May 2016

Spring has arrived in Budapest. It’s so beautiful here when the weather is warm. In the winter, there is a grey cloud that hangs over the city for four months and makes everyone sick and depressed. That cloud has now dissipated, and things are looking bright again. 

It’s funny to me that this happens here. People actually have to take Vitamin D pills because there is a lack of sunlight in the winter. The whole attitude of the country changes. I can see it in the faces of people on the trams and busses, the kids in the school are different too. Whereas a month ago, no one wanted to be there, and they were all counting down the days till the end of the year, now, students are coming in every day smiling, happy to be here. I feel the same way. I do get down sometimes living here. I miss my friends in America, I miss Walmart, I miss driving, but then I have to remember why I’m here. I didn’t move to Budapest to sit by the Danube and sip coffee. I moved here to be a part of the work of Christ that is happening. I moved here to minister to Hungarians and students from different countries. There is no other reason I live in Hungary than to do that. 

At times, this is a disturbing thought for me. It’s very easy to get sucked into the culture, to become depressed and only want to live for myself all winter, but I can’t live like that. Number one, that’s not who God has created anyone to be, and number two, what good am I if I become just another person who lives here? I constantly have to remind myself of my purpose for being here. 

There is nothing greater than being in God’s will and serving Him. When you are in that place, new worlds open up all the time. People come into your life that you would have never gotten to know otherwise and it’s all part of God’s plan. I am so privileged to minister in Hungary, and you are so privileged to minister where you are. Let’s not forget this! Keep going forward! Don’t forget that God uses those who are available, no matter where they are.

I have been approved by the Missions Board in Baltimore to come back for another year! I’m so happy and looking forward to what God will do in the next twelve months. 

I will be returning to the US for about 6 weeks this summer to visit family and friends. I can’t wait to see all of you.

The school year is coming to a close, please pray for those staff members and missionaries who are returning next year, as well as those who have decided to leave. Our principal and his family will be returning to the States this summer and a new principal will take his place. Please pray for this transition time and all the little details of housing, transportation, finances, etc. for these amazing missionaries both coming and going. 

April 2016 (Honors Choir)

As many of you know, there will be a team from ACSI coming to GGIS next week to determine whether we can be accredited or not. Please continue to pray for this as we prepare for their arrival.


I am currently sitting in the lobby of another Christian school in Budapest called ICSB (International Christian School of Budapest) chaperoning an event called Honors Choir where Christian students from all over Europe come together and sing at various venues every year. This is an ACSI event and the first one that I have attended. GGIS sent eight students which is just a small percentage of the 100+ students that are here. I’m amazed to see all of these students come and be so unified in their purpose even though many of them have never met. Right now they are practicing a song about The Creation and they sound incredible. I love to hear these voices praising their Creator, not out of some religious duty, but simply for the joy of praising Him. There have been devotionals by different missionaries and team building exercises that have helped bond the students.


I don’t know how many of these kids really understand what is happening but I am finally getting to see what ACSI is all about. They aren’t just coming together to sing, play sports or work on accrediting schools, they are expanding the connections in the global Body of Christ. I am staring at a room full of teenagers going forward with Christ and meeting other people their age who are doing the same things they are doing. These are the times that make a difference, the times that change their lives, the times that stir them up to dive deeper into their calling. I’m so privileged to be a part of this.


Please pray for the youth group, GGYG, that I am leading. I really want to have a greater influence in the school, for it to be so engrained in the culture that students don’t even think about coming, they just do. I don’t know how to accomplish this other than just asking for prayer about it. I think the one thing that kept me in church as a young person was going to Camp Life, Spring Rally, the Blitz, and the Teen Studies in Baltimore. Pastor Love and many others invested so much in me through these events and I want to share a part of that with the teens here.

February 2016

I am a little bit late on my newsletter this month because I wanted to wait until Eurocon was over. Eurocon is the GGWO European convention, hosted annually in Budapest.

It seemed like I blinked and it was gone. There were so many Americans here this year, many of whom left on Saturday. I am a little disappointed I couldn't spend more time with them, but it's ok. I'm glad a family of friends is still here and I hope to see them a little more this week before they leave. What an awesome family. I am always amazed by their purpose and determination to stay positive. I was thinking last night while sitting with Pastor Barry that a true friend is someone who can correct you when you're wrong or when you've messed up and then forget about the stupid thing you just did. There were several times this happened with me and him and yet there is nothing between us. In fact, I trust him more because of this.

