First Bible Study in Szihalom

Today we organized a Children's program in Szihalom. This was our fourth such program, and so far they have been consistently successful, as the Lord has given us great open doors and a good reputation in the village.

For a long time we've talked about the idea of eventually starting a Bible study for adults there, and whilst this is still in the prayer and waiting stage - today we had our first Bible study.
We had the Children's program in the morning, and the Bible study for adults in the afternoon. Jani taught it, and did a great job; afterwards we prayed for the needs of the people who came - Szihalom is a pretty poor village and the people certainly have needs and concerns to pray for.

We are still praying about what the future holds, but it was a great day of ministry in Szihalom, and something we hope will grow in the future.

This Weekend

We have a 10 day outreach team from the Bible College in Vajta here in Eger right now. There are some really nice people on the team, and our first few days with them have gone really well.
They arrived on Friday night, and after getting them settled, we were off to Szihalom on Saturday morning, where we did a clothing donation and a children's program. Our events in Szihalom are more and more popular; we had a ton of kids this time, and were able to give away a lot of clothes to poor families.

We are planning our next event in Szihalom for December 5, and are praying about how to eventually begin tying this in with a Bible study for adults.

Today at church we had Németh Jani, the pastor of the Calvary Chapel in Tatabánya, as our guest teacher. It was refreshing to not have to prepare on Saturday night, plus the fact that we got an extra hour because of daylight savings!

After church the Vajta team went out to do evangelism in the city, and at 4 o'clock we had a meeting for Spanish speakers, since one of the members of the team is our good friend Pablo, from Cuba, whom we've known for many years.

From Tuesday to Friday we will have a book table in the market place selling Christian books. We've never done anything like this before, so please pray that it would be an effective and fruitful ministry!
I will write updates on how things go.

Staying Busy

Here's a short run down of what's going on with us lately.

• Last week we went to Vajta for a few days.
  Every Friday they have a guest speaker come and talk to the students, and this week I spoke to the students about what we are doing in Eger, and our vision for our ministry in the future. I also challenged them to pray about whether or not God has a place for any of them in our vision to plant churches in the Eger region.
  It was a good time, and fun to hang out with friends in Vajta.
• On Wednesday, I am going to Budapest to speak at the weekly meeting of Campus Crusade for Christ. I will be doing a presentation for mostly non-Christian kids about Creation vs. Evolution.
  We have organized similar lectures in Eger before, but I have never given a lecture on this topic, so I am excited and a bit nervous about how it will go.
  We have a really cool cooperation with CCC, and are looking forward to continuing to work with them in the future.
  
• On Friday, Oct 23, we will have a 10 day outreach team from Calvary Chapel Bible College Europe (Vajta).
  We will be doing a lot with them, and are praying that their time here will be fruitful and effective for the Kingdom.
• We will be moving to a new apartment in November.
  We've lived in the same flat the whole time we've been in Eger, but with baby #2 on the way, we're outgrowing it.
  We will be moving into a new place which is almost double the size of where we live now. The new place is a bit further from the center of town than where we are now, but not too far out. Balázs will be able to have his own room, and we will even have room for an office/guestroom. We know the woman who will be our landlord, and she even came to the church for a while, so she is giving us a very reasonable price.
  It is actually in the same building as Shane and Marianna - even right next door! So we will be seeing them a lot :)
  We've wanted to move for a while, so this is a blessing.

Please keep these things in prayer. Thank you for your support!

N&R

Volunteer Day

Today our church participated in a nation-wide volunteer day, organized by the Reformed church. A team from our church took part, and we worked together with some Reformed believers and some boy scouts to fix up a playground in a poorer part of the city.
We planted trees, painted, and fixed up the sand area, which amounted to about 3.5 hrs of work.
Nate enjoyed helping out and playing, and was even filmed by the city TV station, who told me that he was the "perfect advertisement" for the campaign! Good job Nate!
It was good to get out in Jesus name and do something practical to bless our city.
Here are some pictures:

Baptism Video

A guy from our church, Joel, made this video of our recent baptism:

World Heart Day Outreach

Yesterday we had an all day outreach, in connection with World Heart Day.

Hungary has one of the lowest life expectancies of European countries, and heart disease is the biggest killer.

