Introducing Scott Fales

We have a new co-worker in our church here in Eger. Scott Fales moved to Eger in July from Thousand Oaks, California to serve with our church for at least the next year, and possibly longer.

We have known Scott for the past few years, and he has been out to Hungary before. He is a good friend of Shane Daniels, who served with us for the past few years until recently moving to Szolnok, where he plans to start a church this autumn - our church, and Scott, plan to be involved in helping that new church plant to get started.

Here is a link to Scott's blog. Please keep him, our church, and the church plant in Szolnok in prayer.

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!

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.

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

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

Weds. Night Bible Study Changes

Our officially started our church back in March of 2005, and at that time we started studying the book of Genesis on Wednesday nights.
Just last Wednesday we finished the last chapter of Deuteronomy, meaning that we finished studying through the entire Torah. It only took 3.5 yrs :)

And tonight, we begin a new book - the Letter to the Hebrews - in a new location; as of tonight our Wednesday night Bible study will be at the Kálvin Ház - where our church office is, and where we have church on Sunday mornings.

Until now we had been meeting the apartment of Jani and Tünde, which was a cool element, I think it will be a good thing for us to be in the same place for both services - not to mention that their apartment was getting a bit small for the Bible study, and we hope that having it in a more public place, downtown, will also attract others to come, especially college students, who might have been reluctant to go to someone's apartment.

The time of the study is also changing from 7pm to 6pm.

Please pray for us as we make these changes!

Clothing Drive

Yesterday, our church did a clothing drive in Szihalom, a relatively poor village near Eger. There are some people from Szihalom in our church, and God has opened some doors there for us to reach out to the village.

This is the 3rd year we have done a clothing drive here, and each year we have been able to provide more clothes, had more people come, and been more effective in sharing the Gospel message along with the free clothing.

More and more in the church, we see that people have a desire to serve and to do things for others - and this is good fruit, and the evidence of the Lord's work in their lives.

Please pray for the village of Szihalom - that God would bless these people and that they would come to know His great love, and that He would show us what our part as a church is in that.
Please also pray for the Children's Program we will do in Szihalom on Dec 6.

Here are some pictures and a video from the clothing drive:

Sándor

I (Nick) have a part time job teaching English at a language school in Eger to get a little extra cash to make ends meet.
The job is a big blessing, because I also get to meet a lot of people through it, including a lot of businessmen and influencial people in the city who come there to learn English, and I often get the chance to share with them about the church and about the real reason I'm in Hungary. For a while, every Thursday I would go to the county courthouse and teach the head judge for Heves county, and I got to talk to her about the Lord quite a few times.
The other day I was teaching in the school, and a group was there who had come from another town (Nyírbátor) to do an intensive course. During a break I got to talking to one of the guys from the group, named Sándor. He asked how long I'd been teaching English, and I told him I only do this part time, because I'm the pastor of a church, and thats the real reason I'm here.
He was really interested when he found out I was a pastor, and told me that he was a believer too and asked if we had a midweek service, because he wanted to come.
But he also told me about a problem he has - he is married, and his wife is against him being an active Christian and doesn't allow him to go to church, and the whole issue of him being a Christian has caused a lot of problems in his family.
But since his wife wasn't in town, he came to our church on Wednesday night - even invited some other people to come with him - and we had a nice time fellowshipping with him and prayed for him and his wife.
Unfortunately, Sándor's story is not a very uncommon thing that we encounter here. Please pray for Sándor and others like him whom we've met, and who have been in our church or gotten saved through our outreaches, but whose families are opposed to them walking with the Lord and taking an active part in the Body of Christ.

Financial Woes

Things are tough everywhere right now, and we are feeling the impact of the global economic crisis here in Eger as well.
A lack of jobs in Eger has always been a problem in the church, and we have had to say goodbye to many people over the last couple years who would have liked to stay in Eger, but because of lack of job opportunities.
With the economic crisis, people who work at some of the multinational companies and factories in Eger have been losing their jobs. We had 2 more people lose their jobs this weekend, and there are others whose are in danger of being laid off.
Despite these difficulties, the church is continuing to grow, which is great to see. It is kind of like a revolving door - there are always people coming in and going out.

