Sent Saturday, April 30, 2011
3:16 PM
Dear family, friends and prayer
partners,
Thank you all for your prayer support over the past months.
It is exciting to see how God keeps opening
doors for His Word to go out. We believe that He
works through the prayers of His children and that prayer is the
most vital part of our efforts.
May 2011
marks the ninth annual 31
Days of Prayer for Eastern Hungary. During May we encourage
you to join us in praying daily for the people and ministries
here. The two-sided attached calendar can be printed, copied
or forwarded to anyone who would like to join us in prayer. (Click
here to view the prayer
calendar.)
Please be praying for our team as we undergo a time of great
transition. Aubree and Seth are finishing up their time of
service with us and returning to Texas on
May 5. The Hathcock family is moving to Hungary
in June. They will spend a year in language study in
Budapest before moving to Debrecen the summer of 2012.
Stacia finishes her 2-year assignment and returns to the US on
August 24.
Aubree and Seth have been a great blessing to us personally and to
the work. Their musical talent has regularly added so much
to our coffeehouse ministry, the Tiszafüred church
plant and in our Sunday
morning small group. They also held two outreach
concerts in April that helped us to make new friends in Nádudvar
and Tiszafüred. Please pray for a smooth transition for
them from Hungarian life to American university life.
Stacia has also been a huge asset to our team. She
faithfully shows love and compassion for the students she serves
and has a deep desire to see them grow in their faith. She
regularly meets with young ladies to disciple them and help guide
them through life’s decisions. Pray for guidance for her
as she returns to the US and seeks the Lord’s will in the next
steps she should take.
The church plant in Tiszafüred is growing. A recent move to
a new location has opened the door for us to share with many who
are hurting and seeking to fill a void in their lives. Gary
and Csaba (the national pastor) take turns teaching. Carolyn
leads the singing while Seth and Aubree play guitars. Pray
that the message that has gone out in both song and word will take
root and grow in the hearts of the hearers. Also pray that
God will provide us with a musician after Seth and Aubree leave.
Our team is helping the Nádudvar community center with English
Club through the name of our nonprofit organization here in
Hungary as part of its educational work. Since English Club
is a city program we have to be very careful about what we say and
do because the city must remain religiously neutral.
However, we believe that reaching out with a helping hand can
speak louder
than words. Pray that we will be able to continue to
live out a good witness even when words have to be very limited.
The coffeehouse ministry continues to be a major part of our team
efforts. Over the course of the school year the “regular
crowd” has changed, but every
Thursday evening about 20 young people come for a night of
fun and friendship. Each week there is a different type of
entertainment to keep things fresh and lively but no matter what
the entertainment for the evening is, people from around the world
come together to get to know each other. Pray that God will
continue to use this outreach to introduce us to new people and to
share His love with them.
Our Sunday morning house
church has not grown this year as we had hoped. We
are continuing with this outreach partly because it is the only
methodology that is 100% reproducible in any country or culture
anywhere in the world. Many of the students attending the
university here will return to places without churches. It
is our prayer that they will return equipped to start their own.
Also today’s younger generation is not looking for lectures, but
they want to sit and discuss. They want to question and then
dig in to find answers. Nothing is better for that than small
group Bible study, and no place more relaxed than a living
room. Many prefer the term “simple church” because
it is all about getting back to the basics of intimately
singing, praying and seeking God through His word together.
It brings back the “house to house” element of Christianity
that is so easily lost in today’s hustle and bustle world of
“going to church.” Please pray that we will be able to find a
new location for the group to meet (Seth’s apartment will not be
available after he leaves), that more people will begin coming,
and that we will soon be able to mentor new leaders in the group.
Again we thank you all for your prayers, and please pass the
prayer calendar to any who are willing to pray with us in May.
In His Love,
Gary
for the Eastern Hungary Team
Click
here to view the 31 Days of Prayer for Eastern Hungary Prayer
Calendar.
www.hope4ehu.com
http://gcmiller2hu.xanga.com
