News from the Balkus Family

2011-11-14T21:24:00.001+01:00

Just another blessed day:

LastWednesday was a sunny fall day here in Budapest, more and more reddish andbrownish leaves are covering the city like a nicely worked out patchworkblanket. I was walking to the subway station on Andrassy Avenue. I had a littlesmile on my face as I enjoyed the sunbeams on my forehead. A conversation cameto my mind that I had in Kölcsey high schoolwith kids in class. Ethnic tolerance and racism was the topic that I wasteaching them. This is a very sensitive topic today in Hungary, because of alot of conflicts between Gypsies and Hungarians. This very tense conversationgave me a good opportunity to share Mt7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do toyou”. They listened very carefully and I saw on their faces, that they got thepoint. I’m just praying for those 23 students of the class that they would notjust start to apply Christian ethics in their life, but that they would findthe real source of this golden rule: Jesus Christ.

When I arrived to the subway station I still had 30 minutes toget to downtown to meet with Dani to continue our last week talking when Ishared my personal testimony and the gospel with him. I knew Dani from anotherhigh school, but two years ago when I met him for the first time he was notvery open to talk about God. I couldn’t figure out what pulled him closer toGod but a week before when I met him after two years he was very different. Hedeclared boldly that he is not a Christian but he would like to know more aboutit.

I arrived first to the BurgerKing next to the Central Market Hall so I bought two hot chocolate and Dani arrivedin that moment. We sat down and I asked him about our last week’s conversation.It was obvious that he understood and he was thinking about it during the week.When I asked Dani about the decision part, he interrupted me and he said thathe can’t wait to receive Christ! I was little surprised because his words wereabrupt and filled with emotions! So, just do it, I encouraged him. After wefinished our hot drink we walked down to the Danube riverbank and we prayedtogether. He just made the most important decision in his life! Immediately hestarted to ask questions, about what will be happening now? How can he be surethat Jesus is in his life, because he doesn’t feel anything different? He hadto leave quickly so, I had just a little time to answer. This week we will meetagain and we can continue. Please pray for Dani, that he would keep walkingwith the Lord for the rest of his life.

We have to be thankful to God for everything, for good and bad.But days like this are such blessings in my life and I’m very thankful for that!The icing on the cake, when I arrived home and I checked my Facebook, I had a“thank you it was a cool class” with five other “Likes” from the class where Ihad been teaching on that day. God is good! All the time!

The Burger King in the downtown

2011-10-20T23:08:00.003+02:00

The fall in Hungary is one ofthe prettiest season and also the busiest. School starts, and our ministry isfocusing on new students who we met during the summer camp and who we know fromhigh schools. It’s amazing that the doors are still open. Teenagers in Hungary are so open to thegospel and as we talk to them personally we experience, that they want to knowGod more and more. Csaba already has 8 boys in his Bible study group. Togetherwith our team we challenged more than 100 teenagers to be involved in ourmovement. Please pray that most of them will get involved in our discipleshipprogram and Bible studies!

The disciple chain is longerand... Sisi is the next chain-link.
She came to Speak Out thissummer and after the camp she decided to give her life to Christ. One of our volunteersbegan follow-up with her through the summer and now she participates in one ofour Bible study groups. She is very enthusiastic, ready to follow Christ andshare her faith. Her mother showed up two weeks ago at our fall retreat andlast week she also came to our high school weekly meeting. Virag got to talk toher and we really hope that she can share the Gospel with her soon.
Sohere is the chain: Virag lead Mari who leads Lilla and Lilla leads Sisi. It isa privilege to see how God is working in the students’ heart, changing theirlives for His glory. Praise God because He is the One who draws people toHimself. Our prayer is that very soon we will see the next chain-link, the onewho becomes a Christian because of hearing the Gospel from Sisi.

Please pray for our new believerhigh school students who are going to start follow up in these weeks!

“He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teachingeveryone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature inChrist.” (Col.1:28)

2011-10-20T23:05:00.001+02:00

This isa short video about our first weekly meeting in September. That was a silly andfunny time!

(Whenstudents say FAIK, that means YTL – Youth at the Threshold of Life. That is thename of Hungarian Campus Crusade for Christ)

2011-10-20T23:01:00.002+02:00

Budapest Airport: last moments before Patrik's flight

Our older son, Patrik left tocollege in the middle of August. He is a freshman at Shasta Bible Collage inRedding, California. God really worked in miraculous ways to providescholarship and everything that he needed to start this new adventure. The financial part, logistic part was not suretill summer but in the last moment everything came together. We are verythankful to God! So far Patrik likes the school very much and the transition tothe other side of the Earth was very smooth. We miss him very much but it helpsthat we can Skype with him every week, so we don’t feel him being far from us.

2011-10-20T22:53:00.001+02:00

What a joy it is to share with you some details regarding our Speak Outsummer English camp!
You can see short videos on this blog site about this blessed summer. We spent four weeks on the beautiful Lake Balaton in south-westernHungary where a multi-project evangelistic outreach took place. In addition tothe camp itself there were three smaller projects to Siofok (another Hungariancity), Romania and Albania! Csaba led the mission team to Albania. They tookpart in a discipleship camp with the Albanian Campus Crusade, and after thatthey helped in Tirana for an Evangelistic Outreach.

Here are the statistics from the camp:

American participants: 28
Hungarian participants: 79
Other nationalities (German,South African, Macedonian): 6
Hungarian Campers: 330
Approached with the Gospel:2728
Total # heard the Gospel:1764
Indicated decision forChrist: 97
Follow-up Bible studyparticipants: 77

2011-08-15T21:38:00.001+02:00

On the first week of Speak Out in July we had not only trainings, and logistic stuff but we spent wonderful times in prayers and worship as well. I always love to worship our God in different languages with brothers and sisters from other countries. A little taste of Heaven :)

2011-07-27T16:49:00.002+02:00

The Americans arrived

This short video shows the first moments after when Americans arrived to Keszthely to the English camp. We are very thankful for their great ministry among Hungarian teenagers in July, in Hungary!

2011-07-26T21:05:00.004+02:00

Albania 2011

God really blessed our summer! Here is a short video about our Albanian project. It was super cool! I will publish more about this summer soon!

2011-06-21T19:27:00.000+02:00

We appreciate it if you keep praying for Virag’s mom. We spent a good time with her last weekend. She is in good spirit. She finished chemo in May but needs more medical therapy for the spreading bond cancer.

2011-06-21T19:19:00.002+02:00

Summer has begun here in Hungary, and it looks like these months will be a very active period as always. Speak Out English camp, is going to start next week ( www.speakout.hu/staff ) and next month Csaba will go to Albania with Hungarian student leaders to be part of the Albanian Campus Crusade summer project.

We appreciate your prayers for these events. We will have great opportunities to share the gospel to Hungarian and Albanian teenagers.

