So here I am, sitting on my bed in the servants' quarters in the basement of the Zichy Kastely in Vajta, Hungary. It's pretty cool.
In the summer of 2010, I went on my first overseas mission trip to Haiti and I was immediately hooked. The different culture, languages, smells, people and food all hit me like a freight train and I wanted more. We were given the opportunity to serve a local ministry in Port-Au-Prince and it was when our bus crossed the Haitian border that I decided I wanted to be a missionary of some kind. Well, summer ended and my first semester of college was starting. Moving away from home wasn't too bad, seeing as home was only an hour away from school. I love my college and I made some absolutely wonderful friends; but something was tugging on my heart and no matter what I said to myself, that feeling wouldn't go away. I felt out of place and spiritually stifled. My friends were awesome and I was making straight A's, but I was getting frustrated. How many Americans sit in church every Sunday morning and listen to their pastors talk about "the mission field" and "Who will go? Who will go to the jungles of South America and the plains of Africa to spread the gospel?" Everyone gets fired up, says amen, goes out to eat and then forgets everything the pastor says as they start mentally preparing for the hectic work week that will once again consume their lives. Africa and South America will just have to wait until next week. Don't get me wrong, I'm an all American girl and I'm from the south; I like my fried okra and sweet tea in mass amounts please and thank you. The reason I went to such a close college is because I hate being away from home. I admit that my view of the world pretty much consisted of my school, my family, my friends and my country. How stereotypically American. I kept praying that God would put me where He wanted me and that if there was something, anything better out there, that He would give me the opportunity to taste and see. Well, be careful what you pray for because you might just end up going to a Bible college in a castle too.
After a few weeks of praying, more like complaining, to God, my band student teacher from my Junior year of high school "randomly" sent me a message on facebook telling me that she and her husband were attending Calvary Chapel Bible College in Hungary. I read the message, closed my eyes and told God that if that was His idea of a joke He had a lot of work to do because there was no way I was about to interrupt my college education and leave everything familiar to me just to start over in a foreign country. I knew I asked God to use me and the idea of going somewhere else in the world to be a missionary sounded awesome and “spiritual” or whatever, but I didn’t actually think that He would ask me to do something like that. Well, I’m not in Georgia anymore, I can tell you that much. I still don’t know if I’m called to be a missionary outside of the US, but I do feel called to women’s ministry and I’ll joyfully serve in whatever country God decides to put me. But for now I’m studying to be a missionary in a castle-turned-Bible College with about 50 other people in the beautiful country of Hungary. There are over 13 countries represented here; I’m rooming with two other Americans, a Hungarian, an Australian, and a Russian. And they’re all awesome. The school is roughly 40% American, 40% Hungarian and then 20% everywhere else. Classes start tomorrow and I am so excited. I’m taking Romans, Apologetics, Joshua, Missions Class and Evangelism and Discipleship.
This place is so awesome. I mean first of all, it’s a castle. With all the trimmings. But the people are so wonderful. We’re all here on common ground; we love the Lord. It’s so cool whenever we all get together for chapel or meetings because everything has to be translated into Hungarian, and during worship we’ll usually switch around from English to Hungarian. I can’t believe how close minded I was. I woke up every morning and lived my life not giving any attention to the fact that there are so many different cultures around the world loving God and serving Him. I mean, I knew about it; I’m not that ignorant. But it’s like one of those things where someone might hear of a plane crashing and they say, “Oh, that’s terrible!” But they never really think about it.
It’s such a powerful experience singing to my God in a different language, knowing He understands every word. This morning I was standing next to Paula, from Columbia, and she was singing in Spanish while I was singing in English while the band was singing in Hungarian. What a chorus we must have been. Or tonight when we had our dorm meeting. Marcsi would translate into Hungarian while Lori was speaking, and then someone else would come up and translate into Hungarian while Marcsi was speaking to us in English. How does that joke go? What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American. Most people here speak more than one language. It’s so cool. And I’m not trying to hate on Americans. I’m one of you. Us. But I just feel like everyone is so selfish and coming and living in a different country has shown that. Bottom line: I prayed for God to show me what He wants me to do, and He delivered. Why? Because He’s faithful.
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