Bringing to the Hungarian Harvest Project 2008

Last Saturday our American volunteers arrived to help reaching campus and high school students. On Sunday they visited a church and they had a lunch with our staff members. I invited three of them into my flat. It was a really good time to know each other. At the evening we went to our office and our ministry leaders introduced our ministries and they got a short cultural training.
Now when I am writing these words they are learning about how they can share the gospel in the universities.

Survival Kits 2008

Thousands of freshmen arrive to the colleges of Budapest this week and next week. The move into their dorm rooms, or into their rented apartments.

We are giving out 5500 Freshmen Survival Kits in September in ten different universities and colleges.

Some days ago we were at the Technical University. Students flooded the buildings, and we were really busy giving out almost 2000 kits in less than three hours. Students were very willing to give their opinions for a prize of an iPod. It was a very good experience for our team as well as all our student volunteers who were there. Again we saw about 4 SpeakOut campers from this summer among the freshmen. More relationships, praise God! :) Please keep praying for us and all the students who are interested in Jesus, that we would be able to make one-on-one contact with all of them in September and October. Probably about 1500-2000 students this year.

This is really a fun time for our team and students! And a great time to reach this new group of freshmen while they are still fresh.

Prayer requests

1./ September 20-28 we’ll have 19 volunteers coming from the States helping our reach campus and high school students. Pray for great success and effectiveness during that time.

2./ Our legal reorganization is still in process. The law is so complicated that the tax-office decided to ask the governments input clarifying some of the questions we have regarding handling donations tax-free. Pray with us that the government would give us the tax-free status as a religious order.

3./ August 29 - September 5. 1st round of the Survival Kits distribution. Pray for the students that they want to get the Survival Kits and after it they want to talk about Christ.

Annual staff conference August 14-19,2008

Our worship and prayer time

Dr. and Mrs. Lawrence

All staffs in CCC in Hungary

I am the member of Strategic Recourse Team. We work together day by day.

I celebrate my 10th year anniversary as a staff in CCC.

Last week we had our annual staff conference. Each year we spend 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. This was truly one of our best staff conferences according to the feedback of the staff. 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. We’ve recorded his teachings and you can download them from our director website. It’s worth it!!! (http://www.advancingthekingdom.hu )

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 with these missionaries. These staff gave their life for the call of evangelism and discipleship and all of them made significant sacrifices to stay in the ministry. God blessed us with a great team of people.

There are three teams in the Hungarian ministry right now. Operations, Campus and High School. So the three leaders’ wives of these ministries were to come up with programs for the conference. We ALWAYS do serious things, so this we did something fun. Here we were making jewelry. It was such a fun time and the ladies liked it so much.

Speak Out summary

We had a great 4 weeks long camp with American tutors, Hungarian volunteers and Hungarian non-Christian students. The Americans served toward non-Christian campers, the Hungarian Christian volunteers did beach and street evangelism. We had 45 Americans and 50 Hungarians in the project and 291 campers in three weeks.

In the camp were many activities like American Culture Night, Sports Day, Staff hunt. We had a gospel night where we shared the gospel in Hungarian. In conversations, morning classes and personal group time the American students could share the gospel and their own testimony. The Hungarian students did surveys on the streets of Keszthely and at the beach. Through the last 3 question of the survey we had many conversations, and we could share our faith easily. I am very glad for this project.

The project in numbers:

We approached 1750 people, 926 of them heard the whole gospel and were challenged for decision. 49 of them received Christ.

Two great stories that happened with our staff members (they share them with their own words):

1. It is happened with Virag, a high school ministry staff .

“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.”

2. It is happened with Edina, our National Director’s wife.

“Every Tuesday night the Hungarian and American Christian students (who are serving at the camp) gather for worship. This is totally voluntary for anyone who wants to come. The non-Christian students hear the music and the singing and sometimes they look into the room or come in and listen to worship. Tonight a girl was sitting next to Edina at this worship night. They started to talk and it turned out that she is a campus student who came to Speak Out the first time and she really didn't know why she came until today, because this morning she prayed to receive Christ. She is a brand new Christian and at night she came to the worship time to sing praise to God! An 8 hours old Christian girl came to her very first worship time in her life!!! She's never been at such event before. What a great blessing that one her first experience as a Christian is worshiping God together with students from different cultures (America, Hungary, Moldova, Germany). Her name is Hajni, please pray for her spiritual growth as one of our staff starts following her up.”

Speak Out 2008 video

Speak Out finished. Please watch this video about the camp.

Speak Out 2008

Our summer English Camp, Speak Out starts this week. We are looking forward working together with more than 40 Americans and over 40 Hungarian students to evangelize hundreds of Hungarian students. 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. Check our web site about this: http://www.speakout.hu/staff/Speak_Out.html Next year maybe you could be part of it. If you have any question, please let us know.