This weekend student retreat was in the Silver Beach Hotel in Siófok. The weather was beautiful, the atmosphere was cheerful and the teachings were deep and instructive!
We organized this weekend to Christian young people who want to serve God and want to develop in their faith, their knowledge in the Bible and their personal relationship with God. During the weekend we heard several presentations in these subjects.
The drama team is presented some drama about Jesus and how God wants to set us free from the burden of our sins. After the drama a student came up to the stage. First, the words he told the drama lessons, on the other hand, shared their testimony with them.
That is very important for the students saw a young student as them, and talked about his faith and they can see Jesus in his life, and Christianity is not a boring, old thing, but a really relationship with God, and follow him to the coolest thing!
On October 7, Wednesday was a the big evangelization event in the campus ministry, which was very well done. The room of the usual weekly meeting was full. The staff had not been able to sit down because there were no free chairs. We could not close the door, because there were students outside! God’s glory that brought so many people and open their heart! The presentation spoke of the emotional intelligence! Many of the really important things we have heard. But let me show you it might be a more important issue, whatever it was that night. 
„God can forgive! Jesus Christ died for our sins. Because of Christ, God is not angry anymore for us if we confess our sins; He is faithful and just forgives ...”
Thankfully we had opportunity to share the gospel with these students. So good that has had both heard God’s forgiveness through Jesus! Glory to him! – Now we can sit back in our chairs? No! Each student who was here completed a feedback card.
The feedback in general can be said to be very satisfied with the performances and have been through a lot. If a student open to talk about a personal relationship with God, the staff members call them back and invite them to a personal meeting.
We had an extremely effective week with the help of 32 American volunteers who came for our mission trip (called Bringing in the Hungarian Harvest Project, BHHP). Over 700 students showed up at the 7 dorm outreaches and at the two special outreaches we had for campus and high schools students. Also we went to about 100 classrooms to speak to students and invite them to after school activities. I can't share all the great stories, but the following four short stories are summarizing well what we see happening in YTL.
Story # 1: We've closed the BHHP mission trip with our annual YTL educator's symposium. 160 educators from all over Hungary came to spend the whole weekend with us to learn how to use our program and curriculum. (From their written feedback we know that they committed themselves to teach YTL to over 12,000 students this year). As always it's is our practice at these symposiums we've shared the gospel with the participating educators through Dave Robinson's and Gabor Gresz’s testimony and ask them to consider giving their life to Jesus. Four educators indicated a decision. After they shared their testimonies, the gospel and asked them to consider turning their lives to Jesus, one educator, named Beata came up to them. She shared that after hearing how God changed Gabor’a heart and made he able to forgive to his abusive father, she immediately realized that she lived her life in a prison. In the prison of not forgiving her mother. She has spent her whole life to prove herself to her mom. She preformed really well, but by now she got to a point where there is a lot of hate and bitterness in her and she can't forgive her mother. She never considered the existence of God, never believed in God. But now she felt so compelled by the pain in her heart and the freeing love of Jesus that she opened her heart "just a little" - as she said - to Jesus. She said that during the whole symposium she felt that everything was for her. In tears she said her first prayer in her life with very little faith, but with an honest and broken heart! And we all know that God take those prayers very seriously!
Story #2: Saturday noon an educator came up to Gabor before lunch. She wanted to introduce herself. As she said her name he immediately recognized the name - one of the newly converted student's mother. She told her story why she came to the symposium. Her daughter - Fanni - was a teenager who got into a lot of trouble. The parents couldn't handle her, they had a tons of conflicts at home. The parents even had been called in by her school many times because she got into big problems there. They were miserable as they saw how they are loosing their daughter. They've sent her to our "SpeakOut" summer English camp a year ago. And Fanni's live has been changed dramatically. Her mom said this to me: "I've never imagined that in one week this could happen with MY daughter!!! Fanni came back a totally different person. So now I came to this educator's symposium to find out what is this YTL thing that saved my daughter and our family!" Fanni's life changed because Christ changed her life. And now her mom understands this. Since then she is turning her school up-side-down in a good term. She is sharing Christ with everybody - students and teachers, and bringing them to everything we organize. Fanni is a very outgoing, leader type of person - a really fireball! Before knowing Christ she used all her energy to make her family's life hell, now she is using all of that to get others into Heaven! The teachers are amazed how she has changed. They really like the "end product", but they don't understand the "process".