A woman in our church, Ági, has a heart problem, and she came up with the idea this summer that for World Heart Day we should organize an outreach with some doctors, in which we take basic readings and the doctor gives consultation, and through this we can share with these people about the importance of both taking care of their hearts physically, and giving their hearts to God spiritually.

We also created a flier for the day, which on the one side had information about how to have a healthy heart, and on the other side talked about the other aspect of the heart, and shared the Gospel message.

Another aspect of this idea which makes it good, is that there are many problems in the Eger hospital, so anything we can do to help the sick in the city is welcomed by the population, as well as by the local government. What we found during the outreach was that many people were very glad to be able to talk a doctor for a few minutes, as they don't often have this opportunity.

The response to the outreach was really amazing. In the morning we set up our tent next to the marketplace, and had a continuous crowd from 8 until noon, which never let up. We measured body mass index, blood presure and blood sugar readings and then Krisztián, our doctor gave consultation and prayed for them.

We are sure that many more people would have taken part if we would have had the capacity to take them. Hopefully next year we can have more doctors and more helpers, as there is definitely potential to reach even more people through this type of outreach.

In the afternoon we went to the city park, and had music and continued the outreach. We had fewer people come in the afternoon, but there was still a steady flow the entire time.

The whole program was a lot of work, but it was great to see how many people from the church stepped up to make it happen.

Today at church we had a new faces who we met at the market yesterday, and we were able to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with many people throughout the course of the day, while at the same time doing something beneficial for the city.

Please pray for those who we got to talk with and pray for yesterday, and for those who received the fliers!
Here are some pictures of when we were at the market in the morning:

Music Outreach

We had a music outreach tonight in the city park in Eger, which is known as the Bishop's Garden (Érsekkert).

It was hard to know what to expect. We have done similar outreaches before, and it's hard to know how many people will stop, or how to do the evangelism, but tonight it went really well.

Instead of having a whole band, we just made it very simple: 2 people, one playing guitar and singing, the other playing a drum.

We were able to talk to a lot of people and share our faith, including a group of kids who hung out for the whole time of the outreach.

Please pray that God would work in the hearts of those who heard the Gospel message or got Gospel tracts.

Here is a picture - although poor quality - of Laci sharing the Gospel from the microphone during the outreach:

College Outreach

The Eszterházy Károly College in Eger is not a major university, but it is certainly up and coming, growing and getting more popular each year. The school now has around 10,000 students, and the campus is spread out throughout the city.

When we first started the church in Eger, we had quite a few college students attending, but as they graduated, many moved away. We have wanted for some time to do outreach to the college students here, and this year God opened a door for us to do that.
A guy in our church named Sanyi goes to college in Budapest, and is involved with Campus Crusade there. Campus Crusade in Hungary is an organization that I really love, and they have been very effective in leading students to faith in Jesus. One of their main outreaches every year is to go into dormitories and hand out "Survival Packs" (Túlélő Csomagok), which are binders with stuff in them for the students, such as calendars, schedules, note paper, and articles about Christianity, as well as a Gospel tract.

Part of passing out these binders, is that there is a questionnaire in them about issues of interest to youth, including relationships and of course faith. On the basis of the answers to the questionnaires, we can easily see who it is who is interested in knowing more about the Gospel, and we can later contact them and invite them to meet with us personally. This has proven very effective in the past for Campus Crusade, and I know many people personally in Hungary who came to know the Lord through this.

Since Campus Crusade is not active in Eger, they allowed our church to distribute the Survival Packs here. We included our church flier/tract, and went into the dormitories this past week to hand them out.
Out of the 400 binders we got from Campus Crusade, we have already passed out 320. We will still go into some more dormitories here in Eger, but we were able to do the biggest part on Monday and Tuesday. It was a lot of work, but a good number of people from the church came to help out, and we were able to take 3 teams through the dormitories on both days, and get the Survival Packs into each room. We were also able to have some good conversations and share with the students about Jesus and about our church as they filled out the questionnaire.

The next step is to contact those who are interested in knowing more about a personal relationship with God. Please pray for us, that God would lead us in this, give us wisdom, and that many would come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior through this.
Here are some pictures of us in the dormitories:

Prayer Request for Saturday

Saturday is World Heart Day, and we have planned an outreach in which we will do free check ups and consultations downtown in the marketplace with some doctor friends of ours. We have also made a flier to hand out, which on one side has some information regarding having a healthy heart, and on the other side talks about the other aspect of the heart and the need to give your heart to Jesus. Also, as the doctor would also be a believer, he could talk to people about the importance of putting their faith in God as well.

