FAQ

Our missions page will answer this with more detail.

We believe we’ve been led by God toward cross-cultural missionary work. We base this on Scripture, affirmation from trusted counsel, our own desires and personality, and the surrounding circumstances of our lives. We don’t want to waste our lives by making temporal things our main pursuit, like making lots of money or even raising a nice, safe family. Wealth and a healthy, happy family are good gifts from God, but they would be idols if we shaped our lives around those things rather than around a passion for God’s glory in the gospel of Jesus. A proper passion for God can certainly be present with a spacious house and a healthy family and a 9-5 job. Definitely!!!

But in God’s mysterious ways, he put a burden on our hearts to consider that there are people, and entire people groups, who do not know the love of God in his son, Jesus. We were and remain available; we have nothing holding us back; we believe God has gifted us to serve in missions to the unreached. We are seeking eternal reward over things that will someday perish. If you want to follow Jesus at all costs, you feel interested in missions, and there’s nothing that’s really holding you back, then why wouldn’t you go?

We have found that missionary work requires all sorts of people with complementary abilities. While we are involved with a variety of ministries, we largely use our areas of gifting – corporate worship and technology – to help plant churches and strengthen existing ones.

We are on a regional team that serves Europe’s missionaries in all sorts of ways, which of course strengthens church planting efforts all over Europe. We also spend as much time as we can getting to know Hungarians, pointing them to Jesus in his revealed Word, and serving in local churches.

I bet what you’re good at could be used on the field. 🙂

Elias spends some of his time home schooling and also attends a public elementary school with an emphasis on the arts. Olivia attends a Hungarian preschool in the mornings.

The simple answer is to consider pastors in America. If a pastor has enough work to do, it often makes the most sense to hire him full-time, so he is able to meet the needs. If he had to work a separate job (called tentmaking after the Apostle Paul), the energy he would like to devote to his ministry would be diminished. Certainly this worked for Paul and others, like William Carey; however, we see great need and great opportunity in Europe, and we want to devote ourselves fully to it.

The more complex answer involves “Business As Mission”, or BAM. The idea here, similar to tentmaking, is that you work a “legitimate job” alongside the people you’re trying to reach. In tentmaking and in BAM, your income and ministry funding are partially or completely independent of donors. BAM seems to be very successful in many cases.

The important thing to note about BAM is that it is not primarily a way to fund your ministry. That would be traditional tentmaking. Rather, it IS your ministry. Starting an honest business, hiring locals, paying and treating them well… it IS your ministry. Yes, it provides for your family, but it also takes a 40 hour week, which means you don’t have as much time or energy for other kinds of ministry. The ministry in Europe that we believe we’re called to is not to start a business. It is to work with church-planting teams throughout Europe, some of which may be using BAM.

Our regular expenses include:

• Salary
• Social security
• Ministry funds
• Health insurance

We’re happy to discuss our budget with you if you have questions.  Get in touch!

It comes from the Lord, ultimately! God, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, is the giver of all good gifts. And the mission is His mission. And His promise is ours in Christ: God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Practically speaking, as of September 2016, we have three churches that have committed to a monthly partnership with us, and one more that gives as able. The four of them give a combined total of 13% of our need. We are dependent on individuals from within those churches, and from elsewhere, to make up the rest of our support, both monthly and one-time.