Two trips to Dunaujvaros

**Dunaujvaros is pronounced Doon-yah-ee-var-osh or something close to that

It feels a little strange to think of the Dunaujvaros trips I’ve taken as outreaches, though that is what we call them. Both were so encouraging to me that it seems more like a weekend trip than an “outreach.” The first time I went was at the end of the first week of classes. We took a prayer walk through the city – praying for the hearts of the people there, in a town still steeped in the atheism of a communist history. Dunaujvaros means “new city on the Danube” but it used to be known as “the city of Stalin.” Some signs of communism still stand around the city:

It could be a beautiful place and maybe in springtime it will be – there is a hill overlooking the river and the city is full of trees that will probably be blooming soon. It was freezing that first visit and the ground was covered in snow and ice. Even the Danube was mostly frozen over. How's this for a view of the Danube (at the bottom of the stairs)? When we walked along it for half a mile or so I watched the ice chunks and the birds that gathered on them for a free ride down the river, eating bits of this or that. Europe is not all glamour and Dunaujvaros is definitely not.

There is a young missionary couple there, leading a home fellowship of about ten Christians and reaching out to the city in the ways that they can. Four weeks ago we were joining them to pray for God to open the doors for starting an English Club on a college campus. The club itself is not a “ministry” in that it is an English conversation club and because the college does not allow religious groups it is not a place where they are free to share the gospel, but they have fellowship afterward at a little café where anyone is welcome to join them and where they are free to share the gospel.

The cafe was willing to let us come and and have a worship service while enjoying their amazing coffee and desserts.

Yum!!

At that time the English Club seemed like a hopeless cause, but somehow the doors opened and our second outreach (this last weekend) was to help out with the first meeting of their club. It was amazing to see God work and to be there both for the seemingly hopeless prayer and then for first time they held it. It was small and by small I mean that I didn’t meet anyone new there – there were just three people, all from their home fellowship, but we held it anyway. They had me lead the meeting (I was the only one who volunteered) and one of the missionaries translated the introduction and guided conversation instructions into Hungarian. It definitely could have gone better, but at the same time it really wasn’t so bad. One of the people who came has actually taught English in the schools and she helped me think through the (existing) plan for the evening and taught me some things about teaching English, how to make it more interesting and draw out ideas from the students. The online-ness of my online teaching English program (my language study for the missions training program) gets old fast. It was really good to be able to actually try out a little bit of what I have been learning in a group setting. As I shared in a previous blog I may be working with a teenager from the village and I have been working with a friend here who is at a higher level of English but has asked for some one-on-one tutoring, so I am able to put into practice the things that I’m learning online.


(I didn’t take any pictures of the English club.)

Afterward all of us (two guys and five girls from the school and the missionaries) had some pizza – I think it was from “Pizza Hamm,” which looked like a translation of Pizza Hut into Hungarian… wherever it came from it was yummy– my first pizza since being here. Though, as one of the guys pointed out, anything is wonderful when you’re really hungry and I did have the oddest desire to put some spicy ketchup on it (see my blog from being in Romania if that sounds absolutely bizarre to you).


After dinner we all went out to the same café for some fellowship.

 

 Roz came too

The next day we all worked on deep-cleaning the missionaries’ flat and we girls did some brainstorming for a womens’ Bible study craft while the guys did…um… something else. (I don’t actually have a clue what.)

It was a good look into what a missionary’s life often is – slow going. We walked everywhere (which seemed to take forever, but at least it was warmer this time - maybe about 35 degrees fahrenheit) and did very basic things – but those things were a blessing to someone. We worked on an English club that is off to a slow start, but by the grace of God it has started. And then we packed up and went back to the castle.

The city is not the most beautiful in Europe - for most of our walk to the train station we were passing old concrete communist apartment blocks, but that should be expected for a city that was once named after Stalin.

Me and Steffany, waiting in the train station...

Our return home to Vajta was on this train - literally one of the shortest trains I think I've ever been on.

It was really encouraging for me to spend some time getting to know the missionary couple and hearing about their life, especially the wife (who is American) and what the Lord taught her during Bible school. She and her husband (who is Hungarian) both went to the same school where I am now until about four months ago when they moved to Dunaujvaros for ministry. As I said at the beginning, it didn’t feel like a typical outreach... but it left me energized to learn more and dig deep and I think it also left me with a strange feeling of looking forward to (Lord willing) someday living out a missionary life myself in a little flat in an old communist apartment building somewhere. You never know what the Lord will do...