March 5, 2021

“People wish to be settled,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. “Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” Dear friends, We read these words recently in a review for the recent film “Nomadland,” which recently received a Golden Globe for best picture drama for 2020. It felt like a very relevant truth as we consider our past year, and the year ahead. Resonate staff Chris and Steve Van Zanen and Joyce and Gil Suh, along with friends Ken and Gail Heffner, and our son Bastian came to the airport to see us off in prayer and blessing. We are happy and grateful to report that we have successfully moved from Grand Rapids to Budapest. On Sunday, February 28, we began our 43-hour odyssey that included a 24-hour delay in Detroit. Navigating travel during covid is a tricky business of timing your covid tests and your departure times, discerning which airports require which tests and when, and hoping for the best. By the time we arrived at our gate for departure to Amsterdam from Detroit, our tests from beforehand in Grand Rapids were beyond the 72-hour requirement, so Delta airlines paid for us to stay overnight in a nearby hotel in order to test once again in the morning. Monday we did another PCR test in the morning, received negative results by early afternoon, and then tested once again before boarding with rapid-response antigen tests. By that time, we were confident that everyone on the plane would be confirmed negative for Covid. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the flight was nearly empty, like really, really empty. If you’ve ever wanted to try to spread out fully on those middle rows of four seats, we can report that it does not help you sleep. At least it didn’t for Jeff. But we arrived safely, and by noon on Tuesday we were in sunny Budapest.   Our luggage had been damaged, but none of the contents seem to have suffered, and our process of entering the country went extremely smoothly, thanks in large part to the efforts of our Hungarian colleagues at the Ecumenical Office – they provided us with official paperwork from both the local immigration authorities as well as the official church authorities confirming our permission to enter the country. By early afternoon we were in our apartment and we could exhale and begin unpacking.   Some of you may remember that our first three months are scheduled to be living in an apartment that we have lived in before, so in a sense it feels like a home away from home. In fact, when we last left it in December 2019, we were expecting to be back in it in August 2020 with a Calvin study abroad group again, so we had left some of our personal belongings, and we still had the keys with us in Michigan. This has made our first few days all the more comfortable.   Because of a trend of rising Covid cases in Hungary currently, we were required to either quarantine for ten days, or submit to yet another Covid PCR test upon arrival. We chose the test, and on Thursday morning we walked to a test site and received our fourth test in seven days. Thankfully by early evening we had both received news of negative tests, allowing us release from quarantine. The timing, however, is ironic in that on that same day the Hungarian government released news that this coming Monday the country will enter a period of more severe restrictions, including the closing of primary schools and all shops except grocery stores, drug stores and pharmacies, and gas station shops. But at least we will be able to take walks outside with masks on.   On our second evening in our new place, we were able to participate in an online Zoom Bible Study gathering with friends from our church in Budapest, St. Columba’s. It was a refreshing reminder of the ecumenical nature of this congregation – there were folks present from Scotland, Italy, the US, the Netherlands, and of course, Hungary. The invited speaker for the study was a woman who is in Hungary as a missionary who grew up in Flint, Michigan. We look forward to becoming reintegrated to this body of local worshipers.   We have also been greeted hospitably by fellow Resonate field staff Steve and Jan Michmerhuizen, who live nearby in Budapest; and by former Calvin students in Budapest, and members of the Kalunba community, the university community, and the larger Reformed Church community, in addition to others we know as friends from our previous semesters living here. It has indeed been a warm welcome. On a humorous note, when the government announced the new restrictions yesterday, we received the news from seven separate sources here in Budapest, all just making sure we were aware of what was changing. All of this has made our transition smooth, and we are grateful. We are still sorting out many details about our departure from Grand Rapids – issues with home insurance, and switching things around with the auto insurance our kids use in the States, and other financial and logistical issues, none too overwhelming. And we are beginning to turn our attention, slowly, to the work in front of us.   For the first several weeks and months our work will be to study and practice Hungarian, one of the most difficult languages to learn. One of the reasons we wanted to make the transition to living here, even with the restrictions of the pandemic, is because this learning will be much easier with all of the nearby prompts and opportunities to practice. Just this morning on our walk around the city, we were trying to decipher store front signs, advertisements, and even remembering how to order our favorite pastries using proper Hungarian. We have an initial consultation with our new teacher on Saturday, and we hope to begin with several lessons a week starting next week.   Our other initial work will be to get to know colleagues and staff members at Kalunba, the Ecumenical Office of the Reformed Church in Hungary, and faculty, staff and students at Károli Gáspár University – all of which will be slower and more difficult under Covid restrictions – most Hungarians are working from home when possible and staying close to home, as they should. As a result, the initial period of introductions will likely extend into the summer and fall.   We are grateful to many of you who reached out either in email, Facebook, texts, and other forms of communications to let us know you were thinking of us. As we have mentioned over and over again, we are overwhelmed and grateful at the depth of support and friendship that has been offered to us as we make this transition. We look forward to continuing communication with you, through formal letters such as this one, but also through more informal means. Our time zone is six hours ahead of the Eastern Standard in the US, the time changes for a similar amount of time each year, and for the time being our US phone numbers will continue to work for phone calls and texts. For Hungarian and other European friends, we also have a new local phone number if you’d like to reach out privately and ask for it.   I (Jeff) received a gift from a current senior at Calvin with whom I have worked for the past four years; a book of every day liturgies called “Every Moment Holy.” She bookmarked one particular liturgy, “A Liturgy for Leavings.” As I have pondered it over the past week, it has been a blessing, so I will end by sharing part of it with you: Leader: Even in our goodbyes, there is a blessing, for the sorrow of parting is a measure of the depth of the bond we have come to share in Christ. People: Thank you O God, that we do not walk this road alone. … O Spirit of God, be as present in our parting as you were in our gathering. Be present in our journeys. Be present in our days to come. Be present in our works, and in our words, and in our hearts. Be present in the bonds of our community, Lord Christ. Be ever at work among us and through us. Amen.   Peace to each of you.   Gratefully, Jeff and Julie Bouman PS Many of you are already members, but just in case you are not, feel free to search for and join our private Facebook group "Boumans by the Danube" if you'd like more photos or concise occasional sharing.