SpeakOut Hungary: My Experience

SpeakOut Staff 2016

It's Govember! Applications for Cru's Summer Projects are now open. You can check out all of the projects they have here.

I wanted to write today to share about my time spent on two summer projects.

Before I decided to go to SpeakOut in Keszthely, Hungary for the first time in 2015, I searched and searched for blog posts by other people who had previously gone so that I could read about their experience. I only ever found one blog post about it. All that ever came up when I Googled "SpeakOut Hungary" was the website for the mission. That's great, and super informative, but I wanted to read about personal experiences from Americans that had been.

Thus, I'm writing this blog post. I want to share my experience so that others may stumble upon it and decide to apply to SpeakOut.

SpeakOut Staff 2015

I served at SpeakOut in 2015 and 2016. I could talk about those two summers for hours, but instead I'll share just a few points explaining how my time at SpeakOut grew me.

Evangelism
Evanglism at SpeakOut is set up in such a way that relationships play a huge part. While hanging out with my campers, I shared the gospel with them, but I also formed relationships with them. We played games, talked about life, went shopping...we simply spent time together. Through that, gospel conversations came up and I was able to share my faith with my campers several times a week. It's incredible. Tutors are basically handed people they can share the gospel with. It's a beautiful way to evangelize. I learned so much about starting gospel conversations, answering hard questions, and using tools that I had never heard of. The training I received during orientation week at SpeakOut has enabled me to be much more comfortable with sharing the gospel.

Community
The community aspect of SpeakOut is definitely one thing I miss most. Both years that I served on the project, the team became close almost immediately, and the sense of community is there from the start. We live together, serve together, play together...it's great. I now have many close friendships with people I met at SpeakOut. The shared experience of SpeakOut bonds people, and holding onto those friendships means the community can extend even after SpeakOut ends.

Discipleship 
Another invaluable part of SpeakOut for me this past summer was the discipleship group times.
I learned a lot during our weekly Bible studies as a group, and I felt loved and cared for during my one-on-one meetings with my discipleship group leader where we talked about the struggles I was facing, the highs and lows of the week, and that sort of thing. I've never had any kind of discipleship relationship with anyone before SpeakOut, and it's one of the things I miss most about SpeakOut when it ends. It was through my discipleship group leader that I began to recognize the calling that God was placing on my heart throughout the summer.

Called to Ministry
The single most important way that God worked in my life at SpeakOut occured on the last day of SpeakOut 2016. I had been praying about what to do with my love for Hungary, and my desire to serve there. Towards the end of SpeakOut, my discipleship group leader and I talked about how she had taught English at several Hungarian schools in the past. From that conversation, I found out about an organization that sends teachers to Central Europe to teach conversational English classes. While I was in still in Hungary, I submitted an inquiry with the organization, and a few months later, the application process is complete, and I'm now planning to serve in Budapest as an ESL teacher beginning next fall. God placed this calling on my heart while at SpeakOut, and I'm eager to follow Him in this exciting journey.

I made this video to show my friends when I came home from SpeakOut 2016.

God used SpeakOut to grow me in incredible ways. If you'd like to learn more about it, you can check out the SpeakOut Hungary website

  

SpeakOut 2016: Hungary Mission

2015 SpeakOut Staff

Last summer, I had the incredible opportunity to serve with Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) at SpeakOut in Hungary. God taught me a lot about serving Him, witnessing, and trusting His Him through that experience. Since coming home, I have been able to take the training and experience I received there to continue to share the gospel.

This summer, I am excited to be returning to SpeakOut. SpeakOut is a unique ministry opportunity. It's a five week program, running from June 30th through August 3rd, where Americans live at a college dorm and run weekly English camps for Hungarian campers. As an American tutor, I will have 3-5 girls in my tutor group. Each week, a new group of campers come, and through daily "tutor times," we share the gospel with them. My favorite part about SpeakOut is that we share the gospel by living our lives with them: we go to the beach, the town square, the cafeteria, etc, and simply live life with them while showing them the love of Christ. SpeakOut is based on the idea found in 1 Thessalonians 2:8: " Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us." By sharing our lives with our campers, the American tutors are able to share the gospel in a very personal way. I think this is what makes SpeakOut such an amazing ministry project.

In order for me to take part in this ministry opportunity, there are two specific needs. First, I need prayer partners. This would be completely impossible without a lot of prayer. Would you please consider committing to partner in prayer with me? The second need that I have is financial support. The total cost for the trip is $4,350. This includes airfare, lodging, food and ministry materials. This is a daunting need, but I faith that it can be met. Would you please consider praying about joining me as a financial partner? The ideal date to have all of the funds raised by is June 1st.

If you would like to commit to being a prayer partner, please let me know! I will be sending out specific prayer requests leading up to the project and during the project as well. If you are interested in supporting me financially, you can do so by donating online at https://give.cru.org/0760455

As I prepare for this project, I am reminded of Romans 10:14: "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?"

