June 2018

June Update

Viki’s Baptism in May


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Above: Viki and her mother Hajni.

In May, we had the joy of baptizing Viki who made a decision in last year’s Summer Bible Camp. Praise God for his work in the youth and helping them to see at a young age their need for Jesus to save them and lead them by His truth.

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Here is an excerpt from Viki’s testimony: “I come from a family with my mom being a Christian and my dad not yet (but I hope he will be). Last year I went to the Summer Bible Camp for the first time. I had already come to church with my mom before and had heard about Jesus. In my school no one talked about these things. In Jászfényszaru at camp, there was a day when people were sharing their personal testimonies about coming to know Jesus. Peti spoke about what it means to put your faith in Jesus and be saved. This led to me making a decision the next day at camp. To me Jesus is better than a friend. He is my Savior. He is like a Father to me. He has accepted me and I love Him.” — Viki

Children’s Play House Ministry


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In both Petofibanya and now in Jásfenyszaru, one of our means of outreach toward families in the community is Children’s Play House. We invite kids for a time of games, puppet shows, teaching from God’s word, singing and crafts. We are thankful for our kids (and Miki and Erika’s kids) helping out with singing and now this year helping with puppet shows!

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Above: Ellie and Kira now using their skills as puppeteers. They were very diligent to meet throughout the previous week and practice together for today’s show.

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This ministry helps us to keep in touch with families that we meet through other venues like Miki teaching in Jaszfenyszaru’s public school or kids we’ve gotten to know through our Summer Bible Camp in Jaszfenyszaru. It’s also a great way to meet new families and help them hear about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Strengthening fellowship


As our ministry team continued to meet and pray together, it became clear to us that our church had need of growth in the area of living a deeper one-another life as believers called into the body of Christ. We recognized that God had given us many opportunities and many giftings that we poured into outreach, and even initial discipleship. But there was a lack of depth in relationships. There was a lack of direction in helping new believers truly get to know one another. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34)

To begin developing this important aspect of being disciples of Jesus, the leadership team has begun a series of teaching on Christian fellowship. We have also put more emphasis on small groups and held a church family fellowship day in April (see photos below).

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Above: Aranyka and Erzsi helping prepare food for Church Family Fellowship Day.

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Above: American teammate Tom and Hungarian teammate Tom.

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Above: How did our daughter Elianna get so tall?

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Above: Béla is one of the oldest members in our church. He laughs at the nickname I’ve given him, “Superman”, because of his strength in old age.

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Above: Teamates Heidi and Roger’s daughter Emily and our daughter Ziva catching lizards in the wild.

Our Church Family Fellowship Day is one in many steps that we seek to take to strengthen our relationships within the body. Please pray that God would give us success in deepening our love for one another and stronger relationships that reveal the unity He is forming in us.

Thursday night baseball


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Every Thursday, we meet at the field that was constructed with the help of a short-term summer team last year for baseball practice. Although the number of participants has dropped significantly as many of our older kids have gotten ‘too old’ to play, we’re thankful for new younger kids joining us.

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Above: Jatszi was one of the first new kids to come. Soon after he spread the word, new friends would come each week. It is our hope that many of these kids will join us in our upcoming Summer Bible Camp and also our Baseball Camp.

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Children’s Day Celebration in Jászfenyszaru


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Since we have a good relationship with the local government of Jaszfenyszaru, we are invited each year to participate in the town’s Children’s Day Celebration. This is another way for our church to mingle with the community and express the love of Christ.

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Above: While we offer free face-painting, animal balloons and a crate climbing challenge, we are able to freely distribute invitations to our Summer Bible Camp in Jaszfenyszaru. As we were passing the invites out, I happened to hear one of my former English students from town reply to a friend asking, “What is this?” She went on to say, “Oh, it’s great. It’s a Bible camp for kids. We went last year.” It was so great to see other’s spreading the word for us and a blessing to see God giving us favor in this town where we are church planting.

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Summer Bible Camp Just 21 days away!


Planning and preparations for this year’s Summer Bible Camp continue to go well, however we are feeling more urgency as camp is just three weeks away. Unlike many of the well developed prepackaged VBS camps in the US, we develop all our material from scratch. Although this is much harder, it actually binds us together and challenges us to use our giftings in unique ways each year. God has used it to truly build us up as we seek to build up the children through this ministry.

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Above: Church members getting together every Tuesday to help prepare everything needed for this year’s Summer Bible Camp.

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Just a few years ago, we expanded our Summer Bible Camp from just being in Petofibanya to also being in Jaszfenyszaru. Many volunteers from church take vacation to serve and be part of both of these camps. We are blessed to have such an open door in the community. We already have over 70 kids registered for our Petofibanya camp that happens in three weeks and 23 registered for our Jaszfenyszaru camp which will be at the end of July. The majority of these kids registered come from unchurched homes and many will be hearing about the wonders of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time in their lives! We would appreciate your prayers for these important summer outreaches.

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Above: Quick portrait on our day at the Zoo (Ben is missing because he is “too old” for the zoo.)

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Thank you all for partnering with us. We are so blessed to have your faithful prayers, encouragement and financial support that has allowed us to minister in Hungary since 2000! “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” — 2 Peter 1:2
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