethnisity and thus attend the Korean church and at the potluck where they attend meat is served, usually chicken but some beef. I was told it's a culture thing. In Italy and Spain the SDA' will have wine with their meals. I guess us white Americans just got the worst of all the cultural behaviors about food. It is so cute at the Korean church in the Cradel Roll listening to the little kids do their Sabbath School songs in Korean. Back to the food issue: I have a cousin whose daughter was away at a boarding school. She kept getting very ill and ended up for many months in a hospital. Finilly it was determined that she was deathly having near death reactions to almost all grains. Well, SDA's generally have a grain based diet so this caused a big problem at the boarding school, especially because her daddy was on the sachool board and he insisted his child have animal meat. The others said it wouldbe hyprocritial and not right to let one child have meat and not the others, never mind that there was truly a valad health issue here. It was finilly decided that she could have meat but she could not take it to the cafeteria and eat it with the rest of her meals. She had to eat the meat alone and be in her room when she ate it. I think that is so darn stupid since the SDA church really does teach meat is o.k. to eat, just not the unclean meats as laid out in Liviicus. When I went to Monterey Bay Accademy we'd get town trips intoWatsonvlle every month or so. The first place most students would head to was an eating joint to get a hamburger.
Doc (Doc)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 12:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Lydell,

As to how I ended up in here in Hungary is a very long story, but it was basically God.

I am from the North of England, near Manchester. I was brought up in a Christian family, but did not really attend church much while in university (in London). I did a degree and PhD in chemistry, and towards the end I got saved, that was in 1979. In the meantime, I had applied for a post-doc position in Hungary, and got it. I guess it was a pretty weird thing to do, but I did not want to go to an English speaking country, like everyone else does. I fancied Europe, and I also wanted to learn another language. I already spoke German and French, and Hungarian was fascinating, because it is not a European language - the people came from Western Asia about 11 hundred years ago.

For instance, the sentence, "You have given your life" in German is "Du hast dein Leben gegeben." That is at least vaguely recognisable.
Hungarian has, "Életedet adtad oda."

OK, just for fun, can anyone tell me which bit of that sentence means, "your?"

Hungary was still communist at the time, but I went ahead, with some trepidation. I was here for 15 months, learnt the language, and got to know lots of people, including Christians - mainly Baptists, Reformed, and independent charismatics.

I returned to Britain, got married, got a chemistry job in North Wales - could not resist learning Welsh too :-) - but always felt the pull back to Hungary. God really confirmed he wanted me here in several ways, so I got Bible college training and moved back here in 1995.

Things have been complicated here too, but for three years I have been leading a small church in a village in Transdanubia (Hungarian speaking), and also have been teaching at Bible college in Budapest since the beginning of the year. I also have my own translation business. I translate German and Hungarian into English.

There are both Hungarians and Gypsies in the village here, and in the church, so that is two different cultures and mentalities to get used to.

I suppose the mentality and attitude to the gospel is determined by historical background to a great extent. When the Magyars came and settled here they were pagans. The first king, Stephen, crowned in 1000 AD, introduced the Roman brand of Christianity, probably mainly for political reasons, though the church made him a saint. It was sort of, accept Christ or we cut your heads off. Oh, ok.

Stephen offered the country into the protection of Mary, who is therefore the patron saint of Hungary, so there is a huge cult of the Virgin here.

There has never been a major evangelical revival here, so that makes the situation totally different from Britain or North America. The 16th century reformation had some effect, but at the time the country was split into three sections - the Hapsburg Empire in the west, the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the centre and the independent principality of Transylvania in the east. The Hapsburgs, being strong RC, totally stamped out the Protestants in their bit, and that is where I live now. It is still predominantly Catholic. The Turks did not mind what the Christians did, and the independent bit was also more accommodating, so there are more Protestants, of the Reformed variety, further east. Interesting enough, other evangelical churches have since done better in that section too.

