Dear Partners in God's Mission,
June has been a month of program transition for us, and it has also been another month of trying to process a deeply unsettled world. I am more convinced than ever of the need to provide young adults with opportunities to confront hard realities, to make independent and difficult choices, to sit in the company of others who come from very different backgrounds than theirs, and more.
Just this past week Julie and I and our current interns Abby and Michal watched the 2017 documentary by Chinese documentarian Ai Weiwei, Human Flow, which highlights the plight of people on the move, or people trapped in places of limbo, all over the world. And as we watched, we also were aware of the tragedy of a ship with over 700 migrants, mostly from Syria, Pakistan, Palestine, and Egypt, sinking in Greek waters on its way to Italy, drowning hundreds.
You may or may not have read this story, but meanwhile a few days later, you could not miss the story of five people dying at sea in a multi-million dollar venture to explore the hull of the Titanic deep undersea.
Then on Thursday this week, in our last meeting of the academic year with our international student fellowship group, 13 of us gathered to hear one member of our group, an Armenian-Syrian student provide a succinct overview of Syria’s ten thousand+ years of history, cultural contributions, and very complex current geo-political situation.
The world is not as it should be, and the next generation will need leaders with experiences navigating complexity, injustice, and cross-cultural relationships.
In response to this need, we are happy to announce that we have finalized our first-ever Cohort Europe team with Resonate Global Mission!
We have one young adult who will serve alongside us here in Budapest beginning August 1st. Ivan Santoso will be moving to Budapest from Surabaya, Indonesia, where he has been teaching theology at the Theological Seminary of Indonesia (RTSI) since 2019. Ivan is graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary, and an ordained pastor in the Christian Reformed Church, and he is eager to begin a volunteer year in partnership with the Reformed Church of Hungary, and the St. Columba’s Scottish Mission congregation in Budapest.
I am so excited for Ivan to get started, and I am writing to ask if you might consider a gift to Ivan as he raises support for this coming year. You can find more information, and an on-line giving option here.
In addition to Ivan, we have four other members of the debut Cohort Europe team.
Maria Puccini and Juliana Knot will be serving alongside our colleagues and good friends David Kromminga and Mary Buteyn in Berlin, Germany. Maria is originally from Venezuela, but she has already been living in Berlin and participating in the welcoming new church David and Mary have planted there. Juliana is a Midwesterner, a recent graduate of Calvin University, and has been most recently working as a journalist.
Sean and Ashley Ray will serve in Klaipeda, Lithuania with our friends and colleagues Joel and Hailey Altena and Steve and Chris Van Zanen. Both come from Texas by way of Arkansas and Colorado, and are eager for cross-cultural ministry experience within LCC International University’s broadly diverse student body. Sean and Ashley are both graduates of Denver Seminary with significant passion for cross-cultural missions.
Seeing young adults find their place in God's mission in the world is a big passion for us, and we're sure that many of you share that passion. Would you consider coming alongside Ivan, Maria, Juliana, or Sean and Ashley by partnering with them? You can do so right away by clicking on their names above and signing up to support them prayerfully and financially.
As part of Cohort Europe these 5 young adults will gather in Budapest in early August to begin their orientation to Cohort together for several days. Over the course of their year together, they will meet monthly on-line for study, prayer, accountability, and support. Together we will visit each other’s ministry contexts in Berlin, Klaipeda, and also the Jiu Valley where colleagues have been doing ministry for decades. Our goals together include service, justice and peace-building, spiritual growth, cross-cultural friendships and ministry, and a deeper commitment to faithful presence in place.
As you know if you’ve been reading our previous letters, this program would not be happening if it hadn’t been for the incredible service of this year’s interns, Michal Rubingh and Abby Voskuil. They both have poured themselves deeply into the building and development of this program, and as their terms of service both end soon, we will miss them here deeply. In a retreat designed to help them with closure and preparation to re-enter life in North America this past week, we did a lot of processing of their experiences, and we came away with deep gratitude.
A few other quick updates from our end. Our fiscal fund-raising year ends later this week, and we are grateful for some recent significant gifts to our account. We could use a few more to get us to our goal in case any of you are able to contribute. Our kids will join us here in Budapest next week, and we are eager to do some exploring in the Slovakian High Tatra mountains together. And in the middle of July, Michal and Abby and I will participate in a very special and important gathering of church leaders from all over Europe, who will come together in Budapest to discuss the role of the Church in a post-war peace in Ukraine. Please pray for good discussion for those who participate in these conversations.
Thank you for your partnership in God's good work!
Grace and peace,
Jeff and Julie Bouman
P.S. If you know of young adults who could be interested in next year's Cohort (2024-25), it’s not too early to direct them to the website for Cohort: Europe--Germany, Hungary, or Lithuania. We will be recruiting already in the fall for the next Cohort.
No comments:
Post a Comment