Dear friends,
We remembered Ascension day here in Hungary this week, and I was reminded that we have not sent any updates since Holy Week. I’ll try to make this a brief Eastertide update, catching you up on our activities in April and so far in May. We continue to appreciate your constant support and care for us here in Budapest.
Immediately after Easter, I (Jeff ) headed to Lithuania for our final intensive excursion with the Cohort Europe group of five volunteers. We had a thorough introduction to the work and ministry of LCC International University, we enjoyed exploring the surrounding beauty of the Lithuanian coast, and we deepened our mutual commitment, friendship, and support with each other. It was a special time for which I’m thankful. Sean and Ashley Ray, the Cohort members placed at LCC, have recently made the decision to spend a second year in service there.
Meanwhile, Julie flew to the US to spend three weeks in Pennsylvania with her mom, and her sister’s family. Her mom, Joyce Weiser, has settled comfortably into an assisted living apartment, and Julie was able to share in a few of the daily responsibilities accompanying Joyce in visiting doctors, making decisions, and just with the ministry of presence, alongside Kristy, Brad, and Hannah. It was a good visit, and we’re thankful for excellent care and a nice place for Joyce to continue to recover.
A wave of welcome visitors spent time with us in Budapest in April and early May, including a video team from Resonate that came to document some of our ministry; Gillian Bruce, a colleague from the Resonate office in Canada along with her husband, Ian; Emily Brink and Alice Greidanus from Grand Rapids; and a few others we were happy to host. The video team interviewed a dozen or so of our colleagues and friends in ministry, and it was very encouraging to listen in as folks offered their perspectives on our place-making process over the past three years. Watch for the video to be available sometime in early summer. A highlight of hosting Emily and Alice was getting a back-stage tour with them of the centrally located Calvinist church in downtown Budapest, and hearing Emily’s organist skills playing the Hymn Psalm 42 on a very old, recently refurbished church organ.
Our local congregation, St. Columba’s Scottish Mission church, hosted a community event that included the vice-mayor of our district, an orthodox Rabbi from the community, along with students from when our church was formerly a boarding school for Christian and Jewish girls in the 1940s – we were gathered to observe the unveiling of a new plaque commemorating the brave work and ministry of Jane Haining and Margit Prém, co-workers from Scotland and Hungary respectively, who ran the school together during the dark days of World War II and Nazi occupation of the city. Additionally, a “Stolpersteine” or stumbling stone memorial brass square was embedded permanently in the sidewalk at the entrance to the church, to serve as a permanent reminder that this was the last residence of a martyr to the Nazi regime – Jane Haining was taken to Auschwitz by the Gestapo in April of 1944, and she was murdered there.
While I was at the ceremony for the laying of the Stolpersteine, I had a brief conversation with Peter, an acquaintance whose son Julie had tutored in English two years ago. Peter is involved in a dynamic ministry in Budapest, associated with the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic association committed to prayer, poverty, and peace – I was wondering with him about whether his organization might ever need volunteers that I might be able to help provide. He said he would think about it – and a week or so later, this past Tuesday, he sent me an email late on a Tuesday night asking if I might have volunteers available to provide 120 sandwiches for Wednesday evening’s weekly food distribution to the unhoused population of Budapest. Even though we don’t currently have easy access to such a pool of volunteers, Julie and I decided to commit to making the sandwiches, and we were able to invite three volunteers to our place through some quick WhatsApp messaging with friends. I brought the sandwiches to the church where the community meets for prayer, I stayed for their brief prayer service, and I was moved by the following prayer that concluded their service;
“Good and merciful Lord, who hears the prayer of your children who knock at the door of your love. Give comfort, health and healing to those whose names we have put in your hands. To us who ask you, grant faith and compassion, happiness in good. Give to the whole world the peace it longs for, especially to the Holy Land, to all those who are suffering, give the weapons to fall from the hands of those who fight, and give us, give them, if not compassion, at least a cease-fire. Now and forever. Amen.
A few other noteworthy social events recently have included the following:
I rode my bike 15 kilometers through the heart of Budapest with about fifteen thousand other cyclists as part of Budapest’s Earth Day events; our good friends Szabina and Bernardo celebrated their church wedding on April 27th; our good friend Elise included us in a very specially celebrated extended 30th birthday party; and we hosted our monthly poetry and music night with poems by Hafez and Emily Dickinson; and songs by Sandra McCracken and Beyoncé.
My spring teaching concludes this coming week with student presentations on Mavis Staples, Sonia Sanchez, Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Aretha Franklin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Amanda Gorman, Howard Thurman, Malcolm X, and Dick Gregory. I have enjoyed the learning that takes place unexpectedly when non-Americans engage seriously with American history.
Prayer Requests and Upcoming transitions
We have some changes coming for which we would invite you to pray:
Cohort Closure – From June 1-8, the current group of 5 Cohort Europe participants, Maria, Juliana, Ivan, Sean, and Ashley, will meet together here in Budapest for a time of closure to the program, and a sending out of each other to some new, and some continuing callings. I am very grateful for the deep investment on the part of each of these participants, and all of us will miss the intentional community that the Cohort program provided us this past year.
ReConnect - From June 16-July 30, Julie and I will be spending time in the US, primarily in Michigan. We will be visiting with family, friends, individual supporters, and congregations who support us, and we would love to hear from you if you would like to get together while we are in the US. Our current church visit schedule looks like the following:
June 23 – First CRC in Grand Rapids
June 30 – Ann Arbor CRC in Ann Arbor
July 7 – Cascade Fellowship CRC in Grand Rapids
July 14 – Boston Square CRC in Grand Rapids
July 21 – LaGrave Ave CRC in Grand Rapids (PM)
New Cohort orientation
We are finalizing what we hope will be a new group of 6 Cohort Europe volunteers for 2024-25, and their orientation will begin in Budapest during the first week of August. Please pray for our final placement and processing of applicants, and for a smooth transition for each of them into a new chapter in life.
Refugee ministry challenges
If you have been reading our updates over the past few months and years, you know that our work with the Refugee Ministry of the Reformed Church in Hungary has had its ups and downs. The current update for which we would ask your prayers is that due to a falling off of external financial support for the ministry, it appears that a sharp reduction in staff, as well as a physical move to a smaller office suite will be happening over the next few months. Pray for the staff, the long-term volunteers, and for the leaders of this ministry that they can continue to provide for the needs of immigrants, refugees, and others on the move who have particular needs for housing, counseling, employment, and social networking.
As always, thank you for reading, for reaching out with your own updates on life, and your partnership in ministry.
In hope,
Jeff and Julie Bouman
No comments:
Post a Comment