We are jolting from one pothole into another, and then the car gives in once and for all. With a sigh, we are clambering out of the vehicle in one of the streets of Nagydobrony; Pastor Pista and I are ripping the hood open, only to find out that prayer might now be the only thing that is of help here. The Carpathian Mountains are visible in the distance, the peaks are hovering in a similar kind of radiance as our imagination is at the location of a distant battlefield. Our relief agency called us to a country where weapons have been rattling for a considerable time now, and this fills hearts with a constant feeling of insecurity, to a land where the familiar conditions of poverty are deepened to distress by the economic shock caused by the war.

Nagydobrony (Velyka Dobron’) lies nearly fifty kilometres (some thirty miles) from Uzhhorod and twenty-something kilometres (about fifteen miles) from Mukacheve between the rivulets Szernye and Latorca (Latoryts’a). There are even two important roads passing through the settlement: one of them running between Chop and Mukacheve, the other connecting Chop and Berehove, and these two meet in the centre of the village. A mere kilometre (less than a mile) to the west of the settlement, Kisdobrony (Mala Dobron’) is awaiting a better life, as does Batiovo at a ten kilometre (approx. six mile) distance: that is where the nearest railway station is found.

As the traveller can conclude, it’s sighs that form the most characteristic link between locals.

Like other parts of one-time Hungary, lost to the Trianon peace treaty at the end of the First World War, the Transcarpathian (Subcarpathian, from the Hungarian perspective) region also had its own ample share of troubles, and this was no different in the area around Dobrony. At one time, the settlement was the target of Western media propaganda, thus acquiring a ghastly reputation. The story was caught up by hearsay to keep it rolling for decades: Nagydobrony is the largest Hungarian community in Transcarpathia.  They maintain their folk costumes and traditions to this day.  The Soviets bombed the area a long time after the end of the Second World War and razed it to the ground during their reign of terror.

Life has remained hard in the region, and now the people of Dobrony live in fear of this current conflict: the power struggle between the Russians and the Ukrainians, along with the various world superpowers.  These people are now in danger of becoming toys on the playground of world history. The threat of war becomes a part of everyday life, as a military call-up can come at any moment.  Anyone has a chance of being sent to the front, to the slaughterhouse of foreign interests.

Not much of these misgivings and insecurity can be felt in the Gypsy camps of Kisdobrony and Nagydobrony, though. Time seems to have to come to a halt there, it’s only need, helplessness, an early old age and hope-deprived youthful years that are turning their dusty faces towards the visitor.

A group of North Carolina Baptists, consisting of dentists, nurses and two doctors – one of them an internist and the other one an ophthalmologist – arrived in Hungary on Friday, May 15^th at noon. Eight people of Baptist Aid staff joined the eleven-member delegation afterwards on the further journey from Budapest to the Transcarpathian region. The nearby church is closed, the Romany are patiently waiting in front of the building where their teeth are being examined and treated; not far from the place, one or two kids are playing soccer. In the house, the American dentist and his assistant are leaning over the patient, next to them, Áron Szenczy is watching the procedure, and he is doing the translation when needed.

“It’s my first time pulling teeth out, I mean, it’s my first time doing the translation between a patient and a dentist during such a procedure. It happens that there are as many as four of us standing around the chair, it is often my task to handle even the aspirator.” Áron is saying this with an enthusiastic smile on his face. Of course, he had never had a single of his tooth ever extracted before.

“How do children behave?”

“They are really extraordinary. It’s true, there were two of them who were jumping out of the chair and tried to run away, but most of them were only smiling and sitting motionless. Adults reacted in a similar manner: the majority were ready to admit that all this was for their sake, but this is not to say that there was no one who would have rather liked to run away; while others didn’t even sit down to wait for their turn but rather went home after giving their data, since they were so afraid. Those in need primarily arrive from Nagydobrony, Kisdobrony and Lucska (Velyki Luchky), mostly the inhabitants of local Romany camps. Several of them were taken to the workplace of the medical group by the minibus of the relief agency. I’m hugely enjoying this work. My bed is also in the same room as the doctor’s at the place where we are staying, and when I have a question, I do not have to be afraid to ask him one even during leisure time, and he is happy to answer them all. I’m learning a great deal.”