·         Praise the Lord for these great opportunities
·         Pray that God would use us in their life
·         Pray that lot of them would receive Christ as their personal savior
·         Pray for our disciples who are serving with us during this summer
·         Pray for a safe trip to Albania

2011-06-21T19:14:00.000+02:00

We are back from the States where we had a great time meeting friends and ministry partners. Virag and I celebrated our 20^th anniversary in the sunny California. Wow, time is flying, and we just met for the first time yesterday J

2011-04-13T14:13:00.000+02:00

Siófok, Hungary

Last weekend on our spring retreat we were together with 130 students, high school students. This is allways a good opportunity for new students to hear more about God.
For me personally the small group talks and the worship times are the highlights. Whatch this short video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKddw-ZgpQ

2011-04-07T20:08:00.002+02:00

Come to Hungary in October and help us!

For more info click here: Bringing in the Hungarian Harvest Project 2011

2011-03-24T10:35:00.000+01:00

Yes, the big evangelistic outreach "Facebook 3D" was fantastic and so much fun! Twohundred teenagers came from different high schools of Budapest. In the next few weeks we will try to meet personally the new students.
Look at the pictures. I think that's communicate a lot:

The FB 3D community

"Private chat room"

"Status updating"

"Farmville game"

"Maffia game"

"Chat room"

"Crazy taxi game"

"Profile"

2011-03-16T20:00:00.002+01:00

Facebook 3D

Maybe you already saw this title on our Facebook profile picture. This will be a fun game night for high school students including a Gospel presentation in Facebook style this Friday (March 18th)
Please pray for this event, that it would open a lot of opportunities to meet new students from all around Budapest! So far more than 180 people signed up on Facebook that they will attend this program!
Pray for a lot of open hearted teenagers! We will put pictures about this event to Facebook and here on next week.

2011-03-16T19:55:00.000+01:00

Life stories (Virag’s ministry among girls)...

Together with the hardship we experience great blessings as well.
Two new Bible study groups begin in this semester. There is a new believer girls group, so they do follow up. The other group members are very opened students who want to know what Christianity is about, and how someone can become a follower of Christ. This group of girls is very special to me. I met everyone of them personally, and it is amazing how God touched their heart.

-Zsofi is a senior high schooler, who has no relation to Christianity. She began to think about the meaning of her life and met with one of our team member. Since she knows we are Christians, came to our weekly meeting where I met her. She asked if we would explain to her what it means to be a Christian.

-Fanni goes to a Catholic high school and has very difficult family background, so she lives in a dormitory. She heard about us through YTL (Youth at the Threshold of Life) program, and I met her at the weekly meeting, just as with Zsofi. When I heard her story it was heart breaking. She attempted suicide, but she was saved. When she tried to kill herself for the second time a girl entered the room where she was and asked help since she was in an even in worse situation than Fanni. At that moment Fanni understood that God has a plan with her, she should care about others, not just about herself. She wants to know God more and understand how to walk with Him.

-Melinda is coming from a very poor family, has Catholic background and has difficulties in learning. She is hungry to know God and experience a personal relationship with Him.

-Tundi has lot of questions related to God and Christianity, and she is very opened. As she experiences unconditional love from us she is getting more and more opened.

2011-03-16T19:50:00.000+01:00

Unexpected illness
Virag’s mother and one of her best friend and colleague were diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time.
Virag’s mom was operated and started chemo in January. Until now she is doing fairly well. Two weeks ago the doctors discovered that she has bone cancer too. She is Catholic and never understood the Gospel. She thinks it is enough to believe that God exists and recite the written Catholic prayers. Virag would like to use this time in her life to make her understand the importance of the personal relationship with God.
Would you like to help?
If you have time please write a short encouraging message to her with a Bible verse. Please keep it short, since we will translate it to Hungarian and give her to experience how Christians care about each other. Her name is Maria. Please pray for healing and for us to be an appropriate help in every area of her life.

2011-03-16T19:43:00.001+01:00

Purple day
This is our traditional and very popular all day program about boys-girls relationship, which we organize every year in the beginning of February. High school and university students participate with whom we work with and students from church youth groups as well. They heard messages about the topic of relationship, had Q and A time and workshops as well.
Virag gave a talk for girls about how they can be a respectful Christian woman. Csaba gave a lecture to boys. The topic was Victory with your eyes, with your mind and with your heart.

At the end of the day we, the staffs invited the participants for dinner to our homes. Thirteen students came to our home and we had a great time talking and playing games.

2011-03-16T19:13:00.000+01:00

I'm using Facebook more and more. That is my number one communication channel with my students. So I published there more often than here in Blogspot. But I realized that I should continoe blogging, because of communication with our friends all around the world. I will continoe from now :)

2010-10-13T23:16:00.001+02:00

On that sunny Friday afternoon we just finished the preparation with our team and we had a prayer time before any of the kids arrived. We rented out an old movie theater for this event, which had a kind of theater feeling. Close to 200 teenagers were in the auditorium. The show started, and I can tell you they loved the improvisational theater. I think this was one of our best shows! At the end my colleague introduced one of our student leaders who shared his personal testimony. It was so great to see the boys and girls who were laughing in the last hour, now listened very carefully and quietly about God’s work in this fellow’s life. After that the host of the night summarized the Good News that changed our life, and can change their life too. One hundred thirty of them gave back a comment card! Their reactions are very positive. So, the next step is to meet these new students in the next few weeks. I can’t wait!

…”there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Lk.15:10.

2010-10-06T10:00:00.000+02:00

This Friday we will organize a bigger outreach! We will have and improvisational theater (I'm part of it :) and at the end one of us will share his personal testimony. This will be a great opportunity to connect new high school students. We are expecting about 150 teenagers. In the last two weeks we invited thousands of students from different high schools while we were teaching the YTL (Youth at the Threshold of Life) program with our team.

2010-09-17T17:27:00.002+02:00

This summer we had the privilege to serve again in Albania (small Muslim country in southern Europe.) together with our ex-team at Albanian Campus Crusade for Christ. Virag and me plus three of our student leaders spent a week in Tirana as a part of their three weeks long evangelistic project. We enjoyed this time so much!

The team is ready for Albania

We talked to so many high school students and we had fun with them. The final statistic of those three weeks is the next: eighty teenagers came regularly during the three weeks to the programs, and seventy of them are non believers. All of them heard the Gospel more times and eighteen of them received Christ. Praise the Lord!

Watch on Youtube a short video about the Albanian project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdzshZhAdQ

Now that the school year started we are back in Budapest to our regular schedule. We try to meet again with new believers and other kids who were interested. With our team we are starting to pick up high school director contacts for opportunities to teach YTL (a Christian drug and AIDS prevention program) in Hungarian public high schools.

As a family this fall is little different than before. Balazs just started a bilingual (English-Hungarian) high school. So far he likes it :-) Patrik who graduated from high school is looking for a job for few months and in the next year he would like to start a college in the States. Right now we are looking for a good and cheap option for him. We will see how it will work out.