Besides the Roman Catholic Church, the other main determining factor has been, of course, forty years of communism. This system thrived on making everyone suspicious of everyone, so even fourteen years on, people are very suspicious of strangers, particularly foreigners.

Everyone who has come here has tried to con something out of them, so it took years for people to accept me, trust me, and figure out that I wanted to help them serve Christ without trying to get something out of them for it.

The general Hungarian character is a bit of a funny mixture. They are Central European, so rather disorganised and unreliable. What drives me, as British, crazy, is that everything always starts late, and people will gather together and just talk for ages, without actually wanting to get on with what they came for. They seem to be quite reserved and unsure of themselves, but they can be very opinionated, contentious and stubborn.

On the other hand, they can be surprisingly kind and helpful, and willing to do anything for you, once they get to trust you that is.

The Christian atmosphere is mainly Catholic, about 75%, but 90% in this area. There are also Lutheran and Reformed, as well as smaller churches like Baptist, Pentecostal and Methodist. The Adventists have been here since the late 19th century, and there are now three varieties of them.

Since the political changes, cults, isms and religions of all kinds have been running wild, and people are totally confused. Because the Roman Catholic church is considered "the norm," everything else gets to be tarred with the same brush. Scientologists, Krishna followers, witches and Baptists are all cults according to general thinking. People are therefore paranoid about being drawn into some brainwashing situation, and this makes it rather difficult to evangelise.

For instance, there was a program on the TV the other day where they interviewed survivors of Waco, Jonestown, Aun ?, and the Solar Temple, so people then assume we must be something along the same lines.

Add to this the fact that even the denominations you might expect to be normal are all very legalistic, totally wacky or both. It really does not make things too easy.

Having said that, I love my church, the people are really great, and starting to respond to thorough Biblical teaching, love, fellowship, and the Holy Spirit. There are some encouraging things going on. I also know God is doing similar good things in other parts of the country. If anyone could spare a prayer for our work it would be most appreciated.

Hope that was at least vaguely interesting!

God bless,
Adrian

P.S. Denise, do you still think you would like it here? :-)
Terryk (Terryk)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 12:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Late for everything that is most people I know. Well that was so interesting. Do you still have my e-mail. If so could you drop me a line there? Of course we have a prayer for you. That sounds wonderful that you feel called to go against such odds. Praise God for souls like yours. Thanks for your work and sharing it with us. Terry
Sabra (Sabra)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 4:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Doc,

Of course I will pray for you. Very interesting testimony! You said there are 3 groups of SDA's, What did you mean by that? What type of church is yours, not that it matters, just that you mentioned so many.

Thanks for your testimony.
Colleentinker (Colleentinker)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 4:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for sharing more of your story, Adrian. I'll also pray for you and your work there. How interesting--and difficult.

Colleen
Chris (Chris)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 6:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Susan 2, while some Adventist may want to *think* that some types of meat are okay for Adventists, Ellen White most certainly did not. In fact, she went so far as to suggest that one could not be "translated" (SDA term for "raptured") to Heaven if you were still eating meat at the end of time. I don't think an Adventist can logically claim to believe that Ellen White's counsels were from God then ignore her many strong statements commanding SDAs to not touch any type of animal product. It's one of those things that some choose to ignore. Believe it or not, this is one of the first areas were my veil began to be lifted and I began to see the inconsistency in teaching and practice.

ìIf ever there was a time when the diet should be of the most simple kind, it is now. Meat should not be placed before our children. Its influence is to excite and strengthen the lower passions, and has a tendency to deaden the moral powers. Grains and fruits prepared free from grease, and in as natural a condition as possible, should be the food for the tables of all who claim to be preparing for translation to heaven.î Ellen
White, Testimonies, Vol. 2, p. 352.
Freeatlast (Freeatlast)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 7:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Meat causes masturbation. Circa 1863 - Ellen White: ""A diet chiefly or wholly vegetable is best adapted to allay passionate excitement. Flesh meat diet is more stimulating than vegetable. Consequently it is plain that all those who suffer from too high venereal excitement, should abandon it [meat]... When children shall be taught correct habits of diet, much, very much, will be done toward the removal of secret vice (masturbation) and other species of unchastity from society." An Appeal to Mothers (p.9)"
Lydell (Lydell)
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 7:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks Adrian, that was so interesting!

