That same year they left America to become missionaries[3][4] in Eski Zagra, European Turkey (now Stara Zagora, Bulgaria),[5] when Abdul Aziz was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and there was a policy of religious liberty.

[6] Their initial sea voyage took House and his wife to the United Kingdom where they had the opportunity to hear the famous "Prince of Preachers," Charles Spurgeon, in London.

Their work in Samokov involved teaching at a small, established mission school and building a church, where House preached.

[11][12] Along with their associates Edward B. Haskell and Theodore Holway, the Houses co-founded the American Farm School in 1902, on 50 acres of barren land near Thessaloniki.

[13][14][15] The school provided practical training in field and garden crops, vineyards and orchards, livestock and silkworm production, and in industrial skills such as carpentry, masonry and blacksmithing, to equip graduates to succeed in farming and to aid in the economic development of rural Ottoman Empire.

The marker slab over his grave reads, "An adoring servant of God, a faithful apostle of Christ, a practical friend of man."