September 18, 2021

Dear friends,      Greetings from Budapest. It’s been some time since we last sent an update, and we’ve covered some miles in the meantime! In early August, after five months of living and learning in Budapest, we flew back to the US for a short visit. Our main goal was to help with our daughter Bea’s move from Seattle back to Michigan. We enjoyed four hot-but-beautiful days in Seattle, helping her pack and clean; we visited parts of the greater Seattle area (including the highlight trip to Orcas Island), and we enjoyed the first days our family had been together since Christmas. Our 2400-mile road trip involved a 1999 VW Beetle, and a 1994 Dodge Ram cargo van, partially converted with a bed and some storage. As wildfires raged all over the west, we navigated 5 very hot, sometimes smoky days through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, all the way to Michigan. We enjoyed participating in a send-off prayer for her at Bea’s Seattle church, Wallingford Presbyterian – a loving, embracing community where she spent 4 years worshipping. In Michigan we were glad to be able to offer a report at Neland Avenue CRC, our sending congregation, and to spend time with good friends and colleagues in and around Grand Rapids. A special highlight was being able to participate with close friends in an annual tradition of sharing a meal to celebrate each of our wedding anniversaries, which all happen in July. A challenging part of the month involved a short hospitalization for Jeff’s dad, followed by his move into the memory care unit in the community in Grand Rapids where his parents are living. Prayers for each of our parents, and for our kids, are coveted. On Monday, August 30, we flew back to Hungary.      Since our return we have been back at it with language learning. We were glad to have both successfully passed our A-2 level exams with our teacher just before leaving, and our learning loss after three weeks away seems to have been minimal. The A-2 level roughly equates with finishing a year of university-level language study. We now are once again enjoying 90 minutes a day five days a week, still on-line, with our teacher, Panka      The first big event upon our return to Hungary was a wonderful St. Columba’s Scottish Mission church retreat at a lakeside retreat center in Balatonfűzfő, September 3-5. There were about 30 people in attendance, from at least 6 countries, and ranging in age from about 2 to about 82. It was a good time of fellowship, and deepening relationships with this warm community. One highlight, among many, was the opportunity for Jeff to learn two Hungarian tongue-twisters and perform them with a new Hungarian friend (who learned “Peter Piper”… and “How much wood would a woodchuck…” for the occasion). In addition to the retreat, we are involved in a weekly on-line Bible discussion with the church, volunteering in the Sunday School program as teachers, and helping to lead a weekly fellowship with university students.      At the university, a couple of things are happening. On Friday, September 10, Jeff was invited to participate as a presenter on a panel for the first “Christian Open Day,” a set of lectures representing a range of data and projects related to Christian practice in the world. A report on helping Christians in Syria, one on understanding and preserving Coptic Culture, another on the History of Christianity in Korea, an overview of Christianity in Hungary, and Jeff presented on the development of a robust interfaith program at Calvin University that he helped to create and direct over the past decade. It was a very interesting collection of ideas and a privilege to participate. In terms of teaching, Jeff listed a course on “experiential learning and the purpose of the university.” This was a kind of exercise in testing the waters for adjunct teaching at Károli Gáspár University, and as of this writing it appears that this topic caught the attention of only three students for now – maybe a good chance to get more familiar with teaching in the international context in a small group setting. And the small size of the group allows more time for continued language learning and a focus on other areas of ministry.      At Kalunba, the refugee-serving organization, staff (including us) are still getting things in order after the reshuffling over the spring and summer. With the recent events related to the withdrawal of American and other troops from Afghanistan, there may be a large need developing. Early reports are suggesting that up to 400 Afghanis were brought to Hungary by Hungarian forces – these were people and families who had been collaborating with the Hungarian Army in its support role in the Afghanistan mission overall. If Kalunba is asked to help resettle some portion of these new arrivals, this may be a catalyst to the organization recovering its footing. A recent event we were invited to involved listening to the dissertation findings of a recently-completed doctoral dissertation that studied the effects of immigration and language-learning on identity formation of children 11-18 years old. Kalunba had been the primary case study organization for the research, and it was clear that the organization has the reputation and broad support to do the kind of work we are hoping to help it do. Hopefully there will be more concrete news to report later this fall.      Finally, we were witness to a fascinating week-long event that was center stage last week in Budapest, the International Eucharistic Congress, hosted by the Catholic church. This event took over the city, with enormous stages, ubiquitous publicity (“Meet Jesus in Budapest!”), and a concluding Mass led by Pope Francis himself. On Sunday, September 12, as we walked the three short blocks to church, we had to cross one of the main arteries of Budapest, Andrássy avenue, as always. As it happens, the Mass where Francis was to appear was held at Heroes Square, which is at the terminus of Andrássy, and there were pilgrims walking along this road beginning very early in the morning. In order to get to our little Protestant church, we had to navigate against the flow of hundreds of pilgrims, which felt strange and a little bit too Protestant, in a humorous way.      A brief update on our financial needs. We are still getting used to the rhythms of missionary life, and one especially new area where we are still learning is the area of communicating our needs well with supporters. We love the image and reality of being in partnership with you, and providing many of you a way to be connected with the work of campus ministry, teaching, refugee resettlement, and general hospitality in Hungary.      Over the past year we have been blessed to have about 200 individuals and 6 churches donate financial support, and promise to pray for our ministry. About forty percent of what we need on a monthly basis is pledged by many of these individuals and churches, for which we are deeply grateful. In the first year, the remaining sixty percent came through one-time gifts.      Since our support-raising began in September, 2020, the fall season of 2020 was encouragingly filled with many very generous one-time donations, as we told our story of calling and our impending major life change.      Now is the time for the one-time gifts to begin again, if we are to continue to stay on a path toward meeting our goal for the 2021-22 fiscal year. We would love it if there were more monthly donors out there, but we understand that such a commitment isn’t possible or desirable for everyone. The link to donate to our Resonate account is the orange button at this link, with the option to make your gift recurring on the second page. We continue to covet your prayers, emails, texts, and Zoom meetings. Thank you, thank you, thank you! In the peace of Christ, Jeff and Julie Bouman Budapest  18 September 2021 Pictured in clockwise order: A family pic in Seattle; Bea with friends packing "the beast," our affectionate term for the van; A family photo at Mt. Rainier National Park; and Jeff with his dad before heading back to Hungary.