I think God is the exact same way, though we often fail to realize it. Pastor preached on the Friday of Eurocon about Jesus standing there with his arms open all day long. It's difficult to remember this sometimes. I can be so focused on what I did or how I messed up that I don't even see Jesus standing there with his arms open. I forget that He still loves me.

That was such a powerful message and exactly what I needed. It was also a great door opener for two of my students who were there that night. After talking with them after the message, both prayed to receive Christ. I was blown away. These are two students who I had been praying for since I moved to Budapest in 2013, and I am so excited that they made this decision. One of them asked so many questions about the messages and was beaming the next day during the evening session.

We must always remember that it's God's desire that all come to Him. He stands there with His arms open, waiting for us, loving us, even from a distance. He loves the believer and the unbeliever equally. I can become so overwhelmed when I see only the details of life and over the past few months I have been extremely overwhelmed with all that is happening at work and in my personal life, but this conference kind of shoved me back into the right mindset. I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to have my arms open, pointing people to Christ.

I am also thankful that my parents were able to come and visit this week. They had a great time traveling to Vienna and Prague as well as attending the conference. I saw them off this morning (at 5 am) and can't wait to go to bed tonight!

January 2016

Happy New Year! Can I still say that a month later?

This marks my third anniversary living in Hungary.

At the beginning of the month I climbed up Janos Hegy, (John’s Mountain) a small mountain on the outskirts of Budapest.

For a little while I had been struggling with the decision about whether I would want to return next year or not. I really do love living here but I especially love the school. I never thought I would connect with teenagers the way I have and God has really revealed, in a more deeper way, the call He has for me. I want to work with kids wherever I am, and for now, I know that I am called here.

We have had quite the month at GGIS. Please pray for us. There seems to be a bit of a bug going around, spiritually and physically. I haven’t gotten it, but many students have become sick and some teachers are also suffering from it. Also, as some of you know, we are currently in the process of becoming accredited by ACSI, the Association of Christian Schools International. This is a great thing and has taken a lot of work from all of us on staff. A committee comes in April to check things out and give the final word which you can also be praying for. I think that when there is a major work of God, Satan is right there waiting to attack it.

In a recent Bible class, a girl asked me what the difference between a test and trial is. I think the difference is that a temptation is Satan trying to influence you to turn away from God whereas a test is God revealing to Satan that you won’t. So often God can turn temptation into a test. We may not see the usefulness of a situation in our lives but it doesn’t mean that God isn’t using it. I am reminded of Romans 8:28 where it says all things work together for good. I think that God just loves showing us off. We are not perfect but He has given us Perfection. When I trust God instead of turning away from Him, I am living how He wants me to live, not perfectly but just relying on Him. This is what I have learned the most in the past few months and this is what I shared with that Bible class.

I am re-taking Pastor Schaller’s Homiletics class from 2011 online with my friend, Tim. It’s funny to watch myself sitting there on the videos from all those years ago. So much has happened but God remains faithful. The messages are still relevant and just as useful for me today as they were then.

Just a few days ago, my friends Pasha and Ruth had their baby. She looks just like Pash!

Thank you all for praying for us here, five months has turned into ____ years!

November-December 2015

Sorry I haven't written recently according to my normal schedule. GGIS went on Christmas break and I did too. Haha

For Thanksgiving I went to Israel for five days. What an amazing time that was! It's incredible to see all of the biblical sites- Engedi, Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, David's palace and of course the Wailing Wall. So many people go there and to see the things Christ saw and everything but it was cool for me to look at the people that Christ saw. I think this is more important. These are people searching for a Savior but then not recognizing Him when He came. It's like this all over the world, especially at Christmas time. A friend of mine just lost his mom after a long battle with illness (please pray for him) and as we went from house to house together on and around Christmas we were talking about how lonely you can get this time of year. I feel it especially when school is out. There is so much happening and going on and then nothing. The whole world seems to stop and you can forget that you have a purpose. If I feel like this as a believer I can't imagine how the unbeliever feels. This is why Christ came. Below are some pictures from my trip.

