Friday, July 11

I could hardly wait to get to Friday to tell you all about the morning. I don't know if you are aware of this, but Patty and I spent a couple of weeks getting lesson plans ready to match the Bible lessons the children would get in Hungarian. Then Tina and I made and printed all the visuals and game pieces needed to for all the English lessons. Today the lesson was "I am the Way" so we had planned to work on transportation vocabulary. While I was having my quiet time that morning, God gave me a different plan. Learning to listen to Him speak the FIRST time if very difficult for me so I almost ignored that quiet voice I was hearing.

So instead of transportation, my class worked on listening to and giving directions instead: turn left, turn right, turn around, go straight, and stop-all very important words. So we moved our lesson outside to the shade of the trees and the freshly mowed park surrounding the church. We looked like a little army as we took turns giving directions and having the rest of the class follow our directions. The next step was to play a game with 2 teams. One member was blindfolded and the others had to give directions in order to guide them through an obstacle of 4 chairs. The blindfolded team member had to touch all 4 chairs and then sit in the final 5th chair before the other team made it there. It was very difficult, but the children loved it and were completely engaged.

After every child had a turn at being blindfolded we brought our chairs to a circle and had our game debriefing. We went over our memory verse: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me." Sin keeps us from reaching God. What is sin? Each child started telling me different sins. We named each of the 8 chairs: stealing, talking back, telling lies, etc. Sin stops us from reaching God, but Jesus comes along beside us, takes us by the hand and takes us straight to God. We don't have to worry about the obstacles. He is our shepherd and our guide. He is the only way to heaven.

When the lesson was over 5 of the 7 students accepted Christ! And yet to me it seemed so easy that I began wondering if they truly understood what they had just done. But that is the beauty of salvation, isn't it? The work has already be done, the payment already made. All we have to do is accept it. "So easy that even a child can do it" came to my mind. As we were sharing over lunch, we found the same thing happened in 2 other classes: The advanced class and advanced beginner. These were children who came to camp last summer. So the seeds had been planted last summer, cultivated over the year, and harvested this summer. It was amazing to be a part of this!

So out of 45 children, 15 accepted Christ this year. That is 1/3 of the students. Now we need to pray for Barb and the other church leaders that they will be able to properly disciple these children and reach out to their families, most of whom do not attend the church. They have a list of the children who made decisions. I did not write down the complete list, but please pray for these children periodically...maybe when you get HUNGRY you can remember to pray for the children in HUNGARY who accepted Christ this summer as well as those who had seeds planted: Csongor, Kristian, Gergo, Attila, and Sandra. Also pray for Noemi. She was my student last year and accepted Christ this year. She and her mother, Csilla, are unchurched but came to camp last year and this year as well as all the evening events. They are searching.

That evening we were actually "off" until a concert by the Continental Singers, so we had some time to start packing up materials and go to visit Ester’s mom for some tea.

Eszter was my translator last year. She is in Spain this summer at a language school. Anyway, just about a month before camp last summer, she was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo intensive chemo. At Christmas time this year, her mom was clean, but after the holidays they found it again and she has had to undergo chemo again. She is not a believer and neither is her husband. Barb goes over and spends time with Eszter and her mom, sharing Christ while they bake or practice English and Hungarian with each other. I've been praying for Ester’s mom so long that I feel like I know her personally. As we were walking to Barb's one afternoon, she was outside sweeping and invited us over for tea so we headed for her house Friday afternoon. Eszter’s aunt and uncle were also visiting at the same time so we all sat around a huge table and talked for a while. We had all worn our IM t-shirts since it was the last day of camp so they asked us about our shirts and we were able to talk about camp with them. I was also able to share that we have been praying for her for 2 years now. I hope everything we said and did were witnesses to them. Keep praying for this family as well.

We had to leave after about an hour since the Continental Singers were performing at the church. I thought they would be American Young Adults like the ones I had seen in the states when I was in college. But these were Hungarian children ranging in age from about 8 years old to 18 years old. They were a fantastic little group. During the summer they travel across their continent, mostly Hungary. The children help set up and tear down the stage, including microphones, back drop, special light, dry ice machine, sound boards, etc. Then they stay with people in the church over night before moving on to their next concert location in their tour bus. What a blessing they were. Even though I didn't understand most of the words, I recognized the message: the Love of Christ and caring for each other. A man in the group gave a very clear salvation message at the end (Imre came and translated for me). It's funny how similar his message was to the one Brett gave during sports night the evening before.

Afterwards, we had to say our good-byes to many people. Janos, the blind musician, paid us a very great compliment. He said that groups have come from America many times over the past 10 years to provide various camps. They provide the camp during the day but then they want to go sight-seeing and don't spend any time with the people from the church or helping with other ministries...except for us. We are his favorite group. They are already looking forward to having us next summer. Éndre, the church leader, wants us to consider staying longer than a week. There are so many different ways we can help this only Evangelical church in Kaposvar.

We need to begin praying now how God can use us next summer: a week of sports camp for the teens; a week of English camp; the adults and teens want English lessons as well; the ladies want us to come again for more meetings; a drama team could easily come and minister; the men could use a leadership meeting of some sort. The church is now going into a 3rd year with no pastor after a pretty serious split. They are rebuilding within the church as well as within the community. If the church goes under, the only churches in the area are Catholic. Kaposvar would be lost.

I guess you can see my heart for these people. Keep our church family at Békevar Church (meaning Peace) in Kaposvar in your prayers. You can see they are on their way up a great mountain. Pray that their light will grow stronger as they continue to shine in their community.

The rest of the story is about touring Budapest and traveling home. But those things are not important compared to everything else that happened this week, so I'm signing off now in my journal of Kaposvar. Hope it blesses you the way the whole experienced touched me.