2010-09-17T15:40:00.000+02:00

I know you didn’t hear about us for a long time. The reason is that we have a very blessed and busy summer behind us. I didn`t have much time to sit at front of the computer. Now I try to compensate and share with you about God’s wonderful work in Hungary. I’m sure you heard from us many times about our English camp, Speak Out. Here is the summary of this project:

Sixty nine Hungarian Student Staff + thirty American Volunteers + twenty two Hungarian missionaries hosting over 350 non Christian students and sharing Christ with them as well as doing evangelism on the beach, and in many other cities. We've trained a team from Slovakia - they've come to observe how they could start this camp in their country. Also, we've went with a team to Albania and we sent a team to Romania to reach students there. Every week we saw more than ten students trust Christ just on the beaches, not counting the campers. And these are just the ones who were ready to say YES to God! Many more are few steps away from the decision, or became more interested in a relationship with their Creator! Besides this we hear news of Speak Out campers making their first step of faith trusting Christ daily! One of these guys is Adam. He is a smart, artistic thinking teenager boy. I had a long conversation with him about God in the camp. At the end he told me that I couldn’t convince him. My answer was that I don’t want to convince him at all, that’s God’s job. I just want to share with him things that are very important to me and changed my life completely. Two weeks later he called me that he borrowed a Bible from a friend and he started to read the Gospel of John! I was very excited. I gave him a Bible and I can’t wait to meet him again.

“Hortenzia story” from Virag: Vivienn (a believer high school girl) and I went out to share our faith in Keszthely. It was an unbelievably hot day, so we were wondering if we find anyone outside. Surprisingly a young girl was sitting on the first bench on the walking street. We had a great conversation and we were even able to share the Gospel with her. We exchanged phone numbers and decided to meet again. Few days later she came to visit us at Speak out. I introduced her to the local Baptist church and she began to build friendships there. Hortenzia is not a believer yet, but reads her Bible daily and really wants to understand it. Hopefully soon she will be part of the church Bible study group. You have to know about her that she is from Romania, but she is Hungarian by nationality. She came to work to Keszthely (she is a nurse), since she couldn’t get a job in Romania. She doesn`t have family or friends here. May God use this hard situation in her life to gain eternal life by accepting Christ as her personal Savior. That is my prayer for her. Hortenzia will visit me two weeks later (we live 120 miles far from each other), so please pray that we will enjoy our friendship and God will use me in her life to get to know Him.

Dave and Steve came from California to Hungary

for Speak Out

On the night of staff hunt Virag and I became a Navi from Avatar

and we were together with an "incredible student"

2010-06-26T14:46:00.000+02:00

The SPEAK OUT English camp started. We are after two days unpacking, decorating, preparing here in Keszthely. Now we are just waiting for the American students who are late because of their flight is delayed.

2010-06-15T16:03:00.003+02:00

Last weekend Balazs graduated too. We had a great time with our family after the ceremony.

You can see on this short video if you compare with Patrik's graduation how different an American and a Hungarian graduation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGVe3GKDSQ

2010-06-08T11:38:00.002+02:00

It was so great to meet friends, supporters, churches in California. I think this was my busiest trip in the States ever. As I arrived back home I jumped into our regular summer scedule: preparation for Speak Out, preparation for Albanian project and thousands of other small things. I like this season of our life and is so good to be together again as a family. This June is even more colorful, because Patrik graduated from high school and Balazs will graduat from 8th grade this week. We are very proud of them. You can see a short video from Patrik's graduation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4L9J0RavYo

Patrik together with grandmas and with us

2010-05-28T20:14:00.000+02:00

Just few more days and I will fly back to Hungary. Virag is already home, and she is working on graduation stuff for Patrik and Balazs and preparation of Albanian mission trip. I can't wait to see them again!

In July we'll go to Albania with three of our student leaders to help the Albanian Campus Crusade for Christ, high school ministry in their Evangelistic summer project. Please pray for the financial part of this project! We don't have yet enough found for this trip, but we have the air ticket reservation. We trust in the Lord! I will write you more about this project later.

2010-05-21T02:57:00.000+02:00

Virag and I am in Manteca, CA in May. So great to meet friends, ministry partners and to share with them how God answering to their prayers in the Hungarian ministry. On Monday Virag flew back to Hungary but I will be here till end of May.
We met so many people including the local police chief. Next day we were in a local news paper :)

2010-04-13T00:27:00.002+02:00

Click here to see the interview

The parliamentary election in Hungary was last Sunday. Virag and I went to vote in the afternoon, but because of some bad organization, we had to wait in line for four hours. Even with all this waiting, we had a fun time. We met some other Christians and enjoyed their company. One of them was a young doctor who just planning to go to a medical mission to Albania. We could give him some info to prepare for his trip. I also had opportunity to give a short interview for the biggest Hungarian news channel, live in the 6pm news. My world fame just started :-)

2010-04-12T23:32:00.004+02:00

We just experienced a remarkable weekend!
Twice a year we spend an entire weekend at a local youth camp with all of the students from the high school and university ministries. These weekends have historically been amazing experiences because the students who come (both Christians and non-Christians) are often treated to incredible moments of spiritual growth. Virag and I could spend hour long conversations with our students during these three days. We enjoyed it very much! Balazs also had fun. Patrik was only able to come for two days, because he had so much homework for the weekend.

Tamas, Gabor and Me

Balazs with his cousin, Roland.

One incredible moment during the weekend was on Sunday morning when three of our colleagues, (Kriszta, Zsuzsa, and Gyuri) each shared about some great difficulties that they have been facing in recent months. Kriszta was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis 8 years ago. From one day to the next she simply couldn’t stand on her own power anymore. What followed was many years of physical therapy, surgeries, a lot of confusion and prayer. In spite of the doubts of her doctors, Kriszta and her husband Roland gave birth to their daughter, Sonya, last year. Kriszta shared with the students that even though she would never have imagined that this was God’s plan for her life…she knew that He was sovereign and in complete control. Zsuzsa shared about the birth of her third child, Kamilla, who has Downs Syndrome. In her own words: “Even though we didn’t desire this for our daughter, we also are so happy to have her. She has brought an indescribable joy to our family.” Finally Gyuri shared about the recent death of his mother (in February) in a car accident on a snowy road. Gyuri stood before the students and said, “Of course I wish my mother was here, but I do know that she is in a place now where there is no more pain…and I know that I will see her again.” The students sat absolutely riveted to these stories. What made the moment so special was precisely because the staff were not talking about things that are easy in the Christian life. They were talking about the special joy that comes alongside moments of great difficulty.

Mark

During the sharing time at the end of the weekend one of the new students who I started to talk just two weeks ago, Mark (in the striped shirt below) stood up and confessed that just a few weeks earlier his uncle had passed away. He said that his uncle was close enough to him to feel like a brother. Mark said that he felt he had received the same love this weekend as he used to feel from his uncle.

Rahel and Agi

And, finally, joyful news about a new believer. Agi (on the right) stood up at the end of the weekend and tearfully said, “As I was sitting here this morning I felt the presence of God. I decided to begin my relationship with him!” Agi has been coming to our weekly meetings since February. We are so happy for her!! Here is a shot just after she confessed her faith to the audience. She is hugging Rahel, the daughter of the Campus Crusade director of the country (she is the girl in the left above). Rahel’s mother told us later that Rahel had been specifically praying for Agi to trust Christ.
We are blessed to be involved in such a ministry. It is God’s ministry and He permits us to experience these amazing moments.

