Trip to Albania

I will travel to Tirane, Albania on Sunday for a week. Of course, I do an audit for Albanian ministry. This country is a small one in Southern Europe with 3 million people. Albania has an muslim background, but during the comunism they were an atheist country. Nowadays the Christianity is growing. The CCC ministry celebrated their 20th anniversary last weekend. It will be very interesting to know better them and help in theri finances.

My ministry in my church

I think I do not often write about my church. However, I spend most of my evenings in the church. 

Home groups

In the last two year I' m one of two mentors for home group leaders. They can come to ask advises with group problem. Home group leaders meet in every months to share their experiences, pray for each other and they get short training that me and an other mentor plan for a year. So, I visit regularly five home groups. All of the groups are different in their age, family status. I really enjoy to know more the member of home groups and help for the leaders. 

Alpha course

The Alpha course covers the basics of Christianity. It answers questions like: Who is Jesus?, and Why did he die? The Alpha course usually lasts 10 weeks, with a day or weekend retreat in the middle. Each week, guests gather for about two and a half hours. They share an informal meal, sing a few songs, listen to a talk on how Christianity approaches the question at hand, then gather into small groups for discussion. The talks each week act as a springboard for small group discussions. We started the course eight years ago. There are three or four small groups in each course. My responsibility is leading a small group and give one or two talks. My favorite topic is "Why and how should I tell others?". I talk about evangelization :) It is good to see how God open the participents' heart and mind and how they find their way to Jesus. 

My little niece, Réka

We had a nice family celebration when Réka had a baptism. She is five month old, Pistike is 2,5 years old. Réka was so cute and she didn't cried, just when the pastor watered her :) The pastor shared the gospel. I am happy my family listend the Good News. Please pray for them to know Jesus, maybe through Réka and Pistike.

Pray for Speak Out!!!

Although SpeakOut camp is 6 weeks away, it's already obvious that we are looking at the largest camp ever.

• 159 Christian volunteers (46 of them are American volunteers) signed up and went through the qualification procedure to serve at the camp. They dedicate a whole month and raise support to be able to serve at SpeakOut.
• Already close to 300 non-Christian campers signed up to come to the camp when we are 4 weeks away from the registration deadline.
• We will be sending teams from the camp to Albania, to Romania, to Slovakia and to Siofok (another city in Hungary).

Why is it so significant?

These days the most valuable assest people have is TIME! Life is so busy, people are distracted with the things compete for their time and they are less and less willing to dedicate even short hours to ministry in churches or missions. It is outstanding that 159 Christians volunteer dedicate a WHOLE MONTH to serve with us and they are willing to raise money to cover all their costs! Why so many are choosing to serve with us at SpeakOut when in Hungary this project requires the greatest commitment both in time and in finances? Why is it that year-to-year more and more Christians (students and adults) are willing to make that commitment? It is an evidence of God's abundant grace choosing the nobodies and the insignificant. We are humbled and scared by this responsibility!

Pray that every volunteer would be able to raise their support! Pray for health for volunteers and the campers. Pray for the thousands of personal gospel conversations we will have.

"I'm not ashamed" -story

In Romans 1:16 Paul says that he is not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation. We've recorded (and continue recording) short (max 2 minutes-long) stories of people who had been saved through YTL because there was someone (a staff or student) who boldly initiated toward them and clearly explained the gospel to them. These stories represents people who were coming from non-Christian background and without a bold, initiative Messenger they wouldn't get saved. We are launching this story-telling series (titled "I'm not ashamed") to encourage Christians not to be ashamed of the gospel because it is the power to save and change people's lives.