A request for the refugee question

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month and a half since we left the States! This week Patrick and I looked at each other and said, “This is feeling a little more familiar.” We are gaining a little more competency each week, even though we still have a long way to go.

We’ve learned some new Hungarian phrases such as “You’re welcome,” “how are you,” and my longest phrase, “Sorry, I don’t know much Hungarian. Do you know English?” Here’s that last one in Hungarian: “Bocsánat, nem igazen beszélek magyarul. Tudsz angolul?” It’s a blessing that the Duolingo app just added Hungarian!

We’ve also found out where most of the groceries we need are in the store, so our store trips have gotten much more efficient. Both of us are able to drive now. We are starting to connect with some of the ballplayers, especially the softball team. They are a fun group of girls, and several of them speak some English, so we are excited for those friendships to grow.

But besides just a quick life update on us, I wanted to let you know about something else that’s happening here in Hungary. It’s about a question that many countries are facing, including the U.S.: What to do about refugees.



If you drive anywhere in Hungary right now, you will see these signs everywhere. On billboards, buses, bridges, buildings. Everywhere. They have the Hungarian flag as the background and they say, “Do not take chances. Vote no.”

The reason for these signs is that...


...Hungary is holding a referendum vote tomorrow, Sunday, October 2, on whether Hungarians will accept European Union mandates about EU-member countries receiving a certain quota of refugees. You might remember hearing last fall about hundreds of refugees from the Middle East in a sort of standoff at a Budapest train station at the height of the refugee crisis in Syria. Soon after that, Hungary built razor-wire fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia. Since then, very few refugees have been allowed to enter the country.

It’s all complicated, and I won’t pretend to be any sort of expert on this situation, but I do know there’s a lot of fear. Fear in Hungary; fear in the U.S. We worry about extremists being able to enter our countries. In Hungary, there are economical questions about being able to supply refugees with jobs. On the flip side, we see desperate people in need and wonder what we as Christians should do.

This week I had the opportunity to visit a Christian-volunteer-run center in Budapest where refugee families can stay while starting to build a new life in Hungary. The men often go out during the day to search for jobs and homes while the children go to school, so the women are available in the mornings and early afternoons. On Wednesday, we took an OM group to host a sewing and craft day with the women and young children at the center.

We met women from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Nigeria. I talked to one stately woman from Nigeria, Laura, who was a new mother with a one-month-old baby.

“What caused you to leave Nigeria?” I asked.

“Too many reasons to count,” she said in smooth English. “In Nigeria if one person is in trouble, their family is targeted. My entire family left, and now we are in different places. I miss my mom.”

I asked Laura what she wanted to do next in Hungary.

“I want to finish my master’s degree in international relations,” she said, “and maybe move out to Debrecen where it’s a little quieter.”

Here’s a photo from our craft day at the refugee center in Budapest.

Jill, one of our OM team members, has been regularly serving in refugee ministry in Hungary. Many of the people she sees are young families, are educated, and some are able to speak English. They are trying to deal with heavy paperwork, find jobs, and quickly learn Hungarian.

We don’t know quite what will happen with this vote in Hungary tomorrow. It seems more like a political ploy without a lot of power behind it than something that will have much of an effect. But it might help build the current Hungarian government’s case against the EU’s refugee policies. We’ve wondered aloud with our OM team on whether Hungary will eventually get kicked out of the EU. We have no idea how the ramifications of such a thing would affect us, affect Hungary.

I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinions about the refugee situation — we just want to give you the facts we’re seeing here and ask you to pray. Please pray for Hungary tomorrow; please pray for Europe. Please pray that whatever the government’s doing, Christians would take advantage of any opportunities to share the Gospel with refugees. As people coming from a Muslim world of turmoil, this could be the best chance they get of hearing about Jesus as Savior.

In the meantime, we take comfort in God’s sovereignty. “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.” – 2nd Chronicles 20:6

Thanks so much for your prayers. We love you all.
Jessica and Patrick