Budapest

On Thursday morning we fly from Amsterdam to Budapest, Hungary. Like I said in a previous post, this was not intentionally on the docket for my research. But I believe it's part of this whole treasure hunt God has us on.

It's hard to put all the connections of this side trip into a concise paragraph that you would make sense. The short story is this: there were two couples from Hungary at the anti-trafficking conference we went to last week. I met with them on Sunday, they invited us to come and visit/interview the women staying at the house they run. You can ask me later about the details...

The amazing thing about this opportunity is the fact that a large percentage of the women involved in sex-work in Amsterdam are Hungarian. Many of the social work organizations we have met with believe the future of the sex industry in Amsterdam will be controlled by Eastern Europeans, specifically Hungarians. The situation here in Amsterdam is very political, essentially the police want them to leave because many of the pimp activity is gang related and causing plenty of crime and violence.

Work with these women working in Amsterdam is very difficult because of the political reasons, violence and language barrier. The organizations with access to Hungarians do not allow ANYONE access to them. So God is taking us right to the source...I'm completely blown away.

The organization we are working with is part of the Hungarian Baptist Aid. Click here for their web-site. In the top right corner of the page you will see the English option. For security reasons, they do not publicize the house, but it is for women trying to flee from the sex-industry. The organization is doing tons of other things for Hungary and other nearby parts of the world as well.

We really need your prayer for a few specific things:

• Travel...Liz and I leave Thursday, Molly and LT leave Friday. All of us will come back Monday. Pray we would make our trains, buses, flights, etc.
• Safety...that angels would guard and protect us.
• Interviews...for willing hearts of the girls and clear translation. Also for genuine healing and ministry to occur during those times.
• That we would be a blessing to those we are joining in ministry.
• Funding...there is a funny thing about the conversion of dollars to euros...if you plan a trip in dollars, make sure you change that cost to euros before you fundraise and travel...it's very helpful.

Thank you for all of your love and prayers. We are so grateful.

More soon...

love,

Cal