So Where's the Magic?

I remember as a child when missionaries came and shared at church their lives seemed so exciting. What a life! To be a first hand witness to the work of God in people's life -- to witness the magic!

But real life on the mission field isn't like that. It can often be surprisingly similar to life in the states in many ways. Sometimes the mundane activities of our regular schedule grind into monotony and it is easy to lose sight of what is really happening all around us. Between taking the kids to school, baseball practice, and Bible studies, the hustle and bustle of daily life leaves us struggling to keep our heads above water. But just because we do not see it, don't think for a minute that magic is not there. God has designed life so that we are continually thrown into the lives of others. And as long as we allow ourselves to be involved in people's lives in His name, then there is magic.

It is not the sparkle of pixie dust or the wave of the glimmering wand, but rather the sparkle in a child's eye or the glimmer of his smile. And whether one lives in Hungary, Houston or HongKong, God has granted us the privilege of being a part of His magic in this suffering world. My good friend MacKenzie Rollins caught some of that magic last week when she photographed some of those who have become dear to us in our lives and ministry here in Hungary.
So take a look at these photos and maybe they will help you to see the magic again in the work of God all around you.

No Longer Orphans

A small child wailed at the top of his lungs in the doctor's office waiting room. To tell you the truth I had hardly noticed it in the hustle and bustle of getting two kids and a husband ready for check ups. But then Niki, our seven year old whom we adopted from an orphanage in Miskolc, Hungary last year, brought it to my attention. "Mommy, I cried like that," she said as her big blue innocent eyes looked up at me. "I cried like that when my foster family left me in the orphanage."
Niki's foster family was the only family she ever knew. She lived with them from age 14 months to 4 years. She loved them and from all appearances they seem to have loved her too. But a series of circumstances made them unable to continue to care for the child and Niki ended up in the orphanage. That was perhaps the first moment Niki realized she was really an orphan.
Adoption is a miraculous thing -- how God can take a child not of your blood and graft them into your family so deeply that you cannot imagine your family ever existed without them. It is a beautiful thing, but the true beauty hides in the deepest places where sacrifice and commitment serve as foundation.
Before we adopted, I did my research and discovered that adoption is tough road to travel. I had witnessed the struggles of friends who had adopted and read lots about attachment disorders -- some of which have very violent natures.
Adoption, as much as it is miraculous and beautiful, is also terrifying. I learned of uncontrollable, manipulative children, some of whom would hurt others, start fires, physically harm themselves. And I often asked God, can I really do this?
It was then that I awakened to what it really means to be adopted into God's family. It is not just the superficial "happily ever after" story. God looked as us with all our reactive attachment disorders, and said "yes, I want them to be my children."
Sin has left all of us as orphans. And like Niki we've cried in the night at the injustice of what the sinful world has done to us. But our heavenly Father was waiting in the wings to adopt us with all our dysfunctions. Still we find ourselves reverting to orphanage behaviors, trying to manipulate others, or even manipulate God. Our attachment disorders lead us to cling to those who are not our true parents; we are ready to walk off with anyone and leave our loving Father behind. We make choices that harm his other children. Sometimes we are determined to ignore our Father's direction and bring destruction on ourselves.
And yet, He remains with us. He is not scared off by the ways we lash out and hurt Him. He is not ready to abandon us when we consciously choose to hurt his other children. He is a loving adoptive father who disciplines us in order to shepherd us into his Righteous Ways.
On November 15, we will celebrate one year with Niki. And it is my earnest prayer, that we can respond to all her hurts and dysfunctions with attitudes and correction that reflect the Heavenly Father's love.

Obedience vs. Doing More

Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.
Words and Music by Daniel L Schutte © 1981

I remember singing this song when I prepared to come to Hungary more than ten years ago. Then I was a single woman in my late twenties heading to Budapest to teach English in Hungarian high schools. I was excited and driven, ready to serve, ready to minister. The years that followed were indeed golden ones as I felt very much on the cutting edge of ministry with my students, my Bible study, the refugees and the orphans.

Now ten years later, I am living in a Hungarian village and in alot of ways I am more a missionary wife than a missionary. More a mom than a minister. I have learned that it is a difficult catharsis for women who held the role of missionary before they became wife and mother. And it has been difficult for me.

I had no trouble giving up alot of the American luxuries to come to Hungary -- a car, central airconditioning, comfortable salaries, TexMex food -- all paled in comparison to the rich simple life of ministry in Hungary.

