Russia invaded Ukraine over a year ago. During this period, the Huizer Meentkerk has emerged as a place for reflection in Houses for Ukrainian refugees. The church does everything to make their new churchgoers feel comfortable: from car services to headphones, through which an interpreter translates the service live.
The new churchgoers come from various reception locations in Huizen. When the war started and the first refugees arrived in the former fishing village, the church community decided to open its doors wide for them. “How many come varies per Sunday, there are about 20 to 30,” says Harm Rebel, elder congregation development at the church.
And making the Ukrainians as comfortable as possible is a real group effort by the church community. This is how Paul Kooij arranged the headphones. “You want to involve them in the service. I regularly arrange silent discos myself, so we did some testing and that actually went very well.”
The translation that the new churchgoers hear through the headphones has been arranged by Meinske Boomsma. “You use two translation sites. You put the song in Dutch and a Ukrainian translation comes out neatly. Then it’s a matter of checking whether it’s correct.”
Surprisingly, she does not speak Ukrainian herself. This sometimes leads to some striking language errors. “In a song like ‘God takes care of you to the thousandth generation’ you can translate back to ‘the millennial generation.’ Those are the fun things.”
Rock solid faith
One of these new churchgoers is Olena from Mariupol. She is very happy with the open reception of the church. “When we first came here we didn’t know anyone. Thanks to the people in the church we were able to listen in with the headphones. It was very nice to listen in, we are very grateful.”
Although Ukraine is predominantly Eastern Orthodox, the cultural differences with the Protestant Reformed Church in Huizen do not play a major role. “You notice the cultural differences, but at the same time it is very nice to see,” says Pastor Ferdinand van den Bosch.
“Occasionally you hear a question that really arises from a different tradition. Yet they notice that things are different in the Netherlands, also in the church. The great thing is that they have a strong faith and are very positive. And that in turn does something to the Dutch church members. We inspire each other and that is nice to see.”