2010-02-22T18:16:00.000+01:00

"I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. 8:38-39
I'm so happy for this truth but I'm so sad to know people who can not receive this. Please pray with me for them!

2010-02-11T23:04:00.003+01:00

Picture by: Iain McDonald

„Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep...” Luke 15:6b

From Virag's pen:

Far beyond my imagination.....

The story goes back to 13 years ago, when a little girl attended Speak Out English camp. She enjoyed it, she was still 12 though. Years passed..... she entered college where a new friendship waited for her. Her friend Edina began to share about Christ with her. Having a very bad religious experience, bitterness because her father passed away when she was only nine, experiencing tremendous loneliness, at the beginning she wasn’t open to it. But slowly she began to understand what Christianity was about it....

So, three years ago several times she came to our weekly meetings and participated at Speak Out as well.

That’s where I met her. We had great conversations, and began to plan to meet from next school year. She even planned to reach her brother with the Gospel. I called her in the next school year many times, but she was always busy. Finally I understood that she probably stepped back. Surprisingly, a week before I got a message on Facebook from her. Her name is Esther. She was glad to find me, and wanted to talk to me soon. I couldn’t wait to meet her. God flooded me with joy as I heard how her story continued.

She understood, that she should have made several decisions after that particular English camp, but she didn’t....

Last August God began to convince her that she is on the wrong track. A month later her grandma got cancer, and that was the last drop. She decided to give her life fully to God. She began to pray, read her Bible regularly and share about Christ with her family. God was answering her prayers wonderfully and her whole family was amazed by it. She wanted to meet me because she wants to grow and participate in a Bible study group. We invited her brother (who is a high schooler) to our weekly meeting, and he came last Friday and also want to participate in Speak Out this year. Soon I will meet her mother, build a friendship, and hopefully begin to disciple her.

The once little Esther is God’s daughter now, and shares the good news with her family and friends. What a privilege to see God’s wonderful work! Let’s give thanks to God for his amazing love and pray for Esther, for her brother (David) and for her mother (Ani).

2010-02-01T12:49:00.001+01:00

Patrik baptized yesterday
(click above to see video)

Our first born decided to baptize in our church. Virág and I am very proud of him. It was a very special experience to baptize my own son. Lot of his friends came to celebrate with us. I'm very excited!

2010-01-08T18:14:00.003+01:00

Dear Friends!

We are in 2010 and maybe God would like to use you in Hungary in this year! Think about it and pray about it! And don't forget to check our links for more information, on the right side of this blogsite! We would be very happy for you!

2009-12-16T15:36:00.003+01:00

The day is approaching when we will celebrate the birth of our Savior. Last week we had our Christmas outreach with 120 teenagers. Lot of them were new boys and girls, who were invited by Virag's disciples and by our team from different high schools of Budapest. One of my disciple, David shared his personal testimony during the program. David did a great job! He is a very creative movie maker too, so he cconnected his short movie with his story: "The gift of life"

Enjoy it!

2009-12-07T22:53:00.002+01:00

The Hungarian Santa called Mikulás (Me-ku-lash) visits children on December 6th, St. Nicholas' Day. I love this tradition! I got two chocolates from him because I was a good boy! :-)

2009-12-05T16:02:00.005+01:00

I really like this short video about Budapest and about Hungarian inventors. Made by Isti Madarasz the brother one of my colleague. I hope you will like it

2009-11-23T20:22:00.007+01:00

Let me share with you about our great time in a former communist youth camp in our annual fall retreat. On the second weekend of November 130 college and high school students – including our sons Patrik and Balazs - together with 20 staff were in Csilleberc.The theme for the retreat was "Is Jesus enough?" Through the weekend students were challenged to trust Christ fully, maybe for the first time in their life. Adam, a student from Transylvania, Romania stood up on Sunday during sharing time and said the following:
"This will be hard to say... I made the decision..." There was a loud cheering and clapping for him, and to God! Lives changed! Many students left from the retreat encouraged in their faith, and in their commitment to Christ!

Patrik with two of his friends in Csilleberc

Virag and I had good conversations with some new students. Benedek was one of them. He arrived with his friend for this weekend. He is a very open teenage boy. I challenged him to be part one of my Bible study group. He showed up last week and told me that, after the retreat he started to read the Bible! I was so happy. Please pray for Benedek! He understood the message of the Gospel very clearly and I think he is close to receive Crhist, just like Adam did.

I was part of the improv theater too

2009-11-04T14:58:00.004+01:00

Interview with Davidski and Matyi

If you would like to know more about SpeakOut check out our site:
http://speakout.hu/staff

2009-11-02T21:02:00.004+01:00

I can't wait for the weekend! We will have our regular fall retreat. This is always a highlight in our movement. A lot of great teachings, good conversations with new high school students and so much fun! This is it:)
The short video above is our advertisement for this program. I hope you will like it. Sorry that it's only in Hungarian.

2009-10-28T16:02:00.003+01:00

I never thought girls would like video games. I was wrong. Virag invited a lot of girls to our house to play with Wii and they loved it. The idea came from an other event when we were playing with boys and we saw even some young ladies who wanted to be part of it. Tommorrow an other group of girls will try their knowledge on Guitar Hero. (So, I will escape from home:-)

2009-10-28T15:56:00.004+01:00

On October 9^th we had almost 200 students who came to our Improv Theatre Night. It was fantastic! We had a “referee" and we had two comedy teams on either side of the stage who "competed" for laughs from the audience. Periodically we would have the audience vote on which game they liked most by applauding for their favorite team. The students loved it so much! Improv is only now starting to really take off in Hungary...and we are hoping to get a lot of mileage out of this team of actors who have begun to gel very well with each other. I’m part of this fantastic amateur actor’s team. At the end of the evening Zach shared the Gospel through some personal stories. We collected comment cards from the students based on their thoughts on what Zach said...and then we used the cards to do a raffle at the end of the night. The main prize was an IPod Shuffle. The lucky winner was a girl from one of the new high schools where we had been speaking this week. Now in these weeks we contact these students, to follow up with them

2009-10-28T15:29:00.001+01:00

"5 years ago I was at a YTL symposium and it had a great impact on me. I've received Jesus Christ there and since than our lives are continue changing, my life along my family's life. The emphasis in my life had been changed, I don't direct my life any more, but I listen what the Lord of my life, Jesus Christ wants to tell me through the Holy Spirit. It was a great spiritual adventure - in a positive way - to get to know this way and leave the old lifestyle. I needed great courage to believe that God loves unconditionally, forgave me and I can trust in Him; I can rely my family's life and my friend's life on Him with hope and faith. Thanks God and for you for this great miracle."

These sentences were written by an educator who came to the 15th anniversary celebration YTL symposium and gives a great example of the impact of YTL in the lives of the educators and students.

