Missions Blog

Day three of going into the schools, and we are really getting our rhythm down in our teams! This trip has not only allowed us to help other people find or grow in their faith, but it also allows us to grow our skills in patience and communication within our teams - figuring out the best way to get our classes done the best way we can. Throughout the week, we also have been able to have engaging conversations with the missionaries each day. Building these friendships with them is one of our favorite “added bonuses” that this opportunity allows us. Seeing how the friendships that were made last year grow even more this year is such an amazing picture of the unity God wants for his people. Thousands of miles away, serving the same God, bringing us together.

We have been having such God-moments this week, and it has been awesome sitting down with each other at the end of the day and sharing them. Sadly, I can’t share all of them with you now because this blog would turn into a novel, so we will start with one for today. When Jonathan was out in the college town doing his “randoms” as they are called here (random evangelizing), he approached three students who were down to talk to him. Their names were Akos, Adam, and Bogi. It turned out that one of them was an agnostic, one atheist, and one a “non-practicing Christian.” Through the tools that we learned in our training session this week, Jonathan was able to spend about an hour and a half challenging the students on what they actually believe in and left them with some questions to ponder. Jonathan was able to pray with the three of them, and they even gave him some prayer requests when he asked. The one girl, who claimed to be a Christian, said she was struggling with depression and wasn’t sure if heaven or hell were real and wanted to find the answers to it all. Without Jonathan taking a walk of faith and approaching these three students, some seeds wouldn’t have been planted in their hearts, and they may not have had anyone care enough to make them think and question what is actually true. Jesus says in Matthew 9 that the harvest is ready, but the laborers are few. We can see the need here, and we need to be answering that call either through prayer, support, or even going. This trip has reminded us that there isn’t just a need in Hungary but in our own city as well, and we hope to use the tools and training this trip has given us to grow as Christians and to share the good news more boldly with the people in our hometowns.

Please pray as we continue this week and have the event with the students tomorrow night. Please pray that they will show up and that they will be open to the gospel.

Our Hungarian word of the day is “gyönyör?” which means beautiful!

March 22nd, also known as the day Matthew was born (22 years ago!). What better way to celebrate your birthday than serving God with some of your friends (and eating Hungarian delicacies…)!

We started our day by heading off in our groups to five new schools. Today, we had about five classes per group and an average of 15-20 students per class! Who needs math, but that seems like a lot of students we were able to reach! It is so cool being able to talk to the students and see them engage with us and ask us questions. We had quite a few of them interested in coming to Gönczy and the English camp this summer. One teacher told us that a girl that really never speaks in class was participating and very engaged the entire time. Besides talking to the students, we also had some opportunities to speak to the teachers. Some of them seemed more excited than the students that we were there!

After school today, we had half of our team go out for random evangelizing. When they were paired with a Hungarian missionary, they went to the universities to find anyone who would talk to them. Something that makes talking to random strangers easier, at least, is how genuinely open most of them are to talking to us. In America, most of us would brush off someone coming up to us in the street asking for 10-15 minutes of our time, thinking they were most likely someone selling us a product or their religion. Here, they don’t mind talking about what they believe or don’t believe in and don’t take any offense to us asking them. Ricky, one of our first-year team members, went for his first time today and was super excited about the day after! He said, “Today I had the opportunity to do random evangelism with a local Hungarian missionary named Joseph (pronounced and probably spelled differently). We walked to a library park in downtown Budapest which is a popular hangout spot for university students. We talked to two different groups of students, asking them survey questions about life and their thoughts/opinions about God. They all had very interesting thoughts and the conversations were wonderful. I really think we planted some seeds for Christ and gave them something to think about.” Although it’s not comfortable for us, the common consensus is that once we actually do random evangelizing, we are so glad we did.. and it actually was not as scary as we were making it to be in our minds.

Please pray for the connections we made here already and for them to be able to grow through the help of the Hungarian missionaries once we leave and that a lasting impact is taking place for God’s kingdom.

Our Hungarian word of the day is szerelem which means “love”.