Story #3: One educator at the symposium shared with us that 6 years ago she came to a YTL symposium and prayed to receive Christ. Since then not just her life has changed, but she felt called to help other educators and students to find Jesus. She led one of her colleague to Christ and brought her to this symposium. This past year God opened a huge door for them in their city, named Vac to teach YTL in all the high schools. As a result of their work we've started to travel there last year and even this week we are holding a two day assembly to all the high schools there. Thousands of students are hearing the gospel this week because one educator 6 years ago came to the symposium and her life was changed!
Story #4: God used this week to change the life of the Americans who came to BHHP. Many of them expressed what a faith step this was for them to share their faith and how this impacts their everyday walk with God as they go back. But there was one American couple out of the 32 participants in the group who - during this week - got convinced that the Lord is calling them back to Hungary to full time ministry. Laborers are the most needed resource in the mission field!
Sometimes we just wonder what is going on! How many lives are changed and impacted. And we just only see the surface!
We had so many programs for the campers, morning class, SpeakOut groups, sport afternoon, staff hunt, American culture night, Hungarian evening, etc. But we wanted to put this camp together mainly because we wanted to share the gospel with them. Each camper had different opportunity to hear the gospel in different ways throughout the week. While the Americans spent time with the Hungarian campers in the afternoons we Hungarian staffs and students went to the beach and shared the gospel with students there.
There are only two types of people in the world: those who like statistics and those who don’t. If you belong to the second category, this post is probably not for you…
However, if you like statistics, here’s what we gathered during this last schoolyear:
Number of students personally approached by staff with the gospel: 4572 (only one-on-one, personal conversations)
Approached by staff by week: 10.34 (as stated above, this is only one-on-one approaches, and also, if I took my disciple with me and he shared the gospel, that does not count here.)
Evangelistic discussions: 2802 (it means that we can have a spiritual conversation with more than half of the students that we approach)
Student evangelistic descussions: 2952 (So our students shared the gospel with more people personally than we as staff did. This is a good sign in a movement, because it means that more and more is done by “the followers” and not the leaders.)
Decisions with staff: 48 (1.7% of the conversations) – This means that altough Hungarian students love to talk about spiritual things, it is extremely hard for them to make a decision to follow Christ.
Decisions with students: 78 (2.6% of the conversations) – This shows that our students – who live among other students – can be better testimonies to their non-Christian friends and classmates. Statistically speaking, 52% better…
Gospel shared at evangelistic events: 1924 (this many students heard the Good News at a talk or other event from us)
Decisions at event: 48 (2,5%) (it might show that events are more effective, but at the same time it is easier just to put an X on a response card than to commit your life when someone personally knows about your journey – but this is just my opinion:)
Entering follow-up: 136 (this many new believers started to meet with us to hear about the basics of walking with God like prayer, Bible study or going to church)
Received gospel literature: 6996 (this many students recieved the gospel in a written form from us)
Other evangelistic impact: 13492 (for example people reading the gospel on our website)
Total evangelistic impact of CCC Hungary this school-year: 45989
By the time you read this, SpeakOut has already started. We have a record number of campers, more than 350 students signed up for the three weeks! Keep praying for the campers:
· that they would get on well with their tutors, that they would have a great time together
· the relationships between campers and Hungarian staffs: good Speak Out Groups, where campers can get to know the Hungarians as well, and that these would lead to great conversations
· that good relationships would form that God can use in the future
· that we would see the opportunities to serve towards the campers, and we would be available to them
We continue preparations for BHHP and the FÉK Teacher Symposium in October. We expect about 30 participants from the U.S.A. during this evangelistic week. Please pray that all can raise the necessary funds for their trip to Hungary! Every year there are a growing number of Hungarian students whose lives are changed through this event.
The annual FÉK symposium at the first of October is likely to attract about 300 teachers, many of them non-believers. Teachers’ budgets are leaner than in any previous years. Our organization subsidizes the cost of this. We need lots of prayers there as well, that the financials work out well.
"Be not afraid. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen!" Mark 16:6