2009-10-28T15:15:00.005+01:00

We are after some fantastic weeks! Between September 28-October 11th we had a special series of outreaches for high school and campus students and educators with the help of 22 Americans. During this time we had to following outreaches and activities:

8 high school assembly where over 1,500 students were there and had an opportunity to hear a YTL talk and been invited to our high school outreach.
spoke at more than 50 classroom lectures where over 700 kids were present and been invited to the outreaches
4 dorm outreaches with 120 students
distributed 4,000 evangelistic Student Survival Kits.
shared through personal evangelism with hundreds
a major campus outreach with 150 students and a major high school outreach with 200 students - both places the gospel were shared clearly
a 15th anniversary YTL symposium with 280 educators present for a whole weekend. 4 educators prayed to receive Christ. These educators will teach YTL to over 25,000 students and will show the Jesus dvd to over 15,000 students in their classrooms.

2009-10-03T22:03:00.003+02:00

Yesterday we had a great time with our students!

2009-09-30T16:00:00.003+02:00

I just made two tree diagrams to show you our disciple relations. Of course in our movement much more young teenagers are involved. With our team we meet regularly with more than 80 teenagers each week.

2009-09-24T23:20:00.006+02:00

In Budapest we are in the middle of the fall, but the temperature still reminds me of summer. We started our Bible study groups, disciple groups and thanks God we have so many high school students who are really interested.

Last week we had a “Twilight Night”. This book and movie is very hot topic now, especially among teenager girls. Zach and Julie Anderson used this movie for small group conversations and they drove the audience attention to the ethical values that are in this movie.

2009-09-24T23:00:00.004+02:00

Family Holiday
The school year started for all of us. Patrik is senior Balazs is 8^th grader. They enjoyed the summer very much. Both of them were very involved in Speak Out. They were so happy to be back in Albania and Patrik helped for our team to translate a lot. In August we had a good time at lake Ferto in Western Hungary and after few days with the grandparents. It was really relaxing.

Balazs and Patrik in Fertod Castle

Open border between Austria and Hungary

Biking around the Ferto Lake

2009-09-24T22:31:00.006+02:00

We had a wonderful week in Albania.

The team

Three staff plus six students were the team. We arrived to the “Land of Eagles” after a sixteen hour drive. It was so good to meet lot of friends and to serve together with our old team in Tirana. We were part of a three weeks long project and our main goal was to meet new students, to build friendships with them and to talk about God mostly in coffee shops which is a very common meeting place for teenagers. Last day I had an interesting conversation with Shpetimi and two of his friends. They are Muslim believers and they knew much more about Muslim faith then average Albanian young people. They told me lot of things about their faith and they were very open to hear about my faith. I didn’t hear from them since summer, but in October I will meet Toni (who is the leader of high school ministry in Albanian Campus Crusade for Christ) and hopefully he can share with me about Shpetimi and his friends.

Together with Albanian CCC staff

With Albanian teenagers on Dajti

Tirana downtown

2009-09-24T22:02:00.006+02:00

Speak Out 2009

If you write “Lake Balaton” in Google you can find a lot of pictures and information about the place where we spent our summer. As I wrote you in my last email Speak Out English Camp our main summer ministry. It went very well! We had more than one hundred teenagers each week. We played a lot together and every day we had the opportunity for spiritual conversations. Just one story from the 3rd week: I talked with two 15 year old boys who are students in a Catholic high school. They told me that they never thought about God and they just want to enjoy the present life and not think about future. It is very sad. In our conversation I shared the gospel with them and I told them why God is the most important in my life. I really hope God will change their heart and they will start to search the through. Please pray for these two boys! Their name is Miki and Kornel.

Random Street Evangelisation

We were not always serious :)

2009-07-25T23:33:00.001+02:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWVWeLCcHW0
We are still in Speak Out. Look at this cool video about this summer project!

2009-06-22T12:17:00.001+02:00

Speak Out!

Just few more days and we will go to our 5 weeks long summer camp. This is always the highlight of the year. Great evangelistic opportunities, lot of time together with our disciples (including our sons Patrik and Balazs), new American friends and lot of fun. Please pray for this project and for our students!

This is speak out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gAWcG41Whk

Albania!

In the second week of the Speak Out we will go to Albania with some of our students. It is so exciting! We will have and Evangelistic Outreach with the Albanian Campus Crusade for Christ high school team. This means we will be with our ex team where we served for seven years. My family can’t wait to see them again!

Please pray for this project! 20 hours drive, hot dry weather and other kind of challenges that we can expect!

Our team in Albania in 2003

2009-06-22T12:10:00.003+02:00

The last school year was a really blessed time in our life. We had some challenges financially and some spiritual issues in our disciples’ life but we experienced God’s faithfulness and goodness all the time. We can say that Hungarian teenagers are still very open and lot of them wants a closer relationship with God. So we keep using this opportunities as we walk with God daily.

2009-03-23T22:21:00.001+01:00

If you met our sons, Patrik and Balazs, you know that both of them speak much better English then Virag and I. Today Balazs won the second place of an English language competition in the 7^th district of Budapest. The next step is that he will participate the Budapest English language competition. We are very proud of him!

2009-03-23T22:11:00.000+01:00

One of my responsibilities right now is to prepare and organize our spring retreat which is on the first weekend of April. We are expecting 70-80 young people to participate and the title of the weekend is: “Christian by display”. We would like to teach them and talk about: What it means to follow Christ fully?

Please, pray for that weekend, because that is a very important time with our disciples!

2009-03-23T21:59:00.003+01:00

High School Blitz

The spring definitely is not here in Budapest yet, but our ministry is speeding up like crazy.

We are in the middle of a High School blitz until the end of March. At least 200 classroom lectures are given. Six American student friends joined our team for two weeks so they can talk to kids together with us in public high schools in English classes every day. We meet so many new teenagers and we invite them to our programs where we can talk about the Gospel.

2009-03-23T21:50:00.002+01:00

Battle of the Bands

On March 20th, 2009 4th time we’ve organized a special outreach for High School and University students, called “Battle of the Bands” (BoB). It was so cool! (But I’m still not big fan of rock music:-) At this competition there is a relevant and clear gospel presentation. Over 500 students came, and most of them would have never ever went to a church or would have any opportunity to hear about Christ! We’ve asked these students to fill out a survey and we’ve received back hundreds of contact informations! It gives us a great opportunity to meet with these students and share about Christ to them personally. Please pray for these young people!

2009-02-16T15:16:00.004+01:00

Patrik and I had an other hiking trip in the Budai mountain with a dozen of high school students.
It was windy, snowy but we had so much fun. These times are the best for good conversations, and to laugh together.

2009-01-27T22:21:00.003+01:00

The Nagykoros (in Central Hungary) high school was founded in 1557. That is history! Zach and I had an invitation by an old friend to speak in front of 400 teenagers who attend this historical school. Zach spoke about friendship and I shared my personal testimony. Please pray for the teenagers there! Probably most of them are not believers and because Nagykoros is quite a distance away from Budapest, we can’t meet them again. In reference to this, we just hope that God will use our message in their lives.

2009-01-26T16:44:00.002+01:00

It’s always fun to spend time with our teenager disciples.

We spent last Saturday together. At morning we had breakfast together, and after some encouraging teaching from my colleagues Andras and Zach. The pizza lunch is always popular. I know it sounds strange to Americans, but my favorite is the tuna fish pizza and the garlic chicken pizza with sour cream :)

Afternoon we went out for random evangelization downtown. It was a little bit cold, but we had several good conversations with teens about the Gospel.

