Szentgerice, 10:05 p.m.



There is a lovely rain (you can tell I'm inside) falling now. We were without power for several hours. We learned quickly that in a village where water comes from electric pumps in the wells...well, you know. Dinner was by candlelight but power was restored before the full dark came.

It was a free day today. Rev. Sandor and his wife Sarika took us (John, Emery, and me) around the countryside with a bonus stop in Csicso, a village near Csikszereda where the new grandbaby, Soma, lives. The elder Balazs son, Sanyi and his wife Palma had a son in May. The baby was almost as cute as the grandparents. In Csikszereda we also visited a Catholic Church which is a place of pilgrimage for many Catholics in this region. The statue of Mary is said to have been seen with tears in her eyes. I followed a woman to see the statue who reverently took her handkerchief to the bottom of Mary's robe.

The best part of the trip for me was having this chance to hear Sandor speak of the history of Unitarianism in Szentgerice. The church was built long before the Reformation. However, there is a record of a visit from a Protestant scholar (assumed to be Protestant because he came from Wittenburg) in 1559. The Unitarians came later in the 16th century. (Sorry, I'll have to finish this later...the power went out last night, again, and I had to abort the post. Now I'm on an exursion with the group and typing without my notes in an internet cafe. I'll do more with the history later.)