We originally hoped to have a few doctors come out, but of those we invited, only one is able to be there.
Today, this doctor, Krisztián, called and said that his daughter has been quite sick, and if she is not better by Friday, then they won't be coming on Saturday!

Please pray for his daughter, Adél, to get better - both for her own sake, and for the sake of the outreach!
Thanks!

Baptism!

Today we had a baptism at a lake near Eger, in Ostoros.
For the past 3 years, we have had 2 baptism services: one in Vajta in July, at the summer conference with the other Hungarian Calvary Chapels, and one at the end of summer in Ostoros at the lake.
God blessed us with beautiful weather (much better than last year!), and we were able to have the whole church service outside, followed by a barbecue and fellowship.
3 young men were baptized: Sanyi, Marci and Peti. Before their baptism they each gave a testimony of what God has done in their lives and why they want to be baptized, and then we prayed for them and baptized them in the lake.
Praise the Lord for these young men, their faith and their commitment to following Jesus. May God strengthen them and use them in a great way!
Here are some pictures:

Thank you for praying

To those of you who prayed for the situation I mentioned in my previous post, about the family who was set to lose their house - God heard our prayers and was gracious to this dear family.
Their case has been postponed for 3 months, which gives them the possibility of keeping the house, if they are able to get enough money together.
Thank you for praying, and please continue to pray for this family, that they would be able to keep their house.

Prayer Request

Please pray for a family in our church who may lose their house in the next few days.
Please pray that if possible they could keep their house, and that God would show them the next steps.
Thank you.

Summer Update

Greetings from Eger!

We hope you had a great summer. Ours was eventful and fruitful, and we are excited about all that the coming months hold. Here is a short summary of what we've been up to the last few months, and what we've got coming up.

Conferences
In June we went to the Foundations conference in Vajta, a conference for Eastern European church leaders. Five of us went down there from our church; Jani and Tünde couldn't come because Tünde was pregnant at the time. Since then her baby has been born; Júlia is beautiful and healthy, a true gift from God. The conference was a great blessing for those of us who were there. One of the speakers at the conference was our friend Pete Nelson from Longmont, CO. Nick and Pete have both been praying for Ukraine and about ministry opportunities there for years, and got to take a short trip there while Pete was here for the conference. The Lord blessed the trip and they were able to make some useful contacts, and are praying about the next steps.
In July we had the Summer Conference in Vajta. The theme of the conference was renewal, and God did do a great work of renewal in many people that week. On the last night of the conference Nick taught about 'renewal in service', which was followed by a time of worship and prayer. The good fruit from this conference is still noticeable in our church, months afterward.
At the Summer Conference Balázs decided to get baptized, and it was a great joy for us to see him express his commitment to following Jesus in this way!

Outreaches
We had 2 main outreaches this summer: Our annual English Camp for high school and college students, and another English Camp for younger kids.
Last year we had many people with young kids interested in our English Camp, but since it is geared for teenagers, it wasn't ideal for them. So this year we organized a second camp for smaller children, where we also taught English.
The kids camp went very well, but was incredibly tiring! Along with English, Rosemary taught Bible lessons every day and Shane taught them songs about God. All the kids had a great time, and we expect the camp to grow next year.
One thing we were glad about is that our neighbors sent their 8 year old son to the camp. Gergő had a great time, and we are glad for the opportunity to bless our neighbors and share Jesus with them.
The big English Camp had 75 campers this year, and was probably our best camp so far from a practical standpoint. Everything ran smoothly and perfectly; it was such a blessing. The camp was also very successful from a spiritual perspective. One new thing we did this year was to have a table of free stuff, on which we Bibles, the book "More Than a Carpenter" (in Hungarian), and various fliers. The kids took the Bibles faster than we could pass them out. They also took many copies of the books.
Since English Camp we have started a youth group, which meets once a month on a Saturday. Our hope is that in addition to ministering to the youth in our church, it will be a way to continue ministering to the kids from the camp.
We have also started an English Club, or rather re-started it. Rosemary is now leading it, and so far it seems successful. She got a phone call the other day, that an article about her and the English Club will be in the Heves county (Eger is the Heves county seat) newspaper, which also mentions our church!
We are very thankful to all those who came out and served with us this summer. We had help from many in the church, as well as Kim and Andy - a couple who study at the Bible college in Vajta, April - who lived in Eger and served with us when we first started the church in 2005, Geoff and Angela from CC Syracuse, and a team from CC Vista.