I was especially happy that our sons Patrik and Balazs came with us also.

2009-01-26T16:39:00.001+01:00

The Christmas break ran away so fast. Maybe, because we had such a busy, but relaxing time with family and friends in South Hungary. We started January with Staff training. Every staff member has to develop their knowledge of theology, and their skill for ministry. In this year our lessons were about communication. The topic was not completely new, but was good recap about the basic theory about it.

2008-12-18T11:09:00.004+01:00

A great gift from my disciples
Matyi and Davidski are in two different high schools. Both of their hearts are on fire for God, and they gave me a wonderful gift without knowing that they did. They told me last week how they try to share the Gospel with their friends, classmates, and sometimes what kind of hard discussions they have with some of them. Matyi and Davidski are young believers but they can’t keep back that Good News that changed their life. Wow! It is so encouraging to meet and lead these young men and to be witness of God, who is working in their heart!

2008-12-15T17:20:00.005+01:00

Last Friday we had a special Christmas outreach for students and high school students . About 130 young people came. Andras, a 21 years old student who became a Christian a few years ago through our movement was sharing his testimony and the gospel. 80 students filled out a comment-card and 26 indicated that they would like to be invited to a Bible-study small group.
We had so much fun together!

2008-12-15T16:56:00.004+01:00

On December 6th we had a special celebration that we’ve invited everybody who was and is on staff with us in Hungary and are friends of this ministry and happens to live in Hungary. We celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the first missionary crossing the Iron Curtain and move to Hungary and start Campus Crusade here. God has blessed beyond imagination that risky and heroic act. God deserves to be celebrated for the thousands of miracles He did during these 30 years both under communism and after the fall of the Iron Curtain! People have prayed for 70 years that communism fall so we can 't forget to remember the miracles of what has happened!
God is good and he answers our prayers!

2008-12-14T12:15:00.004+01:00

Did you know about the Hungarian Santa Claus?

The Hungarian Santa, called Mikulás, (Me-ku-lash) visits children on December 6th, St. Nicholas' Day, which is the name day of "Miklós." Chidren put boots in the windows, like stockings hang by the fireplace on Christmas Eve in the USA. If the child has been good, Mikulás leaves the boot filled with goodies - traditionally with candies, walnuts, apples, and chocolate Mikulás figurines. Also, most children get small toys and books. If the child has been bad, the boot will contain just a switch usually with a devil-figure attached, indicating a beating is in order. Since no child is all good or all bad, most get the switch and the treat. Usually Mikulás-day is celebrated in schools and in work-places for the workers' children. Children sing Mikulás-songs and when he comes in bravest children go to him, sit to his lap and tell a poem or sing a song. Then Mikulás calls them one by one, praising them for the good things they did and mentions bad things as well. These personal messages - of course - based on previous parents' notes. Usually Mikulás plays with them for a while or they watch a movie together. There is no Mrs. Santa in Hungary, but Mikulás often comes with one or two small evil boys, called "krampusz (kromm-puhs)."

2008-12-14T11:52:00.002+01:00

Have you ever tried ice skating? It is so much fun! Wendesday evening together with Patrik and some other high school students we went to the "Műjég". That is a wonderful skating place in front of the Vajda-Hunyad Castle in Budapest. (See picture above.)
Patrik was iceskating for the first time in his life, but he was very good! I think we will go to this place more often.

2008-12-03T12:48:00.004+01:00

I think the most beautiful McDonalds where I ever been is at West Train station, Budapest.

Come, and check it out :)

Maybe I am not right, but I’m sure it is a blessed place. I’ll tell you why...

I just arrived home from there after having a great conversation with a high school student. I met David in the summer at the SpeakOut English Camp. He heard the Gospel from one of our American staff students. He was very open and this Fall he has been regularly coming to our weekly meeting. I talked to him at one of the meetings and invited him to participate in a Bible study group. He and his friend Balazs both happily said yes to the invitation. Since they live and go to school outside of Budapest (20 km north from Budapest), we will probably meet in their hometown.

Today David came into Budapest, and that is why we met at the train station. So, while sitting in the McDonalds and drinking hot chocolate I answered his questions about how to walk in faith. Since summer David has been reading his Bible and God has been changing his life. He would like to share the Good News with his classmates, but he doesn’t feel that he is prepared for this. We read Hebrews 11:1,6 and other Bible verses together, talked about the biblical meaning of faith, and discussed how our faith becomes stronger. It was so great to see the desire in his heart; he wants to grow in his relationship with Christ.

2008-11-15T22:47:00.003+01:00

Have you seen the fall forest of Buda hills? You should. It is wonderful. God has a really good taste.
Today Patrik and I went hiking with a dozen of our high schoolers. How can I describe it? Fresh air, wonderful view, good friends, and so much FUN!

2008-11-15T21:45:00.004+01:00

Csillebérc, November 7-9 2008
We had a great weekend together with 120 students who are involved in our ministry. Every year we have two retreats, that last for a weekend, for high school and university students. Many of them became Christians in the last few months or year. These days were a good opportunities to build our friendship with them.
Our main speaker was an old friend of mine from Albania: Bill Babione (who is American) and he was talking about "To be a leader". I had good conversations with students and the consequence of that was that I slept 7 hours in two nights. (Next day at home 12 hours non-stop sleeping:-)

2008-10-22T09:10:00.002+02:00

Will Hungary Fall Victim to the Financial Crisis?
I hope not, but the economical situation is very dangerous right now. I would like to ask you to pray for Hungary!
You can see a short CNBC report in the links on the right side of this blog.

2008-10-16T20:39:00.004+02:00

Last night we were in MÜPA (Palace of Arts) with Virag. We watched SPARTACUS 2076 ballet from Pécsi Ballet. It was a fantastic performance. Great music and choreography. The dancers were super also. But I'm not objective in that, because one of the dancers was my niece, Bettina. Of course she was the best:-) We are very proud of her!She is the second from right

2008-10-15T00:10:00.003+02:00

As lot of you know I'm a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ and also a member and elder in "Kelenföldi Evangéliumi Gyülekezet" (one of the Evangelical Free Churches in Budapest). On the last Sunday I had the privilege to preach in a small EV Free Church in Zsámbok (small village, 90 minutes drive from Budapest). This small Roma (Gypsy) church was planted by our church a few years ago.
They are great people! They really love the Lord! I had a very good time with them and I was really encouraged by their testimonies.

2008-10-14T15:58:00.007+02:00

Last Saturday we watched Hungary-Albania soccer game together with some friends. It was so much FUN! Hungary won 2:0
I was happy for Hungary, but the Albanian part of my heart was sad.

Our good friends from Albania, the Boboci family sat next to me

People are waving:-)

2008-10-14T15:37:00.008+02:00

October Outreach

WOW! 130 high school students came for our invitation to an old movie theater. We watched a movie about drug addicts. Andras, one of our students shared his testimony and we had a great personal conversations with some teenagers after it. In the next few weeks we will meet them again one by one, so we can talk more about God.

