in january, 1951, the student body of the presbyterian mccormick theological seminary in chicago sponsored béla, eva, tibor and robert banathy as refugees to the united states. bánáthy lived with his family at the seminary, where he worked nights 60 hours a week shoveling coal to fire the seminary furnace. at the same time, he was studying english from a book. he occasionally preached at nearby hungarian churches. his wife found work as a machine operator and tibor, their third son, entered american public school.