Let’s catch up!

These shirts were an amazing gift from our good friend Krisz! One of these statements is true...

Hello! Clearly it’s been a while since we’ve updated our site. So, we’ll just go ahead and catch up by answering some of the questions you might have about what’s been going on here in Hungary.

Q: How were your holidays?
A: Thanks for asking! While we definitely missed being with family and friends during the holidays, we were blessed to be able to celebrate here in Hungary. We were most homesick at Thanksgiving, maybe because it’s not celebrated by Hungarians, but we were especially grateful for FaceTime that day! And we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with our softball girls during our weekly ministry night with them that fell on the holiday.

Christmas was a bit more enjoyable as those around us were in the festive spirit as well. We enjoyed visiting the Christmas markets in Budapest and celebrated with our colleagues at OM. We were also blessed to be able to take a short trip to London between Christmas and New Year’s. We had beautiful weather and a nice mental break in an English-speaking world for a short time.


Q: Are you still living in the same place?
A: No, actually we’re not. We recently moved into the home of one of our coworkers (Jill) to house-sit while she is away on furlough.

One thing we feel God revealed to us in recent weeks was that in order to continue to establish our own identity and grow in our lives here in Hungary, we needed to find a place that could be more of our own. We are so grateful for Terry and Rebecca (our OM colleagues and fellow Americans) for allowing us to rent their back house the first five months we were here. It helped us tremendously in our transition and they showed us what true Christian hospitality looks like.

Things seemed to align well for this to be the time to move as Jill was about to leave on furlough, and we were gaining a new team member at OM to help with the sports ministry for the next year. A young man named Hendrik has joined OM from Germany, and he was able to move into the back house that we had been renting. We hope being there with Terry and Rebecca proves to be as beneficial to him as it was to us.

So, we are currently house-sitting and will look to move to a place of our own within the next few months. For those of you who like to send mail (which we absolutely love!), the best place to send it now is to the OM office: Patrick & Jessica Alyea / Onezimusz Alapítvány / Érd, Gyula u. 64 / H-2030, Hungary

Q: Are you staying busy?
A: Absolutely! Life as an OMer is busy but rewarding. During the month of December we both helped with OM’s puppet ministry, going around to schools and churches performing a puppet show of the biblical Christmas story. I (Patrick) enjoyed it much more than I anticipated in the beginning!

During the winter we have been having two days of indoor practice for the softball and baseball teams. We also have weekly ministry nights with the softball team and younger baseball players. A couple of weeks ago I went with one of our baseball teams to an indoor tournament in Croatia, and we have a couple more indoor tournaments coming up this month. Finally, I also meet weekly with Terry and a couple of Christian ballplayers for dinner and a time to study the Bible together.

Jessica has also been working on articles and a new video project (in Hungarian) for the OM team. The video will be used at churches and events to help more Hungarians learn about OM and consider joining in our ministries.

We’ve also just started teaching an advanced English class at Terry’s church in Érd that will last for 12 weeks. The church uses this as an outreach, and we’ve enjoyed meeting some new people. We have about 12 students and we practice speaking and learning new vocabulary words on Mondays for an hour and a half. Our students are pretty talented! This week we started reading a short novel together.

In a couple of weeks, we will start going into schools to do baseball demonstrations to recruit new players for the upcoming season. Then, in March, we will finally be able to get back outdoors for practices! We are excited for spring to come and the season to get in full swing. ;)

Q: How are you coming along with the language?
A: Slowly but surely. We went through a three-week intensive language course back in November that gave us a solid foundation to build on, but we still have a long way to go. Jessica is definitely further along than I am at this point, so I’m often asking her for help. We are better in certain situations that we frequently find ourselves in, such as practices or church, but even then the comprehension is low. But, we continue to work on it and see ourselves making progress!

Q: How’s the food?
A: Good! We are able to find pretty much the same groceries we would buy back in the U.S. There isn’t as much variety, and there aren’t as many convenience items, but the food is nice and fresh. Hungary has wonderful coffee and tea, sausages, pastries, sour cream and chocolate. We mainly shop for food at Aldi. For those of you who are wondering, Jessica is still happily able to THM. And if we’re in a hurry, we sometimes stop for McDonald’s or Burger King, both of which are in Érd!

Q: How can we pray for you?
A: If you could pray for our ministries, continued adjustment, language learning, and housing situation, that would be wonderful. We are asking the Lord to help us find just the right place to live that will help us feel more settled here. And we want to show our ballplayers all the love and encouragement in Christ that we can.

All caught up? Great! One more thing we’d like you to know: Please don’t feel when you write to us that you need to apologize at all for taking a while to respond. We know things are busy, and we are busy too – we are just happy when we do get to hear from you. So, please don’t feel bad if it takes you a while. Just jump right in with what’s happening with you! :)

As always, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued prayers and support. While we go through our rough patches, your prayers help lift us up in the difficult moments. It’s tough to believe we have been here almost six months, but it is nice to look back and see the progress we’ve made. And, we get to reflect on all God is teaching us and showing us here in Hungary.