• Please pray for Erika and Jani, that they would be able to find new jobs, so they can stay in Eger.
• Pleae pray for Dani and others who are at risk of losing their jobs.
• Praise the Lord for the growth in the church, and please pray for a great harvest of souls in Eger!
  

Weekend Outreach

We had a team here from the Bible College in Vajta this weekend, helping us out with various outreaches.
4 of them came, including Dusty, who has been here before and who was a big help to us at our summer English Camp. Dusty made good relationships with some of the kids, also leading 2 girls to the Lord who now attend our church. So, when some of the English Campers heard that Dusty was coming to town, they were excited to see her.
The outreach started on Friday - we planned an English Camp reunion out in the Szépasszonyvölgy, where we go in the summer to do church events like roasting fat over a fire - but we got rained out. However, some of the kids were able to meet us at the local mall, and the team hung out with them.
Saturday, we put up posters and handed out fliers in town which had Bible verses on them, as well as the church information. In the afternoon we went to Heves - a nearby town, where some kids come from to English Camp every year, and did a reunion there. A few kids showed up, and it was nice to see them and follow up a little.
Saturday night, the team went back out on the street with some people from our church and passed out more Bible verses and talked to people about the Lord.
All in all, it was a good weekend, and we certainly accomplished our goal of getting God's Word onto the streets and into people's hands, and of course spreading the word about our church as well.

• Please pray for those who heard about the Lord this weekend, through conversations on the streets, the fliers, and the posters, that God would water those seeds, and they would bear much fruit!

Extreme Baptism

Today we had a baptism service in our church.
We had originally planned it for 2 weeks ago, but it was postponed because of bad weather, meaning that our baptism service was outside at a lake in October!
Needless to say - it was cold. And we won't be doing any baptisms outside this late in the year again. Ever. Although we did say that same thing last year, after our baptism in September...
Despite it being cold and windy, it was a relatively nice day. After lots of rain and cold, today the sun came out and it was nicer than it has been in 3 weeks! Praise the Lord for that - we prayed for it a lot.
3 people were baptized - Dani, Jani, and Noémi. Originally 6 people were signed up, but for various reasons, we ended up with 3 brave souls who went into the cold waters of the lake in Ostoros to make a statement about what God has done in their lives by making them "New Creations" and how they are committed to following Him.
Here's a map of where the lake is - right outside of Eger.
The morning started with our regular church service, but with a short teaching on baptism, and then those who were baptized gave testimonies before the church about what God has done in their lives to bring them to this point. After that, we headed to the lake in a caravan.
One surprise was this - when we were planning the baptism, the dirt road down to the lake was in good condition. Since then, they have started work on paving that road - and then with all the rain, well you can imagine how muddy it was. It was so bad, that we couldn't drive any of the cars down to the lake except for one guy who has a 4-wheel-drive truck. So, on the way down, we all had to walk through the mud. It wasn't very far, but it seemed like it took a muddy eternity, and I felt horrible for all the people who were walking down this mud road in their nice church clothes.
On the way back, we fixed the problem by having the guy with the truck make a few trips up to where we had left the cars, so that only 4 of us guys had to hike out in the mud.
But, we all survived the baptism - in fact it was a great blessing. Afterward, we went back to the church and had a little party to celebrate this big event in the lives of these 3 and in the life of the church.
Please keep Jani, Dani, and Noémi in prayer, that God would strengthen them and use them for His glory and for His Kingdom.
Here are some pictures:

