For 3.5 years now we have lived and worked alongside an incredible team of counselors in a richly diverse and beautiful country in the Middle East. We have fallen in love with it in so many ways, poured our heart and soul into making friends, learning the language, and navigating life in a new culture – in addition to serving the expat community. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve thrived in many ways in this place. We are SO grateful.

RELOCATING IN 2024

Because of growing visa issues for our staff (and the broader expat community!), it’s become clear that this is not a stable location to run a counseling center from at this time. Ιn December 2023, the counseling center’s Board of Directors made a big decision this last month that we want to share with you as we look ahead to 2024. Our counseling center is relocating to Budapest, Hungary in 2024. This choice was not made lightly, and obviously is a huge deal to move an entire counseling center and 10 partners to a new country and start over.

We are planning to move with them to continue doing this great work, and so the coming year will have some big changes for our family! Our work will stay the same (and honestly just ramp up in many ways as we navigate the transition and move of a large counseling center), but we hope this will provide much needed stability and capacity for us to grow in the future.

WHAT WILL 2024 LOOK LIKE?

January – March – Routine in our current context, full time counseling / work at the center, daily life remains relatively the same for our family.

April – June – Travel in the states for fundraising and Amber’s sister’s wedding, time with family

July – September – Transition / Packing up our household and moving to a new country

October – December – Resettling in a new context before we can reopen the counseling center hopefully early 2025.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Unfortunately, the cost of living is higher in Budapest, inflation has had a significant impact, and the growth of our family means our budget must increase this year. There’s a few things you can prayerfully consider doing to support this work in the coming season:

Become an ongoing partner with us or raise your ongoing support level.

Give a one-time gift to our ministry.

Commit to hosting a gathering this spring/summer for us in the states!

Would you be willing to host a small gathering for us when we’re in the states (May 13 – July 23 2024)?If you’d be interested in hosting a dinner and inviting 5 – 10 friends who we might not know but would be interested in partnering with our counseling ministry, please email us at safehaventravelers@gmail.com

Pray.

Please continue to pray for our family. This last year of instability has taken a toll, and we have a year of transition ahead. We love this work and each other and want to steward our time, energy, and family connection well. We would certainly appreciate your prayers through this season – both for us, and for our entire team of therapists!