Hamilton Elim Church
28 July 2024 - Missions Month: The Johnston's
Hello, my name is Glenn Johnston. And I'm Naomi Johnston and we are missionaries based here in Budapest, Hungary. And we have been here for over two years now, two and a half years, coming up on three years. So when we left New Zealand to move to Hungary, I was the one with the really well laid out job role. So initially my calling to missions happened because I was really a pout of a pull towards making vulnerable people less vulnerable. And I thought what I had to do was give up my kind of my secular job in order to do like a discipleship or a really hands on community impact mission or job. And when we came into our first little vision trip here to Hungary, it was made apparent to me that actually the role that I could take that would be most valuable was in my skill set, which was communications and media. So my role is basically to go throughout the region of Europe and the Middle East with my camera and my laptop and just capture what our missionary teams are doing in each country and be able to create content that they can send out to the people that support them. But also that we as an organization can show this is what we're doing with our time and our money or your money. And this is this is what our missionaries are doing and Italy and Israel and Spain and Ukraine and Hungary so all throughout the region. And and also part of that is communicating with our own supporters and our own people about what we're actually doing here. So yeah, that's my job and I'm very privileged to be doing a job that I love. But it has been a different journey from Glenn's because I was able to bring my dream job and my skills over here and just and use them here. Whereas Glenn has actually had to leave behind a lot of what was his skill set and his where he found his value in order to shift into this kind of missions role, which is really quite fluid and doesn't have a lot of doesn't have a lot of structure at the moment. Back in New Zealand I worked as a commercial diver and so I worked at the New Zealand commercial dive school doing repairs and maintenance and then also under instructing underwater welding. And so I talked there at the dive school as well as traveling around New Zealand, also the world doing commercial dives underwater construction. And February 2022, Russia's Special Military Operation and Ukraine kicked off. So I was, I guess to say, in charge of leading teams into Ukraine and delivering food supplies to our partner organisations over there. And so through ourMS we assisted in delivering over it. I think it was nearly a million US dollars worth of food transported across the border into Ukraine. Yeah, while Glenn was away on these trips, well initially it was, I went away on quite a few as the communications person in the region. So I went on our first crossing across the border and that took 22 hours. So we left with a van load of water thrown in food and water and just, and we made the crossing happen as it happened. So we were the first humanitarian aid suppliers to cross the border where we crossed it and it was because we had someone making a call to each of the desks as we got there. And so it was an American, a Kiwi and a Ukrainian girl. And so it was the three of us set up in the front of this transit crossing a border into what we had no idea was going to be there. And it was actually quite a solemn crossing once we got through all the border guard crossings because they were just like piles and piles of people waiting to cross the border into Hungary. And there was like, like ladders, old Russian ladders that people had obviously driven knowing that they were just going to leave them and just cross. And so for me it was weird seeing just this influx. There were these rich cars being driven across so that obviously come from like wealthier cities and they had the privilege of being able to leave with their car and cross the country and leave. But the slightly less well off people were walking with their bags of belongings like two or three bags and all their kids. And a cat and a dog. A cat, a dog and they were just literally walking through the border and just piles of cars just parked up as people just... Yeah, so that was like, I've never seen anything like that in my life. And we had to just drive through all of that and get to this place where we could drop the food off. And had a very interesting experience there. It was my first time there. And they were still so hospitable. So we show up they're like, "Thank you for bringing aid here. We're going to cook you a three-porse meal." And again, I've experienced that in India before where you are rich and you have like we were going to drive back across the border to our perfectly safe country. And these people that need the stuff that we're delivering are cooking this excessive amount of food to show their thanks. And yeah, it was a good trip. So anyway, so I did a couple of those trips in order to photograph and video what was going on, but after that, Glenn really took the lead. And so I stayed back with Mina and we would just keep in touch when we could and try and keep our rhythm of life going where Mina would go to school or kindergarten at that time. And I would just do my work from here and edit video. And yeah, we've been apart quite a lot in our marriage where he would go away for work or I would go away for work. So it was sort of a comfortable rhythm actually, but it's nice that it's not happening so often now. Yeah, that was good. After I'd done a few crossings, maybe three or four months worth, and the border guards knew who I was. They'd come up to the van and shake my hand and just like, because they spoke next to no English and I speak no Ukrainian. And so they'd be like, eh, we've come up, shake my hand, do our paperwork formalities and then yeah. Say one or two words. Say one or two words. So yeah, we're there in December in January and there was 10 centimetres of snow on the ground. And due to Russian bombings, the power supply was cut off. And so we'd go 22, 26 hours without power. And then the power would come back on for two hours and then be off again. And so I had to take a generator over to run the house we're staying in. We also bought a fireplace in Hungary, transported that over the border, had that installed in the house we're staying in. So that would have heat and also used it to heat our food sometimes. For me, it was going in and pointing a camera at people who are holding their crying babies and not feeling like I was exploiting them. Like dealing with issues of exploitation and media and why am I doing this and how do I connect this back to people that can make a difference. Otherwise, this is just some random lady who's come over here