Hello! Welcome back to “Americans in Hungary! How many looks can we get for being too loud on the metro!” Today was a busy day! We went back to school (sorry, Ricky and John…you thought you were getting a week away from school)! Our groups met with our assigned missionaries this morning and spent the first half of our day in different schools doing lessons and engaging with our students. Matthew even recognized three students from last year! We asked Tony to share a few words about his day since this is his first time coming to Hungary on this trip. He said, “I felt that seeing Hungary high school was a fascinating experience. It was very interesting to watch how the students interacted with their teachers and to see the incredible building. Almost all of the students spoke excellent English and were very willing to engage on a variety of concepts (though a few might have been a bit shy at first, and even fewer never opened up).” Even though we say it a lot, this really is such an incredible tool that the missionaries are able to use with us. They said that many of their students who have been coming in the past year, and who they have been able to disciple, they met when we came last year to talk in the schools.

After classes were over, we met with Mara, and she gave us a brief training on random evangelizing. Mara has been going to the universities and sharing the gospel for over 20 years now! It was encouraging to hear some of the stories of people who have come to Christ/have been told of the gospel for the first time from this ministry. Although we are all nervous going up to random people, we know it is an important call from God that we need to listen to. A girl that our group talked to last year actually started coming to meet with Mara when we went random evangelizing!

Please pray for hearts to be open tomorrow and Thursday when we go into universities to share the gospel, and continue to pray for the hearts of the high school students we will talk to the rest of the week.

Our Hungarian phrase of the day is “hogy vagy” which means “how are you?”.

Hello friends! We are back, well-rested, and even more excited for the week ahead of us (if that was possible). Today was all about preparation for the week ahead. We spent the first half of the day being immersed in the dos and don’ts of Hungarian culture, and we learned a little more about what the missionaries here are doing! The second half was spent getting into teams consisting of 3-4 Americans paired with one Hungarian. They taught us what to expect in the schools and the information we need to share with them. It was a knowledge filled day-hopefully we can remember that knowledge for the rest of the week! This year, there are three new schools that we are going to for the first time, so apparently, the schools we went to before are spreading good things about all of us who went before (phew!).

After a brief break filled with Jonathan giving us a “dad talk” about how we aren’t allowed to wander off in the city (@meagan), we headed back to Göncy where we were able to witness another outreach they have happening. They have college-age, new believers who meet on Mondays to be discipled and who are being taught to share the gospel with their friends/family. The missionaries asked Meagan, Jon, and Jason (another volunteer from a NC church) to lead us all in worship. Jon split the worship songs, so we sang half in English and half in Hungarian (well, us Americans listened to the Hungarian being sung). It was a very special moment seeing groups of people from two completely different parts of the world coming together in unity to worship one God together. It really puts what we are doing into perspective. As Meagan said today when we were preparing for the week with prayer, “Help us to remember these aren’t just people we are talking to this week who we will leave and probably not see again, they are eternal souls and this matters.” As we go to sleep tonight, we are ready to start being used by God in whatever way He wants us to be used tomorrow.

And to everyone reading, thank you all for helping us with your support and prayers to be used as a part of God’s plan for the amazing people of Hungary.

Please pray as we start going into high schools tomorrow and for the event happening on Friday that we are inviting them to :).

Hungarian word of the day is izgatott which means excited!

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Hungary Arrival Day

A quick PSA before starting, this first blog is mostly been written through jet lag and sleep deprivation. After traveling to what seemed to be another continent (pun intended), we made it safely to Budapest, Hungary. We already can feel all of your prayers being poured on us just in the fact that we all made it over safely. Although we had a couple of mishaps throughout the day, we all made it and are so excited for the week to start! This week, we will be partnering with the local missionaries, including Gabi and Mara, who the Bible Chapel supports, to go into the high schools and college campuses in Budapest. In the high schools, we are going welcomed in by having an “English class” where we will be able to share about Gönczy-the missionaries building where they have events for high school and college-age students every week. Unlike public schools in most of America, here, if the students ask why we came or about us, we are able to share our faith. We are inviting the students to a big event on Friday where the gospel will be shared and where these kids can know they are loved. On the college campuses, we will be doing some random soul-winning (which everyone is always most nervous about). We will be helping the missionaries with whatever they need this week and with whatever activities and events they have taking place. Tomorrow, we will be getting prepped and trained for the week ahead! Thank you again for the support and prayers…now we are off to sleep :)

Please pray this week for God to work on every child’s heart we will talk to tonight - that it will be open and ready to hear the truth of the gospel.

The Hungarian word of the day is “alvás” which means “sleep” because after non-stop traveling for almost 15 hours, sleep sounds pretty great