Dear friends,
This month I’ll share just a couple of glimpses into how the kingdom of God is being made manifest in our lives here in Budapest lately. I’ll tell just two stories this month, making relatively light reading, even while our hearts are heavy with the constant news of violence and conflict still happening in Ukraine, and now also unfolding between Israel and Palestinians, especially in Gaza. We pray fervently for peace.
The first story is one of hope in language learning. We continue to study and take classes several times a week, and our improvement is slow but steady. One frustration of being an adult language learner in a foreign culture is that even after you have learned enough to get by easily with certain exchanges, like for example checking out at the supermarket, you still haven’t learned enough to initiate simple conversations like, “how has your week been?” without great concentration and nervousness. So, I was inordinately pleased with a simple encounter a few weeks ago in one of the stores I frequently shop in. There was a shortage of shopping baskets in the store at the time, and I just happened to notice that the cashier needed a basket – without having to think, I reached over to a spare basket, handed it to her, and said without even thinking, “Here you go, you need a basket,” or “Tessék, kell egy kosár.” She looked up with obvious surprise at my unusually clear Hungarian, and after saying thanks, she said, “hogy vagy?” or “how are you doing?” It was the first time I’ve been asked this simple question by a stranger in an informal situation, and it affirmed that we are making progress, even if we are still not beyond a relatively low intermediate level.
And a second simple story for which we give thanks shines a light on our young adult fellowship. We gathered this past Thursday evening, November 9, as we do most Thursdays, in our living room. Our average attendance at these gatherings for young adult fellowship has jumped suddenly this fall, from around 10 to closer to 20. Last week there were 23 of us, friends new and old from Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kosovo, Kenya, Ukraine, Switzerland, Angola, Hungary, Scotland, and the US. Our topic was how to navigate family ties in adulthood, especially when many of us are so far from family, in other countries, on other continents. These are students and young professionals from a very wide range of cultures and countries, and what we discovered in our 90-minute conversation was how universal the questions are when it comes to relating to family – questions about when and whether to leave one’s family for school or work opportunities, how often to stay in touch, how to honor our fathers and mothers, what our financial responsibilities are to those we have left behind, and how to summon the courage required to leave and spend many years away – each of these evoked rich and deep, sometimes very painful conversations. We feel affirmed in this and other similar conversations that we are in the right place at the right time, even though we also wonder about each of these questions in our own relationships with family, and with friends.
In early October, Julie and I accompanied our 5 Cohort Europe year-long volunteers on a 4-day week-end intensive visit to Romania, which served as an opportunity for each of them to learn about contextual ministries happening in post-Communist Romania, as well as to learn about the Orthodox tradition of historic Christianity. It was a deep learning opportunity for all of us. Rev. Ivan Santoso, the Cohort volunteer working with us here in Budapest, is off to an excellent start in a variety of ministry activity. In early November Julie and I attended a two-day intensive retreat conversation in the Netherlands with our Europe career missionary colleagues about future possibilities for Resonate in Europe. We were able to enjoy two days of sight-seeing in Amsterdam after the retreat, and we even found the resting place of a host of Boumans in a small-town cemetery. Now that we are back in Budapest, teaching, the Food Bank, and other on-going ministry commitments are all in full swing for both of us.
Several of you responded to our September letter with new pledges and gifts to our account, and we are so thankful. Having you walking alongside us in friendship, financial support, prayers, and on-going communication means so much to us – thank you! Please consider an extra gift as the year-end season approaches – our support-raising requires a generous December to reach our annual goals.
With prayers for a blessed season of thanksgiving, we hope to see some of you over the Christmas holidays, when we will spend a few weeks visiting in Michigan and Pennsylvania between mid-December and early January. Contact us if you are available for a coffee or other kind of meeting during that window of time.
With gratitude,
Jeff and Julie Bouman
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