I taught a few Christmas Bible classes before the break and spoke all about the importance of the virgin birth, the hypostatic union and a few other Christmassy topics. It was a lot of fun just to study these things out again after a while. I kept thinking about what Pastor Schaller said all those years ago about learning it all over and doing it all over again. That's a good thought for this new year.

Christmas was fun, as I mentioned before, I went house hopping. On the 23rd I went to visit the Jako family, they have been a part of the church and school for much longer than I've been in Budapest and their daughters are all in GGIS. They are such a wonderful family. On the 24th I went to the Knight's (American missionary family/ principal of the school) house where we had a really relaxed time playing with their new puppy and chatting by the fire. It was a very comforting time and very relaxing. Christmas Day I went to an English/Russian missionary family's house where we opened presents, put together Legos with the kids and played games all day. I was so busy those days that I didn't leave my house after that. Haha

That's about it from here. Thank you all for praying for me. I hope you all have a happy new year!

October-November 2015

I can’t believe it’s already been a month since I last sent my newsletter!

We had a Harvest Party at GGIS. Over 600 people attended including students, families, and friends of the school. We had line-dancing, food, and games. The elementary students left around 6 pm then we had a special movie night outside with the high schoolers. It was freezing! The movie we watched was called God’s Not Dead. It’s a Christian movie about a college student who has a debate with one of his professors about the existence of God. By then end of the movie, so many of the students were crying. It was an amazing time. I gave a short devotional and you could really feel God moving there. Quite a few Christian students prayed to get to know God deeper.

My friends who you have been praying for, Pasha and Ruth, finally were accepted to go to the United States. They left last week. What a hole they left, too. It’s strange not having them here. The students still pray for them and their unborn baby. I keep going to text Pasha and then remembering that it’s 3 AM for him. Below is a picture after Pasha’s going away party. We are standing in front of the Ronald Reagan statue in downtown Budapest.

I will be going to Israel for Thanksgiving this year! I am so excited to have this opportunity! I will be traveling with a group from Hungary and we will be there for four days. It’s so easy to fly from here, it’s only three hours. We will see the Dead Sea, Calvary, the Garden of Gethsemane, and other Biblical sites. Please pray for safety while we are there.

Europe is really in turmoil right now with the immigration crisis and the recent terrorist attacks in France. Please pray for peace for our brothers and sisters here. We know that we won’t ever have peace on earth but that doesn’t mean that they can’t accept Christ and have peace within.

Please pray for the youth group at GGIS. It’s a great place to spend time with the students outside of a school setting and we are able to minister to them a lot. The group is very young and loves to be entertained. They are very much drawn to the activities but not so much the messages. (Surprise, surprise). Anyway, you can pray for spiritual growth with them as well as older students to come and minister to them. Also, please pray that a team comes together to help with this. Pasha was leading it and I have since taken over.



Thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers, and continued financial support!

September-October 2015

As you may know, there is a church in GGIS on Sunday mornings that I attend. This past week, my friends, Pasha, Tim, and I have been building many things for it including a stage, pulpit and cross.

We have had a week-long fall break at GGIS which has been nice but by day two I was ready to see the students again. I am so blessed to be able to teach these kids. It really is a mission field that comes to you.

We had a high school retreat at the end of September where we take all the high school students out to the countryside for a weekend. It was a great time with them, getting to know new students and hearing the Word. One senior, Jay, a Chinese boy, has had a spiritual awakening so to speak. He went to a camp this summer and was really touched by God. He has stepped up this year and become a leader in the school. He asked if he could pray in Chinese for all of the Chinese students after a message one night. It was amazing. I have no idea what he said but many of the students who we know are unsaved walked away with tears in their eyes.

My birthday was last weekend and my friends threw me a surprise party! It was so much fun! I am so thankful for all of them and the different, unique life that they each bring to the team here. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to surround myself with while living here.

Pasha and his wife, Ruth, will be moving back to America sometime in the next few weeks. He has his interview on Tuesday and they will find out shortly after when they can go. Pray for safety and God’s perfect plan for them as they start this next chapter of their life.

Also, if you think of it, please keep me in your prayers the next few weeks. I have been struggling with a few different things lately (nothing serious, Dad) and could use some prayer.

Thank you all for reading! Sorry the newsletter is a little late this month!

Love,



Jon