I made about 150 portions of popcorn:-)

Prayer time before the Outreach

2008-10-14T15:09:00.019+02:00

We moved

Our financial situation is still very bad. That is why we decided to move. Virag found a smaller apartment in the same location where we lived. We are thankful to God for this apartment (kitchen, bathroom, living room, 1 bedroom), because we can save about $300/month. Hopefully this step will help for our deficit budget.

2008-10-14T14:58:00.004+02:00

I already wrote about our Bible study groups; not only the guys, but the girls also meet, every Friday. This picture is from Virag's Bible study group:

2008-10-14T14:25:00.007+02:00

We had 20 volunteers from the States serving with us and help reaching campus and high school students. The "Bringing to the Hungarian Harvest Project" (BHHP) was extremely busy (basically we left the hotel 6.30-7.00 AM and got back around midnight), but extremely effective, too. The week from our ministry's perspective: There was over 2,000 evangelistic SSKs distributed to freshmen on universities and hundreds filled out the survey attached to it and indicated that they want to talk with someone about God. We had 2 major high school assemblies where over 350 students gathered at each school. We gave a YTL talk on sex and invited them to the high school outreach .There was about 60 campus students at the campus outreach on Monday. We shared the Good News with more than 100 students through "random" personal evangelism on campuses. There were 3 great dorm outreaches where we had deep conversations with students about the gospel . We had dozens of English classes in campuses and universities and invited students to the campus and high school outreaches.

Greg from Stockton California talking with Hungarian High school students in English class

Pastor Ron also from Quail Lakes Baptist Church, Stockton in English Class

I'm just a listener of the conversation

2008-10-14T14:19:00.002+02:00

In the last few weeks I had no time to write on my blog but now I compensate it.

2008-09-11T19:27:00.007+02:00

Wonderful Fridays

From this summer we are part of the High School Ministry again. We are so excited about it and we already jumped to the middle.
On our Friday youth meeting we have 65-70 teenagers. We know them from Speak Out, from Outreaches, from random Evangelisations. Virag has 9 girls in her Biblestudy group and they will meet second time this Friday.

I will start a Biblestudy group together with my coleague for guys tomorrow. We will talk about the resurection of Jesus Christ. I hope a lot of boys will show up. Please pray for them.

A group of the Friday boys

2008-08-28T17:56:00.003+02:00

In August we had our annual staff conference

We spent together 5 days with the staff who are serving in Hungary (6 Americans, 23 Hungarian staff). Dr. Bill Lawrence, professor of theology and director of Leaders Formation International was our guest speaker. That was one of our best staff conference. God used Dr. Lawrence’s messages to reveal things in our hearts and point to some of the areas we need to grow as people who lead others in their walk with Christ. We tend to focus on the leader’s hands (what he does) and forget to focus on the heart (who he/she is), but God created a Who, not a What. The ministry is not about numbers, but about changed hearts. These thoughts were helpful for all of us. This annual conference strengthens our community, our mutual understanding of our calling and is a great opportunity to prepare for the coming ministry year. We feel so privileged to work together. God blessed us with a great team.

2008-08-28T17:49:00.002+02:00

We had a great holiday! Patrik and Balazs especially enjoyed the time together with their cousins.

2008-08-28T17:45:00.002+02:00

One more time about Speak Out

Four wonderful and greatly blessed weeks. That was the Speak Out to my family and I. We got lot of new friends among younger and older people. During this project dozens of people received Christ as their personal savior. Thanks to God! My prayer is that a lot of them will continue their spiritual walk with God in their whole life. Please, pray for them.

2008-07-30T12:15:00.002+02:00

Nothing happens by Chance

(A story from Virag.)

As I walked back to the camp in Keszthely, I needed to cross a road. Until I waited for a car passing I began to talk to a lady who stood next to me. Very soon she was talking about God and the New Testament. I was surprised and asked her if she was Christian. It turned out that she reads her Bible at home. We had a great conversation and at the end Eva (her name) invited me to her home (since she lives here at Keszthely). I visited her with one of our student staff, Kinga, and what we heard was a real surprise.

She was a member of the Communist Party, and after communism fell she began to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. On a train trip someone told her to read the Bible in order to understand the truth. She has been reading her Bible now for 16 years and understood that God created the Universe, and mankind is sinful. She knows a lot about Jesus, but the picture is still not completely clear about the way of Salvation. We had such an awesome conversation. Eva learned Bible verses by heart (like John 3:16), was talking about how important to share about God with others, read the Bible regularly etc.

Can you imagine? She was never heard any teachings about Christian life!

What she understood is from the Bible, from God’s living Word.

She is so teachable. Just as thirsty people want to drink, she was thirsty to hear about the Truth. Her situation reminded me when Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:30-31).

Eva wants to understand what she is reading. As we explained the Gospel, she was listening and asking questions. We visited her with Csaba again and gave her follow-up materials. We will keep in touch with Eva and help her to understand more clearly what it means to walk in faith with the Lord.

You need to know that she is a 70 year old widow lady. She kept telling us all the time: Nothing happens by chance. Yes, God has a perfect plan and He knows the next step.

Please pray for Eva, that she will clearly understand what it means to walk with the Lord. Pray for wisdom for us, as we continue to help her.

2008-07-16T10:56:00.000+02:00

Orientation time before Outreach

2008-07-14T20:33:00.002+02:00

On the first week of "Speak Out" Andras (one of our best student leader) and I was the Master of Ceremony

That was my small group on the first week. We were together American and Hungarian students.

2008-07-13T22:54:00.002+02:00

We have wonderful worship times in Speak Out

Virag with students on preparation week

Balazs with his new friend Kevin in front of Festetics Palace.

2008-07-13T22:23:00.008+02:00

We are at the Lake Balaton in Speak Out English Camp. It is so great! We are so busy, but I thought pictures can communicate a lot. So, enjoy it! If you have questions, please send us an email.

The Americans just arrived. (It was almost midnight :-)

The Hungarian students arrived

2008-06-22T00:06:00.002+02:00

My home town Komlo is in South Hungary. We will go there today to visit our families.

2008-06-21T23:38:00.001+02:00

Thank God I’m home again, together with my family. I missed them so much.
The best news, is that Virag’s health is better than it was in the last two years at any time. She has no back pain or muscle weakness at all. We don’t understand what happened because she doesn’t take any medication or anything, but we know that a lot of people were praying for her health. Our God is listening and answering our prayer. Thank you very much if you were praying for her!
Tomorrow we will visit our parents for a short time and after that we will continue to prepare for Speak Out, our summer project. We can’t wait until it begins!

2008-06-03T20:02:00.003+02:00

The summer is here

Right now I’m in Manteca, California to meet our ministry partners and give an opportunity to new people and churches to be involved in the wonderful things that God is doing in Hungary. Manteca is nice sunny and a little windy. There are so many great people here and I’m so encouraged by them when I share about God’s work in Hungary. The only hard part that Virag and the boys are back in Budapest. I miss them so much. Two more weeks and I’ll see them again.
After we won’t have to much time at home, because our summer English Camp, Speak Out starts. Check our web site about this. http://speakout.hu/staff/Speak_Out.html Next year maybe you could be part of it. If you have any question, please let us know.
Patrik, our older son will be part of the camp as a student staff. He is excited about this and he knows this will be a new challenge to him.
We hope about 300 Hungarian students will come to the camp. Please pray for them. Most of them are not Christians and we would like to share our faith with them.