But giving up the thrill of being in cutting edge ministry, that is hard. I can recite all the trite sayings about family being first and it is. That is the choice I have made -- to make my family my primary ministry and use the limited energy I now have for them. But I must admit I like being the one in there on the cutting edge. I miss it. Unfortunately, I forget, ministry is not about what it does for me, or even what I could be doing for others. It is about obedience.

Ministry is all about sacrifice. And I have come to understand that, for this season of my life, giving up that cutting edge role is my sacrifice. Strange, isn't it? That obedience to God would lead one serve Him less.

But maybe it is not really serving Him less. Because ministry is not a matter of doing more or less, but rather it is about doing what he has called us to do right now. It is about obedience. For this season that cutting edge role has to die for me. But as Christians we know death is not the end. Even a long, lost ministry can be resurrected in its proper time.

Autumn and Death

Yesterday morning I awoke to find all the grass and flowers, all the beauty of summer, laced in ice. The vines and trees are turning gold and red and it's clear that Autumn has arrived in Hungary. I think it is beautiful. My husband, who grew up in Hawaii, finds it ugly and unpleasant. Fall means cold. Fall means death to the plants he has slaved over all summer.
I love the seasons -- even those that bring death to the plants, because without fall and winter, how could we experience springtime in the fullness of its glory. CS Lewis wrote to Sheldon VanAuken that things must die if we are experience resurrection. This makes me ponder what needs to die in me. Dying hurts. None of us likes it. Death is a product of sin. But God brings redemption, resurrection when we let die the things in our lives that need to die in us.

The Gospel in Disney Packaging?

If only Christ came in Disney packaging ... Do you know what I mean? All Disney movies end with "... and they lived happily ever after" -- if not in explicit word, then certainly in concept. If only our acceptance of Christ came with some sort of guarantee that our life on this earth would be "happily ever after." But it doesn't. The cold, hard truth is that Christ gave us a very different guarantee: "In this life you will have tribulation..." (John 16:33)
During the summer we watched with great joy and awe as many of our Hungarian youth came to Christ. Last week, one of those kids ODed on tranquilizers after getting into some serious trouble at school. Last month, another who was living in a children's home, lost his brother in a knife fight outside a disco. That same week his mother died in hospital. The magnitude of human suffering all around us is staggering. And these few items just scratch the surface of the extraordinary hard knocks we see these new Christians facing.
Life is tough--so unjustly tough it seems at times. But Christ's guarantee did not end with his promise of tribulation. He goes on to say: "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." To be honest, I sometimes have a hard time keeping that perspective. I see the tribulation part all around me, but the overcoming part evades me. What's worse is that it seems to evade these young ones.
But maybe that's the whole point. Maybe we need to be in the place where overcoming tribulation seems unfathomable, because that's where genuine faith begins. If faith is truly the being sure of things hoped for and being certain of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), perhaps it is only in our times of tribulation (when we see no evidence of God anywhere near us) that we learn whether we truly have any faith at all. If we do have the faith to push through those tough times, I trust we'll find that although life is indeed tough, God is still good.
Maybe there is a Disney ending out there for all of us, but as Christians our "happily ever after" is guaranteed only in the hereafter, not in the here and now.

So You Want to Be a Missionary?

“So you want to be a missionary?” the stout Hungarian man from my church in Washington, D.C. commented almost sarcastically. “You’re going to tell all the Hungarians they need Jesus.” I stood in awkward silence. I knew he was a believer in Christ. What was his point in all this?

“You know what the Hungarians are going to say?” he asked. “They’ll say we’ve been Christian long before your country was ever discovered! We’ve been a Catholic nation since St. Stephen got the crown from the Pope a thousand years ago. And they’ll wonder who you think you are to tell them they need to be Christians.”

I stammered from side to side, trying to come up with a gracious way to leave, but Laszlo had not made his point yet and would not let me escape until he had.

“Trudy,” his demeanor now softened. “Take the time to earn the right to share your faith.”

That was ten years ago. Since then, I have taught English in Hungarian High Schools and colleges, gotten married, had one daughter while living in Turkey and adopted another from a Hungarian orphanage. Now, living in a Hungarian village near the Romanian border, Laszlo’s words often echo back in my mind as I have learned what it means to honor and respect people and their ways. We Americans tend to think we are the ones who have it all together, but such attitudes make us miss out on all there is to learn from those we meet along the way. I have been blessed by the Hungarians and as much as I long for my Hungarian friends to know Christ. I will never love them any less if they do not choose Him.