To Budapest and Back: A Texas Teacher’s International Journey of Faith
When I talk with Laura Smith, I feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit, a mentor, and a role model all in one. We don’t know each other well—our only connection being that I married her sister’s husband’s brother—but when we spend time together, either in conversation on the phone like we did for this interview or in person once every few years around the Fourth of July, conversation flows easily, and I find myself wishing Texas and Missouri weren’t so far apart.
But rather than write about our shared loves and interests, from God and family to travel and education, I want to share with you a bit of her story. Because it’s a story of faith and of courage and one that I think will inspire you as it does me.
If you ask Laura, she will tell you she’s thirty-six, in her fifteenth year of teaching, the youngest of three children, a native Texan, a homebody, and that while being a teacher defines much of who she is, she mainly thinks of herself as a sister, a friend, and a daughter—of both her earthly parents and her heavenly Father.
“Growing up, I always was in church with my family,” Laura says, explaining her relationship with God. “I always felt like I knew God was out there, but it wasn’t until I was sixteen when my faith became real to me and not just a part of my upbringing.” And because of that, Laura says her faith not only has shaped who she has become but also continues to shape and guide who she is becoming. Right now, that person is a teacher.
But the more you learn about someone, the more you realize how much more there is to the person than what they often give themselves credit for.
Laura attended The College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M and immediately began teaching kindergarten after graduation. “I always wanted to be a teacher, even when I was a little girl,” Laura says. “I don’t really ever remember not wanting to be a teacher. I always liked showing people how to do things. As a kid, teaching didn’t feel like a calling because I didn’t know what that meant, but in high school and college, I thought, ‘This is what I’m called to do on earth—I think.'”
Having a solid understanding of God’s plans for our lives can be tricky, which is why I found Laura’s “I think” to be refreshingly honest and real.
“God’s plans for my life have turned out to be drastically different than the pictures I always had in my head of what my life would look like,” Laura says. “I thought I would be married by now, and I’m not. I thought I would have kids by now, and I don’t. And every facet of my life changed after the death of my mom in 2012. Losing my mom at such a young age made every other trial I’ve lived through feel like nothing, and I began to seriously question whether God’s promises are true and if I can really trust Him with my life. It was like my faith had to go through a rebuilding process. But I can say that God was so faithful to me during that time.”
In April 2015, Laura had been teaching in Houston for several years and finishing her graduate degree when she began to sense that God was preparing her for something new. She didn’t know what that something was, but she felt like her time in Houston was coming to an end. It was two and half years after the death of her mom, and her beloved mother’s incredible legacy had changed the way Laura thought about life. It got her thinking about the legacy she herself would leave behind and how she would be remembered—things she never really thought about much before. Laura still firmly believed she was called to be a teacher, but her prayers began to shift toward missions and whether God was calling her to move into a new realm of teaching.
“I remember praying, ‘God if you have something for me in the realm of missions and as a teacher, You’re just going to have to drop it in my lap,’” she said. “That was a scary thing to pray because I loved where I worked, I loved my church, and I loved Houston. But I found myself praying to have open hands, an open heart, and an open mind. And I prayed that way for months.”
Later that year, in November, Laura received an email from a couple in her church whose grandchildren attended the International Christian School of Budapest. Apparently, the school was in need of a first grade teacher.
“I was at work when I opened their email,” Laura says. “I had this sense of, ‘Oh, so this is God dropping that something in my lap.’ To be honest, I was terrified God was taking me up on my offer to go. I knew I first needed to pray about it and talk it over with my family, but deep in my heart I knew I was going to do it.”
Living overseas, especially as a missionary, was not a life goal or something Laura planned on doing. She describes her time as an international missionary as an additional calling, one on top of being a teacher. As a self-declared homebody who never lived more than an hour and a half away from home, living in Budapest, Hungary, and having to raise support to do so, was not an easy thing to say yes to. But in 2016, Laura said yes to a two-year teaching commitment and packed her bags.
After the communist state in Hungary was dismantled in the late 1980s, mission organizations began sending missionaries into the spiritually dark country. In turn, missionary families desired an English-speaking school for their children that offered quality education, as well as Hungarian language classes. In 1994, the International Christian School of Budapest (ICSB) opened its doors to provide K–12 students with “an excellent biblically based, college-preparatory education in an environment that encourages them to become wholehearted followers of Christ” (from icsbudapest.org).
Today, ICSB is incredibly diverse, serving 230 students representing eighteen countries. What also makes this school unique is the fact that its teachers are missionaries serving under the umbrellas of several different mission organizations, including Cru, United World Mission, Reach Global, ABWE, and Teach Beyond, the organization through which Laura chose to serve.