Our pastor is in Kenya right now. Our church, along with another Vineyard, are just starting to help with planting churches there. This is Lyle's first visit and he has reported to his wife that he is surprised how many hours of time are spent just sitting and talking. Apparently their culture is one of, let me get to know you well, THEN you can help me.

We just had a couple who are missionaries in the Dominican Republic speak at our church last week. That was interesting to me. They said that after several years of basically getting no where with doing what they thought missionaries should be doing, they have hit on a way to do evangelism. It is definitely a God thing.

They said that they had noticed that people there LOVE to tell stories. So, they get to know someone who seems interested in the Lord, get invited to their home (where all the family is usually there as well as some neighbors). And they tell a Bible story.

Then they offer to come back the next week and meet again. Only this time they give an assignment to someone else to read a Bible story and then tell it to everyone. They said that most times the person has never heard a Bible story before. So they are starting from scratch. They tell their story, the missionaries draw them out with some questions (who is the main character, what did you like about the story, what didn't you like). Then they ask someone who has just heard the story for the first time to tell it again, with everyone helping with the details. This way the story AND it's meeting have gotten a hearing...twice in one session.

Okay, gotta tell a story the wife told me! They have a 7 year old son named Isaac. It seems that Grandma had once come to visit and had taken the kids off to visit a nearby farm. On the way home, Isaac somehow disappeared.

Of course when this was discovered, dad immediately set out to find him, fully expecting to find him sitting by the road somewhere sobbing.

Instead, when he found the boy he was standing in the road talking to 3 adults. When asked why he had stopped to talk to the people, he replied, "well, I'm going to be a missionary when I grow up, and I thought, 'I might never see those 3 people again'!" So, he had stopped them and asked if they wanted to hear a story.

He told them the story of creation, then the story of Adam and Eve, and then the story of Jesus. Dad arrived in time to pray with 2 of the 3 who wanted to receive Jesus. Does that just bless you? This all happened before they began their story telling sessions with people.

So Adrian, what ways have you found so far to do effective evangelism there?
Colleentinker (Colleentinker)
Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 12:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Great story about the seven-year-old, Lydell!

Regarding that quote above from Ellen re: vegetable diets lowering passionate excitement--I have to say that some of the most outspoken vegan-diet promoters/observers that I've known have had some the worst (apparent) problems with "passionate excitement" in innapropriate places.

It reminds me of a great quote from a friend of mine who grew up the daughter of an Adventist pastor. (She's now a former.) She told me once that her mother said in jest (but with an intended seriousness), "Never trust someone who doesn't eat cheese!"

There's a lot of wisdom there. . .

Colleen
Melissa (Melissa)
Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 6:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

There is a current Billboard that has made the news in town. It was put up by PETA. It says feeding children meat is child abuse. They said they did it to get attention and make a point.
Doc (Doc)
Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 12:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thank you all for your kind comments,

Terryk - I think I still have your Email on my old computer - I will look and get back to you.

Sabra - there are three Adventist denominations here. I am not sure how many people all together, I have heard both 7 and 10 thousand. (Hungary has a population of 10 million).

There are the standard SDAs, they have been around since the 19th century. The Advent Reform Movement is another group. I am not really sure of the details, but I think they originated in Germany, and I think it was in protest against the SDA involvement with Hitler. It seems they basically don't like anyone, but they hate the SDAs more than everyone else. I was handed one of their tracts once when I was in Budapest, and it was so deceptive! My friend Gyula knew who it was from, because of his involvement with Adventism at the time. It was clearly Adventist, as it talked about the Sabbath as the seal of God and also about the Investigative Judgement, but the word "Adventist" was not featured on the tract, and I read it all the way through to make sure! Several authors were quoted by name, and a book called "Great Controversy" was also quoted, but Ellen White's name was not mentioned either!