Future
We will have another baptism service on September 20, at a lake near Eger, as we have done the past 2 years as well. There will be 3-4 people who will be baptized to make an outward statement of their new life in Christ.
We are excited to have more and more babies being born in the church, and look forward to having a full children's ministry in the future!
On a sad note, some people from our church are moving away from Eger, some to Budapest for school and work, others moving abroad. Notably, Judit Poczok is moving to England this month for a year to work. Judit has been in our church before it was even a church! We are going to miss her, and pray that God blesses her time in England.

Two weeks ago, we held a vision meeting in which we laid out the future vision of the church. (Audio here - *Hungarian only) In summary, the long term vision is to start Bible studies in the surrounding cities and villages, which are outreaches of the Eger church, with the goal that they would grow into independent churches. The short term vision is to do various forms of outreach to reach Eger, both evangelically and socially.
We are working on the possibility of getting a grant to do some sort of social work in Eger, perhaps with troubled teens, homeless, or elderly people. If we would be able to do this, we could serve these people in Jesus' name while at the same time providing jobs for people in the church. Please join us in praying for this possibility. We have handed in the initial paperwork, but there is a lot involved in this, and it is sometimes over our heads.
In the next few weeks we will begin doing some outreaches to the college here, as well as an event for Heart Day at the end of the month, where we will tie in the Gospel with the message of having a healthy heart.

Family
Our biggest news is that Rosemary is pregnant again! We are expecting the new addition to our family in January. Rosemary is currently 20 weeks along, which means that we should be able to know the sex soon. We're very excited, and feel very blessed!
Nate is now two years old. We took him to the zoo for his birthday, and he got to see all his favorite animals which he knows from books and videos. He even got to pet some of them, including a giraffe! He is a big guy now, and is talking more and more.
Balázs started high school yesterday, and is loving it. He has some friends in the school, including some from English Camp and one who is also a Christian. He is doing well in general, and it is great to see the positive changes taking place in his life as he is here in our home.
Nick is going to start school again at the end of this month, and is enjoying being in school again. It will be hard in the next few months, with the new baby coming, and all that is going on in the church, so please pray for him.

One big thing in our lives right now, is that we have significantly less money now than in years past. Because of the financial crisis, some of our supporting churches have reduced their support. We are thankful for everything we get, but things are tighter financially, especially with a growing family. Nick still works teaching English, which helps a bit.
If you would like to support our ministry here in Eger financially, it is now possible to donate online (tax deductible) here.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We appreciate it very much!
Blessings,
Nick and Rosemary

Congrats Jani and Tünde!

Jani and Tünde Hernádi are great people and good friends. Jani is an elder in the church, and he and Tünde have been a part of our church almost since the beginning.
We knew them first as a couple who were preparing to get married, then they got married, and today their first child was born!
Júlia (Julcsi) was born in the Eger hospital. The pregnancy wasn't easy - Tünde was on bed rest for almost the entire time, but Mom and baby are both healthy - praise the Lord!

English Camp Update

I'm writing from the camp to give a quick update on how the camp has been going so far.
We have 75 kids this year, and I would have to say this is our best organized camp so far. Rosemary and many others have put a lot of work into preparing the practical details of the camp, and it's running like a well-oiled machine!
But of course, that is not all that matters. Our desire is that the camp would be effective and fruitful spiritually, and we see that that is happening as well. Every day we have testimony times, in which the helpers talk a bit about their lives, and of course, as believers the most significant part of their story is how they came to know the Lord, and what their life is like in Him.

One thing we did for the first time this year was to make a table of free stuff the kids can take if they like. On the first day we ran out of New Testaments - and couldn't buy more from the distributor :( - we also have 100 copies of More Than a Carpenter in Hungarian, as well as CDs and Welcome Packets from our church.
Some of the helpers have been doing an Invisible Theater, where they take the kids on a journey through life - from birth to death, using Bible verses. It ends with them reading a verse that whoever believes in Him will live eternally, and the participant is raised from the dead to eternal life. The reaction from the kids is that it is very moving, and it has been running constantly in the afternoons.

