The current crisis unfolding in Ukraine has displaced millions of people within the country, and more than four million have sought refuge in other European countries. Hungary which borders Ukraine is home to a couple who work with FEC as Global Footprint Missionaries, and they have joined the effort to help, from hosting families to providing transportation.
The Global Footprint Missionaries (names withheld for safety and referred to as A and T hereafter) have worked as church planters in the Budapest area for nearly 20 years. As the crisis in Ukraine unfolded, they began hosting families who needed a place to stay, referring to them as their guests rather than as refugees. One guest who arrived in the middle of the night tried to dissuade T from picking her family up until morning, but T insisted. “I would not let my friend be at the train station in the middle of the night with her children, so let me be your friend.” Afterward, the woman told T, “Thanks to you, I don’t feel like a refugee.”
Although the need feels overwhelming to A and T, they have helped a dozen families. The first phone call they received was from a 19-year-old woman who was seven months pregnant and her 14-year-old cousin. The missionaries helped them find an apartment and purchased a bed for the pregnant woman using a humanitarian fund that had been set up to help with the immediate and long-term needs of refugees within Ukraine and throughout the region. They also found a donated crib, a stroller, and dishes for them. Another family they helped had been awakened in the middle of the night by bombs in Kyiv. Unable to leave by car, they waited two days for train tickets. When they arrived at the Hungary border, they waited five hours to cross.
They have tried to serve in simple, humanizing ways in the midst of the uncertainty and chaos. For one family who stayed with them, that meant celebrating a birthday. T said, “Celebrating birthdays is part of what makes us human.” So, A and T prepared a special meal and bought a birthday cake for their guest. When they lit the sparkler on top of the cake, the woman said, “I wish for peace.”