At this moment, Áron is spinning around and collaring one of the urchins, who was about to gallop past us. As it turns out, he is one of the two kids who wanted to escape from the dentist’s chair. It is difficult to make him talk, but I do not let him go easily.

“What did they do to your teeth?”

“They pulled it out.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, that’s something I find hard to believe. Did it give you pain before it was pulled out?”

“It did. As soon as I went out when there was a little wind, it would go aching.”

That is as far as the other child, the previous one’s friend can endure staying silent, now he is shrieking to interrupt:

“Mine ached, too, only mine even more than his…”

The Americans arrived from North Carolina, from several of the church congregations of the city of Raleigh. They had been in similar missions before, that is the only reason why Transcarpathia did not cause a cultural shock to them. Incidentally, Raleigh is the capital of, and with its 380 thousand inhabitants, the second most populous settlement in the state after Charlotte. It is also known as the City of Oaks because of the oak trees growing there. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Raleigh is one of the most dynamically developing settlement structures of the USA, which is something that can scarcely be said about the region where the Baptists of that city have come from to help on this occasion.

“Our congregation is mission-centered, the volunteers who made the cooperation request travelled at their own expense, the equipment and medicines are also covered by themselves” this is how the group is introduced to us by retired engineer and manager Mark Munday, who had worked for a gas supply company earlier. He started to be involved in voluntary activities after his retirement, and he had already been to the sites of several disasters: he had participated in the response to hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and he had worked in Latin America and Asia several times. He arrived in Transcarpathia with his wife, who is a nurse.

Mark tells us that those in need first have their blood pressure measured and go through a general assessment of their condition, their data are recorded, and then a decision is made about who needs what kind of intervention. It is after this that they are directed either to the dentist, to the internist or the ophthalmologist.

On the part of HBAid, the activities of the joint Hungarian-American mission were coordinated by Bora Kim, who told us that the one-week period was not entirely spent healing diseases and extracting teeth.

“We organized activity sessions for the children on Sundays, we were having games, doing sports. After the church service, we called the mothers together in order to teach them how to clean the teeth of children, even of infants. It is especially important to teach them because saying that people in the vicinity neglect themselves is a huge understatement, not infrequently, they brush their teeth only once a week. They don’t know how much it matters for them to take care of themselves already at a young age, how this can help in preventing greater problems from arising later."

“How do you evaluate the activities of the mission?”

“I can see that there is a huge need, and I am pleased to see the effective teamwork. Of course, we are not able to help everybody, but we do everything that our capabilities and opportunities allow. We and our American partners have visited here earlier, but this is the first time that we had dentists coming.”

“What do you think about the work done by the Americans?”

“They worked hard. One group of dentists even gave up their lunch break to be able to provide care for as many needy people as possible.”

One of the dentist was removing tartar, the other one assumed the task of extracting teeth, the ophthalmologist took reading glasses with himself, one of the nurse was cleaning the children’s teeth, and then instructed them how to do the same themselves. The pharmacist managed the distribution of the medicines.

The work of the American-Hungarian group summed up by Bora Kim, as reflected in numbers: the nurses performed altogether 674 examinations, medicines were given in 1397 instances, 258 needy Transcarpathians had their eyesight examined, 132 locals were given reading glasses, 17 patients received eye drops, and 83 people were treated by the dentists.

I have the privilege of being invited by Pastor Pista, i.e. István Papp, one of the Romany, to his home. Before getting out of his car, I am about to bundle my laptop and photographer’s equipment together, but he is stopping me with a gesture of his hand: I can leave it all there on the seat, in the unlocked vehicle. Nobody in the Gypsy camp would touch his car. His grounds are well taken care of, and he does not only grow plants, he also has some animals. The aftermath of some kind of argument can be felt in his house, because Pista is making a short oration about the importance of love within the family before turning towards me in anticipation of the questions.

“How much did this program prove itself useful?”

“We have very important days behind us, and I think, God’s will is also there in what took place. After all, it’s a fact that Romany children, women and men are in an enormous need, and it’s a great blessing for them if they get medicines and are examined by a doctor. It is a chance for diseases to be discovered and for a cure to be found for them by the volunteers. It is a blessing in our lives, a manifestation of mercy from God and from Baptist Aid.”