We have invited the kids to come with their parents to church on Sunday, usually we do have quite a few kids and their families come out - so please pray for that, that they would hear God's Word, and receive it.

We would also like to start a Youth Group after the camp, and are praying that kids from the camp can connect with that too.

There is so much going on here that it would take forever to write it all down. All in all - it is a blessed time and things are going great.
Please continue to pray for the kids, for the helpers, and for God's will to be done in this place.
Thanks!

Busy Summer

We just got back last night from Vajta, where we were for our annual summer conference with the other Calvary Chapels from Hungary. The conference was GREAT. The topic was renewal, which I believe was really from the Lord, and God spoke to us, and began a work of renewal in many of us and in our churches that was very much needed.
I (Nick) spoke at the conference on the topic of renewal in service, and our worship team lead worship a few times. One of the highlights of the week for us was that Balázs got baptized on Friday, and we were able to see a significant change in his life, and his desire to walk with the Lord.

From Vajta, Andy and Kim Farquarson from Newcastle, Australia are here in Eger right now, and they will be serving with us for the next 3 weeks. Their presence here is a real answer to prayer, and they are real servants, helping us so much in many areas - especially with our English Camps.

Speaking of camps, our Kids Camp starts tomorrow. This camp is for primary school aged kids, and it will be held in our church building. We hope to share the Lord with the kids and their parents, have a good time, and teach them some English. We would ultimately like to see our children's ministry get working again, and hope this will be the start of that.

As far as our big English Camp goes, we have been having more and more sign-ups come in, and are up to 70 campers. We are really looking forward to camp this year, and are trying to cover it in prayer, asking God to do great things in the kids' hearts.

Please join us in praying for these things! Thank you!

Pastor Ken

Pastor Ken Lang - or Maci Laci, as we like to call him - from Calvary Chapel of Syracuse, NY has been a friend as well as a supporter and partner of our ministry for years, and we are enjoying a visit with him this week.
Its a real blessing to spend time with him, and many of the people in the church feel a real connection with him.
Ken taught our Wednesday night service last night, and will teach the Sunday service as well - after which I will be driving him down to Čakovec, Croatia, as he'll be teaching at Calvary Chapel Čakovec's family camp.
Please pray for a great connection with the church this Sunday, as well as God's blessings upon our travel down to Croatia.

English Camp update

Please pray for our English Camp. In the last week we've been having kids cancel. Please pray that this would not continue, and that even more kids would sign up and there would be a ton of kids at camp this year! Thanks!

Men's Day

This past Saturday we had our church's first Men's Day.
In a way, this is a bit of a milestone. When we first started the church, it was pretty much a girls' Bible study! There were a few guys who would come, but it wasn't infrequent for me (Nick) to be the only guy if the others didn't or couldn't come. Even when we first started the church, we had some great people attending and working with us, but there was a definite lack of dudes, and that was hard sometimes.

I heard Mark Driscoll say once to a group of church planters: "If you win the men, you will win the war". I think there is a lot of truth to that, and we began praying and writing in our newsletters, asking the Lord to give us more men and families in our church. We had and still have a lot of nice ladies, and wanted the church to be more balanced and healthy.
Since that time God has really been answering this prayer and bringing more men into our church - so much so, that I have heard the complaint that there are only men in our church! That's still not exactly the case; I would say there are still more ladies - but I think that shows how God has been answering our prayers in this area!

For our Men's Day, we did some team building activities and "trust games". We all had to take turns falling backwards out of a window, trusting that we would be caught by our brothers! Although some were hesitant, everyone did it - and there was no blood to clean up from anyone falling!
Then we had a Bible study, in which we talked about what it means to be a Christian Man and a man of God, followed by prayer.
After that we went out and played paintball in the tunnels under the city (Eger has hundreds of tunnels that run underneath it). We all got shot a lot, and had nice welts to show off at church the next day, to prove how hard-core we are!

