Dear friends,
Today is a banner day for us, with Julie out the door bright and early to start a new intensive volunteer position as the Intake Coordinator with Olive Tree Counseling Center. Olive Tree serves global and cross-cultural workers with intensive counseling services designed to help them experience God’s transformation, wholeness, and peace. Julie will work alongside a talented staff of counselors and therapists, helping with communication and placement of clients in the process. We are grateful for the arrival of Olive Tree to Budapest over the past year, as they recently moved their operation from Antalya, Turkey to Budapest.
In other news, we are mid-semester with our international young adult fellowship, a group that regularly includes prayer requests from Syria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Pakistan, and other places where families of our participants live. We pray for peace, for opportunities, for flourishing. I am also once again teaching my class on the American Civil Rights movement, and the influences of poetry, music, and activism in the Black church on the drive for justice – there are nine Hungarian students and one student from Syria.
In February I had the opportunity to join parts of my extended Michigan family for a wedding of my niece Annika in Phoenix – it was a wonderful time of family celebration, and it was really good to see siblings and nieces and a nephew, and especially my mom. My mom has remained independent, living alone and continuing to drive herself around. Last week she suffered a left-brain stroke event, and received excellent care, including now spending time at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation hospital in order to try to recover some speech, and movements that were compromised. Overall we are all very grateful for the excellent care she has received.
Julie’s mom continues to recover from her stroke now over a year ago, and she recently moved as well, into a skilled care unit in the complex where she lives in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Most days find Julie on video calls with either her sister, her mom, or both. Prayers for both of our moms are appreciated, as well as wisdom for us as we navigate this season far away from loved ones.
In early March our Resonate Europe team (about 35 people) met together for our annual spiritual retreat, in a retreat center near Rome. Julie and I were able to go a few days early to do some visiting in Rome proper, visiting the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Forum, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum – it’s an awe-inspiring city, and we barely scratched the surface of it, but wow, truly amazing. The retreat was the result of a year of hard work for a small committee which I had the privilege to chair, so it was nice to finally see it all come together – we had organized talks, member care listening sessions, game nights, delicious food, and time for small group discussion and solo silence, all on the edge of a lake in the Roman hills outside the city. It was also an opportunity for the current participants in the Cohort Europe program to be with each other, and to spend informal time with seasoned missionaries serving in other parts of Europe. And next week already will be our Cohort Europe Intensive visit to LCC International University in Lithuania, to learn about another cultural approach to ministry in a different part of Europe. We are still accepting applications for the 2025-26 Cohort Europe program if you know any young adults who might be interested!
As the world continues to turn, and division seems to multiply, we find ourselves at a loss; grateful for the grounding rhythms of the Lenten liturgies, and the example of Jesus. But we also turn regularly to the artists – to poets and musicians for solace, for understanding, for wisdom. Julie introduced me to this song a few days ago, and it struck a chord deep down in both of us – Citizens, by Jon Guerra, an artist not previously known to me, except as someone occasionally featured on the devotional app we use for morning prayers, Pray-As-You-Go. Written for an American Christian audience, it has valence here in Hungary as well. It begins with, “I have a heart full of questions, Quieting all my suggestions, What is the meaning of Christian, In this American life?... and concludes with, “Is there a way to love always? Living in enemy hallways - Don’t know my foes from my friends and Don’t know my friends anymore. Power has several prizes - Handcuffs can come in all sizes - Love has a million disguises - But winning is simply not one.
In the hope of Easter, and resurrection,
Jeff and Julie
PS. If you have been pondering a one-time or a monthly financial gift, we would very much welcome your partnership, and if your church is looking to add a ministry in Europe to those you support, we would welcome a few more churches as partners as well. Details for supporting us can be found on our Resonate webpage here. After you tap the yellow “donate” button, you will be asked if you would like to donate in USD or Canadian, and then you will land on a page where you choose an amount, and then on the drop-down menu below you will choose “Missionaries-Europe,” and below that a drop-down menu will be a list of names, and you select Jeff and Julie Bouman. Below that are instructions for entering payment information. Please consider joining us in partnership!
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