to grab some footage that might look shocking. But how am I doing it in a way where we actually connect them to Jesus or we connect them to the church in a way where we're not exploiting. So Glenn's not coming over with a bunch of people that are here to save the world. We're here to support a structure that's already there, which is the church. We're there to support people as they go through what is probably the most traumatic thing of their lives. Yeah, I think that was really important. It's like we're here as Andrew Fissenich put it. Where we're here is the scaffolding. So when you build a building, you put scaffolding up around it. Once the building's built, you take the scaffolding down and you move it away to somewhere else. And so I really feel like we're just here as scaffolding to help the local church. I think a really important part of being a missionary is just being there to support the church. Because the local church has the local knowledge and they know the culture, they know the people, they know the language. And they can communicate all of that stuff better than some crazy guy who's just come from New Zealand. So as the work in Ukraine began to slow down, there came an opportunity to work at an Ole Miss camp in Spain. And the camp is about an hour and a half to hours east from Madrid in the beautiful Spanish countryside. And so this camp is used by the local churches in the area, like even as far as Madrid. Churches come out there to have like retreats, men's retreats, youth camps, schools go out there for school camps. And so this camp had suffered through COVID. And so there came an opportunity to go over and work in the camp and do repairs and maintenance there. And so I ended up leading teams from America again, who'd come to work at the camp. That's kind of been the new project that's come up now is going to Spain fairly regularly now and going over and working at the camp for up to two weeks at a time. Yeah, I think a key, another key point of what we've been learning is that missions can sometimes be viewed, especially by us on the other side of the world. It can be viewed as quite like a spiritual thing where you are evangelizing on the street and you are saving souls and all this. But actually missions can be quite fundamentally practical. And so the things, the jobs that we've really been involved in the most have been hugely practical where, you know, God has given this mission organization like a camp. It's a beautiful camp, but it needs practical work. And so usually someone like Glenn is actually in very short supply in the mission circle who just has that kind of practical skill set, but also availability. So I think there are a lot of practically minded men who come over and do short term trips and are very valuable and we still need that. But to have someone like Glenn who has the practical skill set, but like the full time availability who is funded to be here full time to do work like that. That's very rare in missions. For me, I have been really privileged to be able to travel throughout the region to a number of locations. So I've been to Ireland, I've been to Catania in Italy, the little island of Sicily down at the bottom there. I did do a few trips into Ukraine, I've been to Spain a couple of times to do jobs there. I just recently returned from a trip to Estonia. I think that's part of the perks of taking three years to get to the mission field is that quitting means, you know, it took us so long to get here, that quitting is less of an option. And so when things get really hard and they do on missions, it really encourages us to just stick with it, it took us so long. We had so many confirmations of the calling that it's really hard to just ignore all that and put that behind us, so that was really cool. So all of the people that spoke into our lives during that time of preparation, those are the things that we lean back on in the hard times. And so some of you might be watching this and you know who you are, who in those moments of doubt that we were having in the preparation really spoken to that vision and that calling that we had. And those are the things we go back to when we're fighting about whether this is, you know, is this what we want to do with our lives? And then we think back at all these moments that people were like, we really feel God is calling you to this and we really encourage you to just keep moving forward. We really lean back really hard on all that. So first of all, like that is a great form of support, just the words of encouragement that we get from everybody back home and scattered throughout the world now. We're moving into a new season now, I think. One of the big changes is that our regional director left us position and therefore we are freed up on where we can base ourselves in the region. And so that really opened up the door for potentially moving somewhere where Glen has a more fixed role. Here in Hungary, his roles have been dependent on emergencies like a war. And we weren't planning for the war to happen, but we were here at the right time and the right place to be able to help with providing aid. And we've been, Glen's been flying to Spain very regularly and I've been going to different countries and seeing the needs. And so we're really moving into a phase of discernment where we're trying to figure out where God wants us for this next few years. Whether that's here in Budapest and just trusting that God will provide constant work and growth opportunities like he has been or whether this is a pivot point where we move to a different place. Because obviously this also is a big thing for us to think about with Nina. So we enrolled her in a local school where she's learning a Hungarian curriculum with English supplemented. And we really do see that that was a blessing for our ministry here. We've been integrated with the community far better and we have local friends and she can attend the kids church at church because she speaks Hungarian and she has Hungarian and international friends at her school. So the idea of moving actually is a big deal for Nina because she will be enrolled in another local school wherever we go, which will require her learning another language. Approaching her life again, making new friends and you know she doesn't have that naive optimism this time. It's a little more, she's a little more realist about it and therefore it's not such a, you know, it's not such a, yeah, a naive optimism. So we really do need to discern what God wants because I think the England and Nina we can walk through whatever if we know that it's God's will. What we find it hard to do is like stumble through questioning whether this is God's. Yeah, and so we've knew that we haven't made a decision like that before, we haven't