We plan to do more Men's Days in the future - maybe once every 2 or 3 months.
Please pray:
- Praise the Lord for the prayers He has answered and for the successful event
- That God would add more men and families to the church
- That the men in our church would be godly, that they would be examples, and that they would leaders in their families and in the church
- That future men's days would be fruitful and blessed

Eger English Camp

Our church in Eger is now 4 years old. We used to live in Debrecen and work with that church, and also came up here for 2 years for a Bible study that started with a girl, Judit, who got saved at Debrecen's English camp.
We now have our own English camp for the local high school and college students. It has grown tremendously, with 35 at the first camp and 80 kids at last year's camp. We are expecting 100 kids to attend this year.
Speaking a foreign language is a must here-and to graduate high school, most students need to speak 2 languages. Americans cannot comprehend that, as so many people I know think they can speak Spanish if they can order food-tacos and salsa por favor!!
We try to create a native speaking environment by bringing native speakers-mostly Americans, but this year an Australian couple as well-and by spending all day together.

I am writing this note to let you native speakers know about our outreach to our community, and to ask you to contact me if you are interested in coming to help with the camp.

The camp runs with about the same program every day: 3 hours in the morning in conversation with a native speaker (we have some Hungarians come who teach the beginners), free time in the afternoons where the kids can choose an activity like crafts, sports, hiking, baking, etc, and then we end the day with an "exciting" evening program like a talent show, games/activities, and our biggest hit-an American Idol style Karaoke contest. Really. I have stage fright, but Nick makes me do it and I sang Like A Virgin when I was 9 months pregnant.

If anyone is interested or wants to know more info-PLEASE contact me! We are short on helpers this year from Native speakers!
Some helpful stuff-Camp dates are Monday July 27 until Saturday Aug 1.
You can check our church website for more info-www.eger.golgota.hu

God bless, Rosemary

Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

God has been doing good things in our church lately!
There are new people attending the church.

• One that we are really excited about is someone we've known for years. He a member of a family in our church, and we have been praying for him for years, that he would come to know the Lord. Recently he started attending the church and meeting with me (Nick) during the week. God has really changed him a lot, and we are so amazed as we see what God is doing in his life.
• Another new person is a woman who came to our church because she has a lot of difficulties and wanted us to pray for her. When she came the first time, she told us that her whole family is unemployed, her husband has cancer, and her brother is in a coma, because a scaffolding fell on him. We prayed for her, and the next week she came back with some great news: Her brother came out of the coma - which he had been in for weeks at that point! Praise the Lord! It is so cool to see God answer prayers in this way - where it is a testimony to those who aren't yet believers, or who are new believers. Since that time, God has also answered prayers in regard to her work situation, and now her and one of her sons have gotten jobs!
  

Besides this, there are always new faces, and lately we've had more and more students from the local high schools and the college. We are very glad to have them as part of our fellowship as well.

At the same time that we are blessed to have new people in the church, we don't want to neglect those who have faithfully been part of the church for years. There are some of these people whom we haven't see so much around the church lately; please pray for these people, that they would remain close to the Lord and remain in fellowship.

And please continue to pray for God to draw many people to Himself in Eger!

4 Years

This past Sunday marked the fourth anniversary of our church in Eger.
On Easter 2005 we started the church formally with our first Sunday service. Since that time God has done good things amongst us; people have come to know the Lord, been baptized, stepped into ministry, etc...
We can see that we are having an impact for Christ in Eger, and that is a good feeling. We believe that this is only the beginning of what God wants to do here.
Please pray for spiritual awakening in Eger, and for many to be saved. Please pray that God would fill up our church with people who come to worship Him and hear His Word!
Our vision is to see our church so filled up that we have to have 2 services. Please pray that this vision would become a reality.

Rosemary and I have been in Eger for 4 years now too. In that time we've gained some weight, seen some things, had a kid, and picked another one up along the way.
Currently we're trying to buy a house; please pray for that! We've made an offer on a house, but haven't heard anything back on it yet.

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God." My times are in your hand.
Psalm 31:14-15

February Update

Greetings from Eger!

Here's an update on what's been going on with us for the past 2 months.
At Christmas time we got to go to the States to visit our family and friends. It always seems that our trips to the States are both too short and too long - because we don't get to have enough time as we'd like with everyone, but yet it is a long time to be away from Eger.
It was really nice to have a family Christmas in Colorado with Nick's parents and Rosemary's brother, Tony. It was a blessing to get to visit with our friends and supporters as well.

Since arriving back in Hungary, we've been sick quite a bit. Just this past week we all got the flu, and Nate had a fever of 104 F (40 C) for 3 days, and still has a fever, although it is getting lower.