2008-05-23T01:35:00.002+02:00

From Virag:

Zsuzsi (my disciple) met a high school girl at her church. The girl is a new believer. It is turned out that she is alone, and would like to grow in faith. Zsuzsi took a faith step and decided to disciple her.
We are going through the discipleship materials together, so Zsuzsi will be ready to start.
She is very excited. First time in her life, she will help somebody to grow in faith.
It is amazing to see her and how much she has grown spiritually through the year.
When I met her last year at Speak Out( English camp), she already was a believer, but didn’t know how to share the Good News with others. She learned it at the camp and we went out together throughout the year to Campuses to share the Gospel with students.
And now she is ready to lead others, in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ.
It is a privilege for me to see how God worked in Zsuzsi’s life.
She will participate Speak Out this year as well and I can’t wait to see how God will use her there in many lives.

2008-04-23T13:29:00.004+02:00

This week we'll have Mission Sunday in our Church (Kelenföldi Evangéliumi Gyülekezet). We would like to put mission in the focus. I will preach about "Our role in the Great Comission".

Next Monday on our weekly Student meeting I will give a message about "Heroes". The audience will be mixed (christians and non christians) just like every week. I'm still working on these two speaches. Please pray for me! I would like to be a useful tool in God's hand.

2008-04-21T15:24:00.002+02:00

Last week I had a great conversation with Gabor and Gergo (two of my students from Technical University) about the resurection of Jesus Christ. They were suprized how much information we have about this topic from the Bible. I gave them some homework, to read some of those verses, and think about it. We will meet next week to continue our Bible study series. Please pray for them!

2008-04-08T19:15:00.002+02:00

Random Evangelization
I still love the afternoons when I talk to students randomly on college Campus’. I always meet open students who are ready to have conversation about God. For example I met Csaba and his friend Csongor. Both of them have Catholic background, and they were very positive when I shared the Gospel with them. After they had to run to their class so we couldn’t finish our conversation. I just gave them my email address, and I hope that we can meet again. Please pray for them!

2008-04-08T18:03:00.007+02:00

Student retreat
We just arrived back from Csilleberc (small holiday place close to Budapest) where we had a great weekend with fifty college and high school students. The subject of the weekend was: “Heart issues”. Our speaker was Monty Taylor who is a pastor and lives in Hungary for more than 20 years. As you can see we had lot of FUN too.

Virag lead a seminar for our disciples: “How to share the good news with Jehovah witnesses”.
Here is a comment from Gabor who came for the first time to our retreat:
“I really enjoyed this weekend. It helped me a lot to get closer to God and to grow in my faith. Not only the lectures and seminars were great but also was good to spend time with other believers. I understood lot of new spiritual things during these days. Thank you!”

Patrik in Vienna
Patrik could not come to Csilleberc with us because he went to Austria, for two days, with his class. They went to practice their German language skills and they had lot of fun, but Vienna is a pretty popular tourist city so whenever they tried to speak German people saw they had an accent and they would just speak English to them. Next time maybe they should go to a small German village:-)

2008-02-26T17:40:00.006+01:00

Report from Virag's ministry:

„I have the desire to serve God in full time. I am not sure where, but I am ready .”said Zsuzsa.

She is one of the girls in my Bible study group. Zsuzsa has already finished college and is working at the CCC Eastern-European Headquarter as a secretary.
Last summer Speak Out camp was crucial in her life. As she tasted the joy of sharing the Good News, God began to work in her life. During this school year she slowly discovered that God is calling her to full time ministry. Since we finished our Bible study curriculum, we will study what it means to serve God and how can we know His will for our lives.

What a blessing to see her enthusiasm to sharing the Gospel!
Please pray for her that she will clearly see God’s will regarding to her calling!

2008-02-06T17:22:00.000+01:00

The Eastern-European Campus Crusade for Christ Conference was held in the middle of Hungary at Lake Balaton (it is held every third year). There were more than a thousand staff, from 18 different countries including our ex-team from Albania. We really enjoyed the time we spent with brothers and sisters in Christ!

We had lunch together with Kaon and his wife Daniela on the conference. When I met Kaon for the first time, he was a teenager from a small Albanian village. I had the privilege to share the Gospel with him after a Jesus film show in his village, called “Illiras”. Kaon was so open, and he really wanted to know more about God. Because not only he, but other young people were interested too, we went back to Illiras for three more days to do follow up. We gave some Bibles to them, but I knew that we can’t come back very often because this village was pretty far from Tirana. But God’s plan was perfect. We figured out that the next small town has a new Evangelical Church, with some YWAM missionaries. I went to talk to them and asked them to help these young people in their spiritual journey. And they did a great job. Me and my team also visited them a few times. Kaon was growing spiritually so fast! Afterwards he started university in Tirana and he became student leader in our movement. He has a degree in journalism now.
It is amazing to see how God is working in his life. Today he is married with Daniela and they are on staff in Tirana.

During this lunch together, he told me that he and Daniela did a Jesus film project last summer again in his home village, because lot of children grown up in the last few years who don’t know about Christ. On the day after the film show a girl went to him and gave him a page with her thoughts about the film. She asked Kaon to read it out loud, because she was to shy to talk upfront. When Kaon read it he realized that it was the clear Gospel on that paper. He asked Ela (her name). Did you understand this only from the last night film show? No, - answered Ela – few years ago I got a Bible after a Jesus film show and I started to read it.

Wow! God really can use every small seeds, and many times we don’t know what happens after the sowing. But sometimes God gives us that privilege to see the fruit.Praise the Lord!

2008-01-08T19:03:00.000+01:00

Prayer needs

January is a little more quiet in our movement, because students have their exams in this time. Please pray for our student leaders, who are studying hard (most of them:-) in University.

Please pray for our Bible school. Virag will take a course in the Pentateuch. She is anxcious to start and this will be a great spiritual refreshment!

We are also planning the next semester. One of my responsibilities is to lead the weekly student meeting team. Please pray for our work, because it is not easy to create a program what is enough interesting for all kind of students and well balanced with spiritual and non spiritual elements!

The student weekly meeting team

2008-01-08T17:38:00.000+01:00

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

When we lived in Albania one thing that we missed many times was the snow. This winter is compensating us for those years. And the timing was perfect. When we arrived to my hometown on Christmas day to south Hungary, it started snowing and it didn't stop for two days. We had a great time with our family and of course we spent lot of time outside.

Outskirt of Komlo in white

Patrik, Grandma and Balazs

Csaba's family

Sledding is soooooooooo fun!!!

2008-01-08T17:19:00.000+01:00

On Friday night the 14th of December we had a student gathering for all of our high school and college students. We had about 150 students come and we played games, like a snowball throwing contest. Than we had a jazz guitar player join us and play music for the students, which was followed by three stories that shared the Good News with these students. We had really fun time!