had to, God always kind of comes in, so we want him to do that again and really speak to us about that. But either way, we are looking forward to being able to host some teams. So moving forward, looking at Spain, there's a huge amount of work that really needs to be done at the camp. We want to bring in some more teams to do building work, painting, doing grounds work. Another option as well is also bringing in teams for the European summer. Those are people working in the camp kitchen and around the grounds just helping keep the camp ticking over whatever happens. I'll meet you in Spain and take you around and take you wherever you want to go and put you to work. Make sure that you always have something to do. So yeah, those are options. But I would say that for a trip for you to come to Spain and work for two to three weeks, we're hoping three weeks, that would be great. But we understand that there are work commitments. Yeah, two to three weeks we're looking at five to six thousand New Zealand dollars. That will get you a return ticket to Europe, all your food and accommodation. We'll host you really well, we'll take you out to a couple of cool cities, you might even get to see Madrid. That will cover everything and we'll pick you up from the airport and we'll just host you really well. That's Glenn's job and I just tag along and talk a lot. So we're hoping that you guys can put together a team. We'd love to see more Kiwis over here doing some of this work alongside us. I think that helps for you guys to see what it is we're actually doing over here. We can communicate and we can see pictures, but there's something about experiencing the camp and the work that we're doing. That's just mixed level connection and we always take up any excuse to see more Kiwis. We're over here, they're in very scant supply over here in Europe. So in terms of supporting us as a family, first of all, we really appreciate your prayers. We have honestly had a couple of really hard moments, periods of time, where I've messaged people like Marie and PJ and just been like, "Man, it's real rough again. We just need your prayers, here's what's happening." And within 24 hours, something's shifted. So I don't think it's a token thing to ask for anymore. I think we thought because we were coming to Europe that we didn't need prayer, that people in Thailand or people in the Philippines or people in really poor, rough areas, that those missionaries needed prayer, we would be fine. That's secretly what I thought, but I think I've learnt that the hard way. That actually the work we're doing and what we're promoting over here as missionaries from your church, like we're on the front lines of something and I've always tried to kind of play that down a little, but it has felt that way, especially in the last six months, we're in a very spiritual battle and prayer is really one of the biggest support structures we have. So first of all, your prayers would be great. Second, we do need your financial support to stay here. If we do end up moving to somewhere else in the region, the cost might go up actually because Hungary is a relatively cheap place to live in terms of Europe. And also we have a number of people who commit for a certain period of time and some of that is coming to an end soon. So if you feel that God is placing it on your heart to financially support us in the work that we do here, we would love to hear from you or you can talk to Anson Portal or any of the leaders in church and they'll get you to the right spot, but practically we do need financial support to stay here and do what we do. I think the best way to give towards what- I think you eat more than a dollar a day. Yeah, he's gluten free now. His diet is expensive. No, well, to be honest, like a one-off gift, we will always, you know, we'll never turn down. And sometimes people have given one-off gifts at really pivotal points. Like you cannot believe we had the- yeah, I could get into details. But basically, any time we need an influx of money, God has provided, it's been insane. And I keep being surprised by that, which really, you know, it is good. Like I feel grateful for it each time, but I should also trust that it's going to happen. But in each new one, I'm just distressed. But really the best kind of support for us is like a regular giving of something weekly or something monthly. We've been asking for like $12, 50 a week, which helps us to keep track of how long we're going to be able to be here and when we need to get tickets back. Because once our account hits us in a month, we have to buy tickets home. You know, in closing, I just want to just say a massive thank you to everybody who has made a purposeful effort to keep in touch, whether that's like a reply to our newsletter. You know, even someone sending back like, "Man, it was lovely to hear from you." Or just reaching out on Facebook and being like, "Hey, how's it going? Thought of you today?" Like we've had a few of those. And so first of all, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to keep in touch with us. We're really grateful for that. It makes us feel really connected. And our culture and our New Zealand heritage becomes more important for us, the longer we're away from New Zealand. So hearing from you guys is really great. Thank you to those of you who have taken the time and the money to come and see us. Like we've had a couple of visitors come from New Zealand and it's a long way to go. And so we will always put you up here in our couch. And some portal have been sleeping in our lounge. But honestly, it's been so cool to have some of you come and see us and visit us. And we get to take you around where we're living and show you a bit about what we're doing here. So thank you for that. And thank you for your generosity as a church. You guys have been supporting us every single week since we've been here. And so I just want to say thank you to those of you that are generous in that way with the church. And therefore the church can be generous with us. We are really grateful for that. And finally, thank you for your prayers. Thank you for being available in the middle of the night when I'm messaging. We need prayer for this or this is happening or I feel like this spiritual thing is going down over here. Can you pray for us? And instantly there's just a massive prayer comes back in the Facebook messenger or you know it gets sent around the prayer chain. So honestly, we're so grateful for all the support we've had in so many different ways. And especially this trip. Thank you for sharing your past with us. It's been such a refreshing trip and just being able to have coffee and hang out and listen to Ants talk. We've really missed that. A highlight. A highlight, yes. So thank you so much.