“Transcarpathia is known to be a poor region, and life conditions are especially bad in the Gypsy camps. Did the recent period bring a success in alleviating the needs?”

“I serve in this camp as a pastor. We do not only teach people to love and serve God, we also tell them that God would like them to disentangle themselves from this poverty.”

“How is this possible?”

“Only if those who should be taught to work are taught to work, if those who should be taught to think are taught to think, if those who should be called to account are called to account. As I see things, since our congregation exists, since we started getting help from Sándor Szenczy, there has been a great amount of blessing on us, I have been experiencing a lot of development in the most diverse areas. Yes, there is a possibility for change, our conditions improved.”

“The Gypsies of this place speak Hungarian. What do the Hungarian language, the ties with Hungary mean to them?”

“We live in a Hungarian village, Nagydobrony is a Hungarian settlement. Still, because we are Romany people, we feel the outcasthood characteristic of the world of the Romany, and this bonds us predominantly with other Romany people.”

“What kind of help would be needed besides donations and medical care?”

“In the first place, having accepted what we now get, we are very grateful for everything. You probably see yourselves what conditions are like. There is only a dirt road, and when it rains, the neighborhood becomes virtually inaccessible. This is not good because of hygienic reasons, and also, children are mostly unable to get to the kindergarten or to the school. If some kind of support and help could be found concerning this, that would be something we would be very thankful to accept.”

“So the road needs to be straightened: both figuratively, and in a literal sense of the word.”

“Our prayer house has been severely damaged. We renovated the building fifteen years ago with the help of a Dutch mission, but we were unable to spend anything on it since then. We call its lower storey a cellar, there is water standing there. This is something that should be fixed at any price, the reason being that the church cannot fall, since it functions as the starting point of all help. All support, everything that can improve the lives of the Romany here, has its foundation there.”

István Papp is a pastor of the Új Élet Keresztyén Roma Egyház (‘New Life Christian Romany Church’). They are free Christians, at least that’s how the pastor specifies their faith, who believes that this is the congregational arrangement most appropriate to the Romany temperament and desire for freedom.

“This is our own call, which does not simply work on a Calvinist, neither on a Baptist basis, rather, it follows the characteristic pattern of thinking of the Romany,” remarks Pista Papp about the matter, who had earlier been an elder of a Calvinist Church. At the same time, it is a fact that the Romany pastors of Transcarpathia were taught by Hungarian and American Baptist pastors, so in their own way, they still tread the Baptist road.

The Romany already form the majority of two Transcarpathian settlements, in another twelve villages, the percentage of the Gypsy community is no less than one fourth of the total population: seven of these have a Hungarian majority. Their lifestyle is fundamentally different from that of the Romany of Hungary, since the former live in Gypsy camps. From the altogether 14 thousand Romany inhabitants of Transcarpathia, 62 percent consider Hungarian their mother tongue. Once we are into numbers, it is worth mentioning that a mere 33 percent of the population qualifies as being employed in this region, and this rate is 6.7 percent among the Romany. Experience prompts that practically no political or social organizations besides churches are involved in programs helping the Romany.

There is a phenomenon that will definitely produce a disappointing effect in the long run. Since in primary schools, Hungarian-language classes can usually only be started because of the Hungarian-speaking Gypsy children, some of the Hungarians rather enroll their children in Ukrainian-language schools. This concept is one more factor causing the Hungarian ethnicity to melt, whose language is faithfully preserved by the majority of the Romany in Transcarpathia.

But curing this disease would point far beyond the scope of a mission that a relief agency is capable of accomplishing at the foot of the Carpathians. By helping those in the greatest need regardless of race, sex or skin color, Hungarian Baptist Aid and their American partners are obeying the most important commandment. And it must be admitted that there are very many Transcarpathians nowadays who are struggling with pressing needs, be they elderly, pensioners, Hungarians, Ukrainians, or Hungarian-speaking Gypsy children suffering from diseases.

After our car is restored to functionality in a mechanic’s workshop in Chop, we set out towards the border, which is also the border of what can be regarded as Europe. We are covering mile after mile, we are leaving the threat posed by the war raging between the Russians and the Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country behind, we leave the fear, the Gypsy camps and, for a time, we leave even poverty behind.

But we can never forget it.