2021 — To mark our 10th anniversary, we have changed the name of our NGO and charity (earlier: the Efrata Foundation for the Homeless) and from April this year, we will continue helping our guests to receive ever improving quality support and services under the name of Only One Mission Foundation (Only One Foundation).

Celebrating the 10 years since the launch of our mission, we have dedicated the entire year to giving thanks. Due to the global pandemic however, we could not have a big celebration, instead there was a modest mass celebrated by Bishop János Székely, we gave thanks to the Lord for the 10th anniversary of our existence for all the joys and difficulties we have experienced during this period.

2018 — As a written testimony of our work, a book entitled Nobody’s Children was published by the official publishing house of the Holy See in Hungary, the St. Stephen’s Society Press, the book presents the lives of twenty-six of our guests. (It has since then been reprinted.) Through this publication we have made the lives and fates of those struggling with homelessness and poverty easier to understand, making them up close and personal.

2014 — We launched our regular newsletter, in which, to this day (monthly), we share the story of our mission’s progress, reporting on events, how donations are used etc. We also share a fair amount of our own spiritually engaging content, in exchange for the many ways friends and donors surround us and our guests with support.

2012 — The Only One Mission found a ”home”. As of November 1, 2012 our new and permanent background organization became the New Jerusalem Catholic Community, our spiritual family from whom the whole idea of the ministry originates.

2011 — On the very first day of the year (January 1st, 2011) we officially opened the doors of our homeless shelter and social aid centre registered as “Only One Social Aid Centre” in Izabella Street, in the 6th district of Budapest.

2010 — The French religious order, the Good Shepherd Sisters took over the role as the institution’s ecclesiastical sponsor temporarily. Without them we would not have been able to start our mission based social work as a church institution, in 2011.

2008 — The idea began to take a more concrete form. The next two or three years were filled with prayers, repeated meetings and the necessary preparatory work.

2007 — The idea was born: we need a place where we could listen to homeless people and those in need and reach out in prayer to those most vulnerable when they ask for help. That was the time when the name of our mission was born in the mind of our founder Anna Kunszabó Pataki (a mother of 5 and a graduate in social policy and social work), while listening to a presentation by the famous Christian speaker Nicky Gumbel, who used the phrase “only one” during a conference. Hence the name “Only One”. And we are called a “mission” because the whole idea was conceived in the community of the New Jerusalem Catholic Community as a pastoral movement and where we see the different community and missionary tasks as God led missions. The final name therefore took shape in the name of Only One Mission.

Our ultimate mission is to give back the lost self- respect of each person, something we have also received through the encounter with the loving God. We do this by trying to surround him with personal and individual love, radiating the care and merciful attention with which God the Father loves us.

The Only One Social Aid Centre, located in the heart of Budapest, provides professional social services and spiritual assistance to every homeless and needy person or family, and does so with a new and evangelical spirit that makes its goal eternal life. We focus our attention on “only one” thing: the person asking for help. Offering our time and attention, there is “only one” thing we want to give to our fellow human being in need: Christ, in whom the individual can regain his or her full self-respect. That is why we chose the name Only One Mission.

Our vision as a social service is that our fellow human beings living in homelessness, and individuals and families in need, receive the physiological help they need quickly and the spiritual support they need most. It is our deep desire that everyone who has more than they need should share with those who lack even the most basic necessities, thus practicing merciful love towards their most vulnerable fellow human beings.

As a Catholic missionary service, our vision goes beyond worldly social goals. Our deepest desire is that all people - rich and poor, women and men, regardless of color, nationality or ethnicity - may reach eternal life, where we believe we can be in eternal happiness and see the Triune God face to face, whose promise is enshrined in our motto: “I give you a future full of hope”.

By spirituality we mean the spirit, the attitude, the source and the way we live our Catholic faith. The essence of this is best summed up in the thoughts of our founder, Mrs Anna Kunszabó Pataki, in our book, Nobody’s Children:

“When (...) we arrive in the presence of the Father while still on earth (...) and we understand with our hearts the love and acceptance our Creator has for us, we are torn apart by the desire to share it with others, especially those who are actually beggars here on earth. Those who have not been treasured, who have not been worried for or wept for and for whom noone has ever kept vigil. They are the children of no one, they belong to no one, they have no family to wrap its protective wings around them. We lead them and entrust them to the care of God. This is our vocation: (...) we try to love our starving guests, praying to God’s merciful love to fall on them. While we distribute food and clothing to them, perhaps finding them work and housing, we are actually trying to love them (...) so that our beggars who have been sleeping in shelters or on the streets, or in poor, unheated dwellings may come in, feel at home, telling us what has happened to them or cry their hearts out (...). One by one, we try to reach them - the one person who is standing in front of us at the time and who is more important than any other person at that moment”.

As our name - Only One Social Aid Centre - suggests, we try to approach each person as an individual, as a separate person, because that is how God Himself loves us, as separate persons.

With this in mind, from the moment of entry, to the distribution of food, from the mental-hygiene sessions to individual casework, we strive to ensure that this love is present in every moment of encounter with our institution.

It is important to us that in addition to providing social work and mental-health assistance we should help those of our guests who need more than just the basic services to reach the true source of their existence and healing: their Creator. For only an encounter with Him can lead them back to their roots, restore their faith in Life, heal their wounded self-esteem and give them lasting motivation to start anew. This is why missionary activity is so important for us, that is, proclaiming the gospel, inviting people to repentance, emphasizing the saving mercy of Jesus and making them aware that, however far they have fallen, God accepts them because He loves them as His children. Our aim is therefore to invite those who come to us into the tangible presence of God.

Weekly individual and group discussions, sung praise and Bible study groups, intercessory prayer, monthly Holy Mass and confession, as well as adoration help our guests to encounter God in a direct way. The essence of our spirituality is therefore to convey Jesus’s invitation to his poor, through the power and love of the Holy Spirit but also through the means of professional help: “Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25,34).

Our institution functions both as a day-care centre and as a social assistance centre. As a day centre, we provide the most basic needs of our visitors: we serve breakfast and a hot lunch, provide washing and cleaning facilities, donated clothes, internet and telephone access.

As a social aid centre, we also provide individual casework and group sessions on request. Individual casework is managed by a qualified social worker. You can get an insight into the social work we do by checking out our "Samaritan", "Mustard Seed", "Lift Up!" and “Five Loaves of Bread” social help programmes on our website. These are parts of our aim to give all our guests the help they need so they can take the next step. In addition we have two full-time colleagues responsible for spiritual counseling and one-to-one conversations; missions we consider to be of utmost importance in our ministry.

Only One Mission includes the institution of the Only One Social Aid Centre and the Only One Mission Foundation (abbreviated as Only One Foundation), a public benefit and NGO.

We are a church-run social institution, officially a day care centre, although we offer services far beyond that. We are run by the New Jerusalem Catholic Community in Hungary, a missionary community whose mission towards the poor is primarily carried out within the walls of our institution.

The Only One Mission Foundation (formerly known as the Efrata Foundation for the Homeless) has played an important role in our work since our inception, and its primary goal is to provide concrete and effective assistance to those people in need who come to us. Our Foundation’s financial resources are provided - uniquely - 95%, by donations from individuals and companies, for which we are very grateful.