One big thing that happened recently, is that 2 weeks ago our house got broken into and robbed. We went out for dinner with some friends, and came home to find our stuff all over the floor. It took a minute to realize what had happened, and then we started looking for our stuff, and realized that a lot of things were missing. The robbers broke into our building with a crowbar, and then went out into our yard and pried one of our windows open, and came in that way. The police came out and we filed a report, but so far they haven't found anything. All in all, we lost about $5000 worth of stuff - mostly electronics and jewelry, including our laptop and camera and some stuff that we can't replace, like Rosemary's mom's wedding ring, and jewelry from our wedding. The bright side is that we weren't home when it happened, and we're all safe. Its an unsettling feeling that someone broke in; Balázs was especially shaken up by it. This is the first time someone's broken in, but the second time we've been robbed here at this place, and someone tried to break into another flat in this building last year.
We would like to move sometime soon, not just because of this, but because we'd also like to have another baby, and would need the extra space. We'd like to maybe buy a flat or house rather than rent. We've started looking already, but we're probably going to start doing it more seriously after this.

Personal

Nathaniel: Is now almost 18 months, and he is quite the busy little boy. He is starting so say some words and loves to imitate things and make animal noises.
We had to take him to the emergency room for the first time recently, because he climbed out of his crib and hit his head on the floor. We had a big bump on his head that lasted a week and a half, and we had to take him to get x-rays, but thankfully there was no serious problem.

Balázs: Has been doing better in school since he moved in with us. We can see that he has a lot more self-confidence, and its nice to see him growing as a person.
He is finishing the 8th grade, so he will start Secondary School in the fall. He applied to a good school here in Eger that specializes in technology, and it looks like they will accept him.

Rosemary: Has been sick 3 times already in the past month, and hasn't been getting a lot of sleep because of the baby being sick too. She's been having a rough time of it, so please pray for her.

Nick: Started studying theology through a distance learning program with the University of Gloucestershire (England), and is excited to go back to school and hopefully get a degree out it.

Prayer Reqests:

• Praise the Lord that we are all safe
• For our health - especially for that of Nathaniel and Rosemary
  
• For the safety of our family
• For us to find the right place to move to
• For our desire and plan to have another baby
• Nick to be wise with his time, as starts school
  

Calvary Chapel of Eger
On Feb 6-8 we had our 3rd annual church retreat in Mátrafüred, about an hour from Eger. These retreats are one our favorite things we do with the church. They are always times when we grow closer to the Lord and closer to each other, as we spend the weekend in fellowship together, hanging out, cooking, playing sports, going hiking, and studying God's Word.
Horvát-Kávai Árpi, Andi, and Nina came up from Vajta, and Árpi taught the Bible studies, which were a blessing to everyone.

We have started planning for our summer English Camp outreach, which will be July 27- Aug 1. We are praying for helpers to come, as we are expecting a bigger turnout than ever before. We just got the flyers back from the printer - we ordered almost twice as many as in previous years, and we hope to have more kids there than ever before. If the Lord does this, then it will require a lot more work and a lot more helpers, so please pray for that.

The church as a whole is doing well. The last few weeks we have had a packed house on Sundays, so much so, that people have had a hard time finding seats. Praise the Lord for that, and pray that it continues, and the Lord uses us in a great way to make disciples and reach Eger for Jesus Christ.

One noteworthy thing, is that on one of our Wednesday night Bible studied a few weeks ago, one of the girls in the church made the comment, What, are there only guys in this church? Now, that's obviously an exaggeration, since there are many girls in the church - its probably 50-50 really, but it shows that God has really answered our prayers for more men and families to join the church. Of the people who have recently joined the church, most of them are men. We see this as a really good thing, because when we started the church was almost only young girls, and we are glad to have this healthy balance.

Prayer Requests:

• Praise the Lord for the good things He is doing among us
• Praise the Lord, that He has answered our prayers
  
• For those in the church who are suffering financially
• For those in the church who are unemployed and need work
• For Allert and Anita, a couple from church who got married on Saturday
• For love and unity to be characteristic of our body
• For a great harvest of souls in Eger!
  

Thank you for your prayers and support! Please feel free to contact us; we would love to hear from you.

God bless,
Nick and Rosemary