Thank you for considering partnering with me to help share the gospel in Keszthely, Hungary this summer.

Stepping Out: Summer Missions

Town Square in Kesztehly, Hungary

Today I finally submitted my application with Cru Summer Missions for SpeakOut 2016 in Hungary. I filled the application out back in November, but I wasn't ready to submit it. Until today. I finally felt ready to hit "submit."

Just like when I filled the application out for the same project last year, I was incredibly scared at the idea of actually getting accepted and going to another country for five weeks. Hitting "submit" means I am willing to go if the project director approves me. Having faith that God already knows how He will have me spend this summer was hard for me. Hitting "submit" felt like too big of a commitment for this noncommital girl. But I'm so glad I did.

SpeakOut 2015 American team selfie in the DC airport before heading to Hungary

When I was leaving SpeakOut last year, several of my campers asked if I would be coming back in 2016. I told them all the same thing: I simply don't know.  I'm not one to enjoy thinking way far in advance, and contemplating my future downright petrifies me, so when I got asked about my plans for the summer of 2016 back in July 2015, I couldn't even wrap my mind around thinking about whether or not God would bring me back to Hungary. I had other people on my team who were already saying they planned to come back. I couldn't understand how they could possibly know that already! I envied their ability to think that far in advance.

 When I came home, I began to pray about whether I would go back. After months of prayer, I finally felt like it was time to finish my application. So today, I hit "submit" and decided to trust my summer to God. Last summer, at the end of SpeakOut 2015, I had no idea if I'd return in 2016, but God knew that I would eventually realize He is calling me back. I'm so excited about the idea of going back and ministering to many more Hungarians!

SpeakOut 2015 team selfie on a boat on Lake Balaton

Cru has many summer mission project, both in the U.S. and globally! Check them out here: http://www.cru.org/opportunities/mission-trips.html

Trusting God: SpeakOut 2015

Emily and I in Budapest

Random fact: five minutes after meeting my best friend, Emily, we agreed we needed to go to Europe together someday. Last summer, three years after we met, we actually found ourselves in Europe together for five weeks.
Around this time last year, Emily and I were talking on the phone about who-knows-what when the conversation turned to mission trips. She told me that she was thinking about going on a mission project with Cru to Hungary. "That's cool," I thought, and we didn't talk about it again for a few months.
In February or early March, she told me she had applied and been accepted. She was super excited and continued to tell me all about it. I found out it was a five week long project called "SpeakOut." SpeakOut is an English camp that Cru puts on for Hungarian high school and college students. Basically, Emily told me she would be a tutor who would share the Gospel with her campers through tutoring them in English. I have an English degree, and I had been praying about an opportunity to teach English overseas, so when she told me more and more about the project, I got excited, too. I began to pray about whether I should apply to be a part of SpeakOut 2015.

The deadline to apply for the project was March 31st. On March 30th, I still wasn't sure if I should apply. I have some serious food allergies, and I was hesitant to apply to go somewhere for five weeks where I would have to trust the school chef to cook food that was safe for me. This probably sounds ridiculous, but I have major trust issues when it comes to letting people cook for me. Being allergic to gluten, dairy, nuts, eggs, grapefruit and chickpeas pretty much means I'm impossible to cook for. I don't even trust my family to cook for me.  This sounds so dumb to me now, but the biggest reason I was afraid to apply for the project was that I was afraid I'd get sick from the food. I ended up emailing the project director about this, and he reassured me that the school cooks would make meals safe for me, and that I shouldn't let that keep me from applying. So I did it. At eleven p.m. on the day of the deadline, I filled out the application. I will forever be glad that I did.

Emily had to wait about a month to hear that she had been accepted. Three or four days after I applied, she and I were talking on the phone, and I told her that waiting to hear if I was accepted was killing me. I just wanted to know! Little did I know that while I was on the phone with her, the project director had emailed me letting me know that they would like me to be a part of the project. And just like that, I found myself overwhelmed at the idea of going to Europe for five weeks. The only thing that kept me from freaking out whenever I thought about it was prayer. I'd pray nearly every time I thought about SpeakOut because the thought of it made me worry about a million different things. Before the project even began, I was having to work on trusting God more than ever.

I went to Hungary praying that God would use me to change people's lives, but I believe that God used SpeakOut to change my own life as well. I learned more about trusting Him, not putting Him in a box, the important of Christian community, and how to be bold in sharing what I believe with others--even to people who speak another language--and so much more. If I had let my fears about applying for the project keep me from applying, I would have missed out on all God had in store for me in the small city of Keszthely, Hungary. Something as small as my inconvenient food allergies came close to keeping me from following where God was leading me. I am grateful God gave me the courage to trust Him in this endeavor because it led to one of the best experiences of my life. I just had to trust God to take that first step in applying for SpeakOut. It's true that the first step is the scariest. Hitting "submit" on my application was daunting, but led to the most amazing summer of my life and led to friendships I now cherish.