This month was unexpected. At the beginning of the month I was anguished over the loss of sphinxes, pyramids and an abundance of sand. October has come and gone and while I’m eager for Turkey I’m had to grieve Hungary a little.
Hungary has been the month; cheesy as it sounds I grew hungry for God. I’d been praying for a while for a desire to seek after God. Spiritually, I was a desert, which felt ironic being a missionary. God answered my cries and overwhelmed me with His love.
I had the awesome opportunity of spending this month with Team Goodness Gracious (yes, as in great balls of fire) and our teams mixed up and traveled to different cities. Hungary is a beautiful place and what better way to spend it then with beautiful people? We combined teams to create our own super team, Beautiful Grace. If that’s not fitting I’m not sure what is.
One of the biggest things I learned this month was prayer. I’ve always been a 5-minute at night prayer gal. God is teaching me how to be a prayer warrior. It’s not about impressive words, a special posture, even ritual. It’s about conversation. Being in constant communication with God over anything and everything. If you’ve never heard of Marc Driscoll at Mars Hill Church you should download his podcasts, his series Pray Like Jesus really rocked my world.
A look back at a month in Hungary:
Our month began as two teams stranded together in the Keleti Train Station. We had nowhere to go, no place to sleep and no idea where God wanted us.
After much prayer, we took off to Szkesferhervar. We camped together at a sports park and spent our first week learning how to pronounce the name of the city we were in along with looking for ministry contacts. We were spoiled rotten, with that included Thanksgiving #2 for me this year, complete with purple fruit soup (delicious by the way). We met lots of youth who inspired us with their zeal for the Lord.
From there my team headed to Budapest. The first few days I struggled with depression and felt the sadness of the city. After 2 days spent in a hostel we felt we needed to leave. We camped out in McDonald’s for most of the day with no housing prospects, a little discouraged. Randomly we found ourselves invited in by The Long Family who came and picked up 7 total strangers from the train station and allowed us to invade every aspect of their lives for 2 weeks. I’ve never experienced such a vivid depiction of giving everything no questions asked just like Jesus as I have being with The Long’s. We were able to make ministry contacts, spend a day at Oltalom which is a Christian organization that houses a homeless shelter, orphanage and college. We were even giving a personal tour of Budapest!
After 3 weeks apart the other team headed from Pecs (they moved too) and we reunited in Budapest. I moved to stay with my team in another location in Budapest. There God met me and spoke to me in a language I can understand in any country…through a Spa. Cue the Hallelujah chorus. We got to celebrate Heather’s birthday by getting super cheap and amazing Thai foot massages AND visit the baths here where our contact hooked us up with massages. Who knew Hungary was the spa capital of Eastern Europe? God definitely knew what He was doing when He sent me here. We also got to celebrate Ralph’s birthday together by having a team dinner complete with American food at T.G.I. Friday’s. God blessed us a LOT this month. We didn’t have to pay for housing this month so we were able to work a few fun things into our team as well as personal budgets.
It felt so weird for me to tell people I was headed to Hungary for October with no plans. Hands down it’s been my favorite month and biggest month of growth thus far. It’s amazing when we let God lead fully how He will continually bless and surprise you.
