As porter/caretaker I thank you for spending the night and dawn of July 28 to 29 with us. We, as the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship regard it as honor to provide the location for this uplifting occasion. We could almost say that the chosen “14” should envy us. By the way I did invite them all to this event but – obviously they did not want to act thoughtlessly – they have not yet answered.
Every speech that was made that night, regardless of its genre (professional analysis, sermon, witness, declaration of solidarity, political speech), was great and unforgettable (amateur recordings were made; as many as possible will be released). The art of Judit Rajk, György Kézdy, Ádám Fellegi and the Dzsentrió provided special enjoyment for those who gathered.
Some asked us to get an opportunity to join our church; others brought cake, meat, salad, brioche or wine. Yes, it was a feast. Thank you for everything for everyone.
We made an attempt to determine the number of present. Beside our church members and organizers, about 3-400 registered and gave their address. We also tried another method to count the number of participants. We asked everyone to drop a small piece of gravel into the vase on the registration table. Unfortunately the gravel could not be counted (as the sand by the sea in Abraham’s vision), because a boy picked up the vase and like the 300 desperate men of Gideon, in the hope of victory, he threw it to the ground. Never-the-less, we estimate that about 400 souls joined us in the court of our church center.
Some 40-50 souls waited for the dawn with intimate conversation. We recalled Jacob’s night wrestling with the angel (Genesis 32), where he was freed from the fear of his brother gasping for revenge for losing his birthright; he was freed from his bitterness connected to his father thinking less of him than his brother; he was freed from his anguish that his father-in-law could deprive him of the gain of two decades of work and ruin his whole family. But most of all his soul was freed from the winding labyrinth of an eternal hiding and defense. He understood that although he was crippled in the struggle, but even with a limp he cannot be pushed off the road when the Everlasting God has called him, in fact he acted upon the advice „It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire." (Matthew 18,8)
In the morning, the man who gained the victorious new name (Israel) summed up his grand fight like this: "... I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
" And the sun riseth on him..." – we continued the reading, praying and closed our vigil with a blessing.
When we looked above the blocks of flats of the 8th district we could see that the sky was a bit cloudy but we were sure in the wisdom of Job (37,21): " Now no one can look at the sun, bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean.
Gábor Iványi
4th of August, 2011
