July 2022 Boumans by the Danube update

Kedves barátaink! (Dear friends) Nyári üdvözlet Budapestről. (summer greetings from Budapest)... I hope that got your attention – just a friendly Hungarian greeting from our Budapest summertime. We have news that some of you may not have heard yet – in early June both Julie and I took the B-1 level Hungarian language exam. We waited a full month before getting our results last Friday, and we learned the joyful news that Julie has passed both the written and the spoken parts of the test, hurrah! Jeff has some work to do, but was surprised to do well enough to pass the written part, and also score well on half of the spoken part. The further we get into the language, the more we see our differences as language learners. Julie is a detail-oriented student of the grammatical tables and charts, and Jeff is a gregarious, and often bumbling social butterfly. You can understand him, but it isn’t very comfortable. We are thankful to our vast network of support here in Hungary who help us to deepen our understanding of one of the world’s most difficult languages. Nagyon nehéz, de a tanulás öröm! Our fiscal year ended on June 30, and we are pleased to report that our incredible network of friends and partners helped us to meet our annual goal. This is encouraging on a level that is impossible to explain, but we want you all to know how deeply thankful we are for your partnership. Thank you. We would still love to find a few more churches looking for partner missionaries in case any of you find yourselves on a mission committee at your church – contact us for more information. And as always, our giving page is found here. Our ministry this summer has been focused more heavily on language learning, and we are also providing support as needed to the team at the refugee ministry. Our colleagues are undertaking an enormous project to distribute a very large sum of direct cash payment assistance to about 5000 refugee families from Ukraine, and in the distribution process, to gather data in the form of a 20-minute needs assessment survey. From this data, we plan to narrow our efforts toward a group of about 400 refugees who plan to stay in Budapest more long-term. The plan is to provide assistance with housing, children’s transition to Hungarian schools, employment assistance, and other psycho-social needs as they arise. We are still getting to know many new colleagues who have been hired in recent months, and look forward to the fall, when we will hopefully enjoy a more stable staff and program landscape. Simultaneously, our local church congregation continues to offer food assistance on a weekly basis to about 100 individuals. Please keep in mind and pray for the transition of our two interns, Michal Rubingh and Abby Voskuil, as they spend the summer raising support and preparing for their arrival in Budapest in late August for a year of ministry alongside us. Anyone interested in supporting Abby or Michal as well, please contact us. They are each attempting to raise about $12,000 for their year in Budapest working with the refugee ministry. We also invite you to two upcoming opportunities to learn more about our ministry. Next week Monday, July 18, at 12pm noon Eastern time (US), we will be participating in an on-line event hosted by Resonate, Ministry Amplified: Ukraine Conflict. Team members from the Resonate Europe team will each have about 10 minutes to provide updates on the relevant work happening in their context (Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Romania) – the event will be just one hour long. You can find more information and register for the call here – please feel free to join! The second opportunity is in-person. Julie and I are excited to be coming to the US at the end of July to attend the wedding of our niece in Holland, Michigan. We will be in the US with family from July 28 until August 18, with a visit to family in Pennsylvania and a camping trip up north interspersed. Those of you in Grand Rapids or West Michigan are invited to join us on the evening of Tuesday August 16, from 6-9pm, in the backyard of Tim and Dawn Hendriksen – 2243 Jefferson Dr SE 49507, near Garfield Park. We would love to see as many of you as possible during that time. (RSVP here) One of the difficulties of our incredible support network is its breadth. It’s a wonderful problem to have, but it does weigh on us how hard it is to communicate directly with the many of you who have been so faithful with monthly, quarterly, and annual gifts. Thank you! We hope to see you while we are in Michigan. In the peace of Christ, Jeff and Julie Bouman

A visit in Budapest with David Kromminga and Mary Buteyn, dear friends from Berlin.

A newly commissioned Budapest mural of a Ukrainian mother with her children coming across the border into Hungary.

On a recent train trip to Lake Balaton, we passed fields and fields with millions of these glorious sunflowers.