Dear friends,
Greetings from our little corner of the globe on Izabella street, in the sixth district, on the Pest side, in downtown Budapest. As I write I am hearing the afternoon traffic in the urban canyon between buildings that is outside our now-open windows. It’s that season between the wild display of spring flowers, and the full growth of summer crops – things are still incredibly “greenly” (as e.e. cummings would say), but not quite as showy as they were through May.
We’ve got three themes for this letter, our first since Holy Week. An update on our progress toward the Cohort Europe we have spent the year working on; an update on our various ministry activity; and some updates on opportunities for hospitality and friendship.
Cohort Europe progress
Cohort Europe is the project we have spent much of the past year developing and wondering about. Cohort Europe is a year-long opportunity for young adults to live in community, serve in a grassroots ministry, engage in deep spiritual formation, and explore the complexities of cultural understanding and social justice. The program offers service opportunities in Berlin, Germany; Klaipeda, Lithuania; and Budapest. It is much closer to reality now, with five of our hoped-for six participants appointed. We are scheduled to begin in early August. It has been a labor with lots of creative effort, with work ranging from identifying hosts in three European cities where we have career Resonate staff, identifying potential applicants and then interviewing and appointing them; creating a calendar and a curriculum of challenging and developmental growth opportunities; and identifying partners with whom our Cohort volunteers will serve over the next year. I look forward to introducing the team in our July letter. And I would be remiss if I did not highlight by name the thoughtful and thorough work done alongside me by this year’s volunteer interns, Michal Rubingh and Abby Voskuil. Both Abby and Michal will conclude their time in Budapest this summer, and move on into other callings, but they can leave knowing that they contributed enormously to the development of this exciting program. I will serve as the director of this new venture for Resonate, with the strong partnership of colleagues in Berlin and Klaipeda (and North America!).
Ministry
Our work with refugee resettlement and service has continued through the work of the St. Columba’s Food Bank ministry, and our partnership with the Reformed Church of Hungary’s Refugee Ministry. I recently spent four hours on a Zoom call with Hungarian colleagues as we evaluated the applications of over fifty non-profit organizations and church congregations for funding to continue their creative work serving Ukrainian refugees. It was heartening to see the breadth of creativity and humble service happening across the country. Also, in late April, Julie and I, along with Michal and Abby, were able to spend an afternoon and evening in Veszprém, a city about an hour from Budapest which is currently one of Europe’s 2023 “cultural capital cities.” We have a good friend in Veszprém who is the former director of the Refugee Ministry in Budapest, and she is helping us think through possibilities that might link our Cohort volunteers with ministry opportunities there.
We are also helping the Ecumenical Office of the Reformed Church in Hungary plan and organize a weekend “Pathway to Peace” conference in mid-July. The agenda is ambitious, and is aimed at bringing together church leaders from all over Europe and the Middle East to pray for, and discuss a post-war Ukraine. The Reformed Church in Hungary has a significant presence in the southwestern region of Ukraine known as Transcarpathia, and amazing acts of reconciliation and service have resulted from the enormous need created by the current war of Russian aggression. The conference hopes to motivate and energize a church-centered pathway to peace, and we are honored to be helping with some of the logistics and hospitality.
Finally, as the semester came to an end, so did my course on Poetry and Music in the American Civil Rights Era, and I was humbled to read several excellent papers on American heroes such as Mahalia Jackson, Howard Thurman, Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, and Aretha Franklin, among others. I learned a lot, and I will teach the course again this fall.
Hospitality and friendship in Eastertide and Pentecost
As it turns out, quite a bit of our calling here in Budapest revolves around hospitality and friendship. At Easter, just after our last letter, we hosted 28 guests from Hungary, Syria, Nigeria, Russia, Netherlands, Tanzania, Egypt, Kenya, the US, and more. Later in April we had the privilege of hosting students from LCC International, the university where our colleagues serve.
In late April we attended, along with Michal and a young Ukrainian mother with her two small kids, a performance of the Ukrainian National Dance Company, a phenomenal and thrilling performance. We have continued to host weekly the international fellowship of young people; and once monthly we host an evening of music and poetry – an event that has been growing in depth and popularity. We recently said good-bye to dear friends we just met last summer, a young Irish-Russian couple who gave birth to the sweetest girl back in November. Julie and Michal and Abby continue to serve weekly at the Food Bank at our church here, where over a hundred families are provided weekly groceries of their choice. And in mid-May a few of us spent a Saturday in Gagybator, an extremely poor village in northeastern Hungary, alongside some church friends who have developed a very creative non-profit called “Missing Link in the Chain,” because it sets out to provide just enough support to very poor people to help them stay in school, heat their homes, learn to read, and more. It was humbling and rewarding. On my birthday Julie and I were able to make good on a birthday gift we had given to Abby and Michal back when they both celebrated in January – a tethered hot air balloon ride over the City Park in downtown Budapest. It was a very beautiful view of the city. Finally, hospitality was shown to us in the form of an invitation to join the family of close Hungarian friends on an extended Pentecost weekend away in Szabadka, a border town in Serbia with a rich cultural and architectural history. We rested, played games, toured the city, and enjoyed a very relaxing and pastoral farm setting for the weekend.
The beauty and wonder of so many Flowers! never ceases to amaze me at this time of year. I love April and May, and we reaped the benefits of a very cold November planting of about 20 tulip bulbs in planters on our balcony – they took their time, but they all bloomed, and we supplemented their glory with geraniums from our local flower market, and snap dragons, and more.
As always, we remain extremely grateful for the multitude of ways that so many of you support us, with prayers, messages, financial support, and so much more. In our recruitment process for the Cohort Europe program, I spent quite a bit of time encouraging young adults into the joys of financial support raising. And I am so grateful that our partnership with so many of you has taught us that this is not a one-way asking for financial support, but a true entering into ministry partnership with one another. To that end, we would welcome any notes of encouragement, or ways we can be remembering and praying for you in this season. We covet your continued prayers for us here in Budapest.
If you know of a church that might be looking for a partner to support, we are still actively seeking additional church support. Now as we near the end of the fiscal year for our support raising, we are just over 70% raised, and we could use a bit of a boost in June if we’re going to hit our funding target. If you have the capacity to support with a one-time or a recurring gift, you can find information on doing so here – we really appreciate the opportunity to partner with so many of you in this work and ministry.
Resting in the deep comfort of the Holy Spirit,
Jeff and Julie Bouman
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