Staff Missionary Reports
Reports and Experiences of the Godspeed
Staff
"Those He loves..."
Budapest, Sunday 8/24
Dear friends,
Karen and I find ourselves for the first time in Hungary, where
we will be for the next week, working with a missionary family
stationed in this region. Having come from our home in the mid-Atlantic
coastal area where we have had the hottest and driest weather
in literally a hundred years, we perhaps appreciate even more
the beauty of this place this time of year: I am sitting on the
small porch of the pension where we are staying, in a 65 degree
cool breeze, overlooking the flower garden in the green yard below,
while overhead two sailplanes returning to the nearby small airport
come so close that I can hear the whisper of the air as they soar
by.
Our trip started Friday evening, when we left Washington for Frankfurt,
then to Budapest. In spite of my height, I can usually sleep on
an airplane and Karen is learning that skill. On this trip, however,
we were assigned seats just behind the bulkhead row; in our row
and that ahead of us (20 seats), there were eight children below
the age of two. None could speak English, but two spoke excellent
whine; three were teething, and I am pretty sure one had fangs.
One set of parents were contemplating using the word "no"
for the first time with their two year old, but decided against
it when her voice and adverse behaviors escalated.
As I watched the effects of ineffective, inconsistent, and at
times absent discipline, I was reminded of scripture, "...the
Lord disciplines those He loves..." (Prov 3:12, NIV). How
many times have I complained to the Lord when He was letting me
know that my self-directed path was heading the wrong way? How
much better would be the outcome if I would just listen? I am
grateful to God that He keeps on teaching me, even if sometimes
He keeps me up all night on Lufthansa to do so...
Other signs of the times: in my home country, I have grown accustomed
to lengthy airport security measures and plastic food utensils
on airplanes. For the first time, I note that security issues,
while present, were actually less intense in Europe than in the
U.S. The meal on the Frankfurt-Budapest flight was served with
a full complement of metal silverware. An unusual location for
political statement: bathroom stall graffiti in most public places
in the U.S. varies from sophomoric to obscene. In certain European
settings (no pun intended), of that which I could understand,
there was a prominent anti-Israeli theme intermixed with the more
earthy subject matter. It is an interesting world we live in...
Marital stress, medical illness, depression, struggles with spiritual
focus, the insecurity of planning for the future in places of
economic and political instability...these are the types of problems
we are helping others deal with this trip. The topics are multiple,
the relationships between psychological and spiritual and medical
are complex, the time is short, too short for us to expect to
accomplish much by secular means. We thank God that He is the
one who reveals, who explains, who heals. We also thank Him that
He has allowed us to be here to watch Him work.
Keep us in your prayers, please...
Godspeed,
Barney, for Karen too
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