The third group is the Christian Advent Fellowship (Kerak - from Keresztyén Advent Közösség), which formed sometime in the 1970s. There are only 1500 of them, but they run a very popular Bible college, where Gyula went, hence my first encounter with Adventism about 4 years ago. They split off from the SDAs I think because they felt the SDAs were too "liberal" and too much involved in politics - compromising with the communist government. The history to this is that under the communists, the smaller churches were forced to operate as a free church council, and they were only allowed one Bible college between them. This included Baptists, Methodists, Brethren, Pentecostals and Adventists. After the political changes, for some reason that only the Lord understands, Kerac ended up with the college, and still operate it! They also have a weekly TV show, featuring the Principal of the Bible College. Kerac are basically historical Adventists, and the only Adventists I know personally belong to this group. I have been told by a cult researcher here that they have 3 more fundamental doctrines than the SDAs (sorry, don't know what) and they even re-baptise SDAs who join them.

The church I am a leader of belongs to a denomination called Evangelical Pentecostal Fellowship, which I am sure you have never heard of, as it also only exists in Hungary. I am not really a "denominational" person I guess. I have belonged to several while moving about several countries. I consider first and foremost that I would like to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and I would like to work together with others who have the same desire.

Continued below,
Adrian
Doc (Doc)
Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 1:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Lydell, thanks for your stories.

Effective means of evangelism? Well, I could make a list of everything we have tried that hasn't worked...

First of all I have to say that I personally am not an evangelist. I seem to be good at discerning God's will for the direction the church should be going, and I can do Bible teaching and counselling, but evangelism is not my forté.

God has given me good elders though, and we work as a team. Gyula is good at evangelism - now he has dumped Adventism and knows what the gospel is :-)

This church I am part of has been in existence for about five years, it came into being as a mission station, to reach out to the village. I was asked to help a little later. Well, they tried tent evangelism, two years running. Lots of Gypsies came, all went forward, came to church for two weeks, and then disappeared again.
I know many people have tried personnal evangelism, but there seems very little response. We tried operating an "English club" - come and practice your English with a real native speaker (me). There was no real interest there either. Gyula's wife works very hard editing a church newspaper, with a variety of articles to make people aware of Christian beliefs, and which we distribute free of charge. Many Christians have said how good it is (and I agree) and even a lot of unsaved relatives and neighbours read it, but no conversions yet.
We constantly pray for God's guidance, and we did have one convert this year, Zoltán, who is thoroughly saved, and got baptised in Lake Balaton in May.
One thing did work - Zoltán has a cousin who had just had a baby and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. We felt we should go and talk to her about the gospel, and pray for healing, then leave the rest to God. We did this. As it turned out, she was healed, and she and her mother got saved, but they are attending another church, because they do not live in our village. The important thing is that they got saved though, and that is great. There have been other opportunities in just the last few weeks to pray for and talk with people who have really big problems, and we think God is perhaps leading us to use a method something like this. At the moment we are waiting to see how things turn out.

I must say I am feeling a bit discouraged today. We seem to have so much opposition, and it is mainly from people who call themselves Christians. We just heard in the last few weeks how some people who used to attend have been going round the village spreading all kinds of lies about us, about how terribly we treated them, and how we are doing everything all wrong. I do not think we have ever hurt or harmed anyone, we just want people to get to know Jesus, that's all. This place seems to be such a stronghold of Satan, that it would be so easy just to give up and disappear back off to England. I am sure that is not what God wants, though, and I will probably be fine again by tomorrow - I usually am :-)

Anyway, that is the situation,

God bless,
Adrian

Topics | Last Day | Last Week | Tree View | Search | Help/Instructions | Program Credits Administration