Majoros Wedding

We have a new married couple in our church - Mr. and Mrs. Majoros!
Jani and Ági got married yesterday in the castle in Noszvaj, a village near Eger, where Ági is from.
Ági was one of the very first people in our church here - in fact, she's been around since before we were even a church, since we were just a Bible study meeting in a school on Wednesday nights, and Rosemary and I would drive up from Debrecen every week.
We've always thought that Ági was such a great person, and always prayed that God would give her a good husband and family, so we were really glad when Jani came around and they started dating.
Jani has been in the church for coming up on 2 yrs now. He's a great guy, who helps everyone out a lot - he's been a big help to us with our car. He's also a real man's man, one of a small breed of Hungarian hunters. We get along really well - we often go mountain biking or hiking or snowboarding together.
I officiated the wedding - in Hungarian. This is the second wedding I've done in Hungarian; its a lot of work, but its worth it.
Praise the Lord for bringing Jani and Ági together, and please pray that their marriage would be strong and founded in the ways of the Lord.
Here are some pics from their wedding:

Baptism Postponed

We had a baptism scheduled for tomorrow (Sun, Sept 21st), but since we do our baptisms in a lake, and the weather has been really cold and rainy, we have postponed it for 2 weeks, until Oct 5th.
This is also better for a few other reasons too. One of the guys who was to be baptized has to have a small surgery which got scheduled for tomorrow, and also this way more guests will be able to come.
We're believing that this is the Lord's will, but please pray that on Oct 5 there will be good weather, so we don't freeze and die, since that's getting pretty late in the year!

Farewell Bódis Family!

Yesterday at church we prayed for and said goodbye to the Bódis family - Mihály, Ibolya and Dávid.
They have been in our church for the past year, and have been a great blessing and encouragement to our fellowship. As older believers, they were examples for the young people in the church of what it means to follow the Lord with faithfulness and commitment.
One of the hard things in Eger, is that it is hard to find work, so many people who would like to stay end up having to leave for this reason. This was the case with the Bódis family. Finding jobs is a constant pray request for people in our fellowship.
Mihály was the director of a mine in a village outside of Eger, which suddenly closed a few months ago, leaving him out of work. He looked for work around Eger for a few months, but wasn't able to find anything - only a job in Szekszárd, almost 300 km away from Eger, on the other side of the country.
The Bódis family will be missed!

Please pray:

• For the Bódis family, as they move - that God would lead them to a good church in Szekszárd, that they would make friends and settle in quickly to their new situation.
• For our church - that God would bring more families and older people into the fellowship
• For others in our church that are out of work - that they would find work in Eger, that God would provide for them and lead them
  

First Service in New Location

Today was Pentecost, and it was also our first Sunday in our new location.
For a long time we've been praying that God would open up a door for us to move the church downtown, so that we could have more visibility and be closer to the heart of the city.
Well, God has opened a door for us to go into a great place right downtown. Its an office building that is owned by the Reformed church, and it has a big hall upstairs which holds 150. It is perfect for a church - its already furnished with chairs, a stage, spotlights, grand piano and all, and it gives us room to grow.
Our first Sunday there went really well, and we just pray that being in this location will help us to reach the city and bring more people into the Kingdom.
One of my personal favorite things about this place is that when I'm preaching, there is a big picture of John Calvin right behind my head!
Here's a video to give you an idea of what the place is like:

Intelligent Design Presentation Outreach

This past Thursday we organized an outreach here in Eger with our friend Geof Stimack, from Denver, doing a presentation about the scientific proofs for Intelligent Design and Biblical Creation.
We've done this outreach before, and always drawn big crowds from the city; this time was no exception, as the hall was packed with both Christian believers from local churches, as well as many non-believers who were just interested in the topic. We had a whole group of kids from a local high school come, where some of the youth from our church study. They mentioned the presentation to one of the teachers, who recommended that all the students should attend! Praise the Lord for that!
This is a great way to do outreach in Eger, because people here pride themselves on being cultured and intellectual, so they love to come and listen to lectures. This topic is also very powerful, because if we can prove from science that there must be a creator, then the obvious question is Who is this creator? and Why did He create me?, which are natural ties in to the Gospel.
Here's a video of the presentation: