Dear friends,

First, we want to thank you for your many felt prayers for us through what our Uncle Wes wisely called our ‘crossroads’. That’s exactly what we’ve been at, with many roads open before us, and the hard choice of which to take. What made it even harder was that many of these roads seemed right, many people would understand and approve of each choice – but what way did our Lord wish us to go? We’ve also seen that the Lord could okay many options, and would probably bless whichever we chose – so it came back to us. One thing we have felt strongly about since the beginning was not wanting to disrupt our children’s lives any more than will be absolutely necessary, so we have been looking at not moving anywhere until after the school year is over.

Since we wanted to remain in Szeged until summer, we began to look about for fellowship opportunities within driving distance. This led us to the semi-nearby Calvary Chapel in Backa-Topola, just across the border in Yugoslavia. Taiwo Onasoga is the pastor there, and we are both old friends with his wife, Zsuzsa, from Bible College days. Zsuzsa has visited often when she comes to Szeged monthly or so for shopping, leaving their son Mark to play with our boys. It was a natural choice to visit the Onasoga family and their church on Christmas day. We were also able to join them without children on New Year’s Eve which was a wonderful time of fun and fellowship. We were deeply touched on our Christmas visit by the state of their church building, by the very real needs in neighboring Yugoslavia. So close, but so very different and still suffering. We knew fairly soon that we would be helping that church in Backa-Topola, we just haven’t been sure how exactly God wanted us to do that. We were open to consider moving there – that part of Yugoslavia was once part of Hungary, and Hungarian is heavily spoken, there are even fully-Hungarian schools, so the change would not be that hard for our boys. We have at least been planning on attending that church, calling it our home church for the time being, and looking to Taiwo as our pastor. The distance is about an hour and a half, with the border in between. We have been warmly welcomed, and invited to spend some Saturday nights with the Onasoga family – the other weeks we have planned to get up early and drive on Sunday morning.

Last weekend we spent our first weekend in Backa-Topola, and had a wonderful time Sat. evening and Sunday. It was as we left on Sunday, during one of the most bitterly cold days of the winter so far, that our van began to have problems. We ended up having to stay over Sunday night as well, and a car mechanic there eventually got our van running by late Monday afternoon. Our van runs on diesel, which can freeze in extreme temperatures – which is what was happening to cars, buses and trucks all over our region. We figured that was all that was wrong. We made it back to Hungary, and the van promptly stopped again, this time making a horrible sound. Tuesday afternoon we got the first warning that it was not just the frozen diesel. By Wednesday we knew that our van’s engine is totally dead, will need to be completely rebuilt – an intake valve broke and fell inside the combustion chamber while the engine was running.

Tuesday began the heavy talks and prayer over all this. It will cost $1000-2000 to fix our van. Is there any point in putting so much money, that we don’t have anyway, into a car, when we could possibly be moving back to the States? But if we are to stay in Europe, we would need a car. And is this a spiritual attack because we’re on the right track by helping in Yugoslavia? Or is this the Lord closing the doors, forcing us to move sooner than we were thinking? Norbi also needs a car for his computer job, which takes him all over town each day. And as things stand, we can not afford to remain here without that job. We also needed to decide some things, and decide them fast. Just one day of trying to get around by public transportation to do his job made us see how impossible that would be – Norbi is now getting home very late – 8 pm one night, and not able to return for lunch. And renting a car temporarily is just not an option here.

Through much prayer, and painful talks, we have come to some decisions. Norbi has given notice at his job, and we will be moving back to the United States, to Simi Valley, CA. With that decided, we came to the issue of when. To remain here, with no car, would mean several things. Mainly it would make it nearly impossible for us to keep in constant fellowship with the church in Backa-Topola, leaving us back in isolation here in Szeged – something we do not think we could handle until summer. And without his job, we really could not afford to remain here. We have been, for the first time since this all began, really considering moving before summer. We are looking at March, which is also when Rachel’s Hungarian visa expires.

You may be asking why we are reacting so strongly to our car breaking down. We’re not really, but we do see it as a tool God has used to communicate to us. We bought that van to be used in ministry, we could have easily bought a much newer, and smaller car for our family use – but we wanted a van to be able to transport more than just our family. And that car has been used, over and over. We wanted to continue to use that van in ministry in YU, and knowing that, it would have been very easy for God to keep that van running. Rachel’s parents had an old van that her family knew had angels, as it kept going and going long after it should have died – but it was still needed to serve the Lord. By stopping our van, God really spoke to us, releasing us from more ministry right now. We feel we’ve gotten an okay from the Lord to rest, to just live for a while, be a family. I don’t think we were accepting that very well, and so, God made it very clear.

We still have much to do here, and continue to appreciate all your prayers. We also greatly have need of some financial help to get us back to the States. When we moved over here, we had been saving towards that very thing for three years, three years during which God really blessed Norbi in his job. We paid for all our moving expenses over here. We won’t be able to do that going back, and are humbly asking for any and all help you feel able to give. And above all, your prayers through this time will be needed even more. There are many transitions ahead, and much to prepare for in the coming months.

We pray God is blessing you all in this new year.

Agape,

Norbi & Rachel