Our Hungary Team, We're Starving!

Hey Team - THANKS so much for praying for our summer mission trip to Hungary. We had an amazing week.

Our team in Budapest... by the castle church (above) and the citadel (below).

^ Our Hungary Staff, Steve, Rachel, Jessica, Ben and AJ

I was super proud of our students - they dove in and loved kids well and really encouraged each other. Our theme for the week was "Greatness Training." According to Jesus, if you want to become great, you have to become a servant to all and be last. Each day we had a "Greatness Sighting" time where students to could give shout outs to their friends for their acts of service. The Lord definitely answered our prayer for team unity!!

Each morning, we met in the town square around 9 and played with kids until camp started at 9:30. Students from Cedarville University led the English camp, while our students assisted them. We had the opportunity to lead skits and songs on a few of the days.

Group 1: Some of our team went to an orphanage to play with kids, sing songs, perform skits and share testimonies. Three of our students were adopted. Two of them, a brother and sister, were adopted from Poland at ages 5 and 7, and they remember living in orphanages. Another gal was adopted as an infant from Russia. It was powerful for them to share their stories of not only being adopted by wonderful parents, but also being adopted into God's family.

Group 2: I took a few students to a second English camp in a town 30km away. This second English camp was a bit different, in that many adults attended. We primarily helped with an intermediate class that focused on vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar. At first our students felt out of place trying to help adults, but they slowly came out of the shells and engaged well.

Group 3: The remainder of our group helped with a sports camp for kids in the community. Each day they learned a new sport - baseball, frisbee, football, and soccer, and they ended each day with massive water balloon wars and watermelon eating contests. Many of the girls didn't want to play sports, so our girls brought nail polish and face paint and spent the afternoons painting away. It was a great community outreach.

Almost Viral

One of the Cedarville gals is a dance choreographer and she came up with a dance we could do in the Debrecen town square (a big town nearby) to promote a future English camp they will be leading. Our students were super stoked to take part in a Flash Mob, and we practiced a lot to get all the beats down. However, we found out that you have to have a special permit from the city to perform anything with music. We weren't able to get the permit and weren't willing to risk a fine. We were able to perform the Flash Mob for the local church at a barbecue and at the Mikepercs town square for our morning English campers. It was fun to get to do it, but a little disappointing to not be famous on YouTube. : )

Our missionary contact in Hungary is involved in a number of ministries throughout Hungary. While we mainly focused on his English and sports camps, he shared with us about a few other things he's involved in. Hungary is an entry point for many refugees who are seeking political, religious and economic asylum. Once they arrive in Hungary, they go before a judge to plead their case, depending on the process, the judge's ruling and the immigration bureau, people may stay for a few weeks/months to a year before they have a final answer. Russ shared about a Sri Lankan pastor who'd been granted religious asylum from the government, but was denied by the immigration board which is causing a lot of unknowns and confusion for all involved in his case. It was a real eye opener for our team to see such harsh struggles people are facing because of their faith.

Our first full day in Hungary was the Fourth of July. It was interesting to celebrate our nation's freedom in a country once ruled by communism. And while Hungary is now a part of the European Union, communism's lasting effects are still visible. Considering this, reminded me how thankful I am for the freedoms we have in America.

Thank you so much for praying for our trip to Hungary. I believe Jesus was glorified through our team and students were profoundly impacted by the experience. It was fun to be apart of what God is doing in Hungary through a variety of ministries. Thanks for joining us through your prayers!!!!

Dear Key Club,

Summer is flying by! I can't believe July is here this weekend. I hope you have a safe and happy 4th of July!

Graduation has come and gone and summer vacation is in full swing. We've had the sadness of saying goodbye to a number of PCS'ing students and will continue to say farewell to several more over the coming months. We've also had the joy of welcoming new families into the Ramstein community. Over the past few weeks, we've said hello to 4 or 5 new students each week! It's the military cycle of life.

This Sunday AJ and I are taking a team of 16 students and 4 other staff to Hungary for a summer service project. We're partnering with LOGOS (a Hungarian English School) and Good Sports International (a community sports ministry) to help with English camps in the mornings and sports camps in the afternoons. Our contact (a Good Sports missionary) is well networked in the surrounding communities and is involved in 3 orphanages and 2 refugee camps. We've been collecting donations for a few weeks, and we're excited to able to take some much needed food, clothing and sports equipment to the orphanages and camps. We'll have an opportunity to visit one of the orphanages on our final day in Hungary.

In the evenings, we'll gather as a team to process and debrief our day's experiences and to spend time in worship and the Word together. We'll be going through the book of Acts throughout the week, taking note of the early church, the Holy Spirit's movement and whatever else God has in store to teach us. Bottom line - our team is really excited for it all. We're looking forward to serving the Hungarians and seeing how God uses and challenges us for His glory! Would you join us in prayer!?

1. Safety - expected drive time to Hungary is 11-12 hours. We'll be driving across Germany, through Austria and into Hungary. We'll be traveling in 4 large vans. Once we get there, it's going to be hot, hotter and muggy. Would you pray we'd stay hydrated and not have any weird food illnesses that sometimes occur while traveling.

2. Unity - we've got a diverse group of students, each with different passions and gifts. I see huge potential in each of them. Would you pray that God would unite our team and use us powerfully. We've also got some newer students to the group, would you pray that God would use this experience to connect them with other students well.

3. Hungary - we don't really know the spiritual climate of the community we're traveling to. Good Sports is a community based ministry, so hopefully we'll be able to help them build stronger connections with those in the local community through our camps. Please be praying for the missionaries we'll be partnering with, that we'd be a blessing and encouragement to them and not extra work.

Family News,

A few weeks ago, my brother received notice of a remote assignment to Osan AB, South Korea. And while he wasn't super excited about it, it will result in a follow-on assignment of his choice. He gets to request a few bases that he'd really like to go to after Korea, and he should receive one of them. (We're both hoping for Ramstein!) Would you pray that he'd be able to finish strong at Ellsworth and get a few things in order before moving. And for the more exciting news, just this past week, we found his name on the Tech Sergeant select results!! He hasn't been in too long and doesn't have many deployments for points towards promotion, so we're pretty surprised and excited to see him make it!

My dad leaves this weekend for another deployment to Jalalabad, Afghanistan to work as a contractor, maintaining the predator drones. This will be his third, and likely final deployment with the company. I think he's ready to "retire" again! Would you pray that he'd make it to his location safely and get settled into the work tempo and adjust to the time zone quickly. The Mabry's will be spread across 4 different time zones and countries soon.

Thanks so much for your partnership in ministering to the military community! It's a joy to serve with you and I'm thankful for your faithful prayer support.