“Teach Beyond is all about transformational education,” Laura explains. “And while the other organizations include education as part of their mission, education is Teach Beyond’s mission, and I was really drawn to that.”
When I ask Laura about the challenges associated with living and teaching abroad, she doesn’t really talk about challenges in the classroom, and I have to imagine it’s because the classroom is where she feels most at home. But she does mention the little inconveniences of not having air conditioning or a dishwasher or a teacher supply store easily accessible. And while those small annoyances can pile up to become big frustrations, she says it was good to experience life in that way—but it’s also hard, especially when you factor in the bigger challenges of living in an Eastern European culture that is vastly different than the West.
“The Hungarian people are generally reserved and sometimes even suspicious, the effects of communism still very evident,” explains Laura. “Being from Texas, my inclination is to smile as I see people, but the Hungarian people don’t always smile back. When I was out and about in the city, I often felt like I was in the way and never fit in. My school, on the other hand, was such a safe bubble, and the ICSB community was wonderful in teaching us not to take the cultural differences personally. After some time, that wasn’t hard to do because the Hungarian families and people I got to know were lovely, generous, hospitable, amazing people.”
When she talks about the things she loved about living in Hungary, she can’t say enough about the beauty of the city, the arts, the history, and the four seasons, which she wasn’t used to having always lived in Texas. The long, cold, dark winters, were pretty rough on the Texan, but she said even those she learned to appreciate. She also took advantage of living in Europe and traveled to explore other countries and experience different cultures. But what she loved most was the school. There, she got to teach children, share with them the love of Jesus, and work alongside some amazing colleagues.
“The school is a phenomenal place to teach,” Laura says. “All the missionaries were incredibly intentional and so good at bridging the life stage gaps, whether it was the married couples inviting singles to dinner or the single women inviting moms and married women out for a girls’ night. Getting to live among and teach with individuals and families who packed up and moved abroad in obedience to God’s call made me realize, ‘Okay, I’m not crazy!’ I lived life with and learned from others who really consider missions their true calling and who walked in obedience to God’s calling for their lives. Of course, life isn’t always glamorous—despite what we often post on social media—and it wasn’t always glamorous during my time in Hungary, but it was an incredible experience.”
In 2017, as Laura began her second year at ICSB, Hurricane Harvey struck, and it struck Houston and the surrounding areas hard. It devastated her hometown of Kingwood, Texas, flooding her dad’s home, as well as the homes of family members and dear friends.
“After Harvey hit, I felt this pull to be home that never really went away,” Laura says. “Dozens of people in my life were struggling, and the devastation to our community was immense. I came home in September so I could see the devastation for myself. I don’t necessarily recommend a long weekend with the whole jet lag factor, but I had to see the devastation with my own eyes. It was my home and where I wanted to be long-term.”
In the Spring of 2018, as the end of Laura’s two-year commitment was coming to an end, the principal approached her to ask if she would prayerfully consider a third year—they were having a hard time finding someone to fill her position. Despite her desire to be home, Laura agreed to prayerfully consider her request and again prayed for open hands, an open heart, and an open mind—a scary prayer to pray when you have this picture in your mind of what you’d like your future to look like. But after prayerful consideration, her answer was still the same: it was time to go home.
While home brought many familiarities and a sense of being settled, it also brought its share of unknowns and unexpected challenges.
“There is a sort of loneliness,” Laura says, “when you realize the people in your community and even in your family can’t relate to the experience you’ve just had. For a long time, it felt like just me and God because we were the only ones who truly understood what life had been like for the past two years.”
On top of that, while Laura was returning home, it had been more than ten years since she had lived in her hometown, and many of her friends were in new life stages, either married or married with children. And her new job, which God had faithfully provided, was soaking up all the spiritual, mental, and emotional energy she had, so the idea of giving more to serve elsewhere, especially at church, wasn’t feasible. So she found herself asking God more questions: Now what? Where do I fit in now? Where do I serve outside my teaching job?
“I’m a planner,” Laura says. “I’m type A like that. But in my faith, I feel like I can’t plan ahead. The older I get, the longer I walk with God and learn and grow, the more I realize I really have no idea what my life will look like. I had a vision for what my life would look like, and it doesn’t look anything like what I had in mind.”
When I ask her to humor me anyway and predict what life might look like in five or ten years, she pauses then says, “I really have no idea. I’ve definitely learned that being a follower of Christ doesn’t necessarily mean His plans and my plans always line up. But I’m learning to be okay with that.”
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Ellen Delap
Our faithful walk takes us many unanticipated places.