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