With Lóránt

I just found this picture with my disciple Sanyi, and Lóránt, a Transylvanian Hungarian student who prayed with us to receive Christ this fall on our mission trip to Cluj, Transylvania. Lóránt has been weekly discipled by a fellow Hungarian "Crusader" living in Transylvania.

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas and a Blessed 2009 from Kalman and Julia "Julcsi" Kovács!

Photos from Transylvania

Származási hely: Erdély 2008

Trip to Transylvania - 2008

Last week we had the privilege to go to Cluj, Transylvania (in Romania) for about 3 days. Our plan was to visit Levi Albu, a Transylvanian Hungarian Crusade staff living and serving among the Hungarian university students in Cluj and to help him „jump-start” a YTL Ministry. Levi spent his last year in Hungary with our team to be prepared and to gain experience in serving among Hungarians. He has been in Cluj since June, 2008.

We left Budapest at 4:30 am Tuesday morning with a team of 9 (5 staff and 4 students) and got to Cluj at 2:30 pm. After arrival we immediately submerged into the SSK distribution on the philology campus. We then made plans for the following day and went on to the economics campus to invite Hungarians to come to our event the for Wednesday evening. At night we started calling back SSK students to set up meetings during the day.

Hungarian students in Transylvania are different from those in Hungary. There are about 1 Hungarian to every 30 Romanian student on average. They are either very proud of their Hungarian descent and thus shun those in Hungary because they think we are not Hungarian enough, or they are very shy and are reluctant to even admit to being a Hungarian. So for us standing at the entrance of the campuses and ask the students walking by whether they are Hungarian or not yielded some interesting, even slightly extreme reactions. It is a bit like walking up to people on the campuses of Budapest and asking them whether they are gypsy or not. Still, we had to find the Hungarians. It turned out there is hardly no events being done among the Hungarian students of Cluj in their language that is advertised openly on the campuses.

The next night we had the “4 basic personality types” event. We expected that hopefully 60-70 people will come. Well, 5 minutes before the start they still kept coming by the dozens! We had about 110 people pack the small room, many were standing, even in the hallway outside the door listening. Wow! Of all the 110 people we had over 105 highly positive responses. Students are hungry.

I have other wonderful stories to tell you, like one student’s story: Lóránt, who accepted Christ as me and my disciple shared the Gospel with him, but I have to go now. Please look for more soon... :)

K

Our first car!

Dear Friends! By the grace of God and your support, we have been able to buy our first car. We have been praying for this for a couple of years now. It is a Chevrolet Lacetti (Korean made), 3.5 years old and has little over 27000 miles in it. It is in very good condition. It literally looked like it was brand new when we bought it. This is a great blessing for our family and our ministry! Please pray that Kalman would get used to driving in the crazy Budapest traffic and that we could use this car for a long time. :)
K

Sándor Néző

Származási hely: SpeakOut 2008_2

Sanyi is in his second year in the ELTE University of Law. He is Kalman's disciple. This is his story:

“I didn’t come from a religious family background: only my grandparents practiced their faith, and we joined them on a couple of occasions a year, when we were visiting anyway. Certainly, my parents have a controversial attitude towards God: my mother believes in God, nowadays even attends church, but she doesn’t apply any Christian mentality in her life, not to mention personal relationship or whatever. My father, on the other hand, completely agrees with the Christian ethics and puts it in practice too, but he doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God. They divorced when I was 8, and I had a difficult childhood then. I often felt miserable and thought that my life was worthless. I didn’t accept the whole situation, neither myself; sometimes I even blamed God for this. I believed in his existence (I ”inherited” it from my grandparents), but my life just so didn’t affirm that he was any good or caring that I didn’t really have a relationship with him. That took some divine intervention.
This came in 2006, when my uncle, who lives in Florida, invited me to spend the summer out there with him. I participated in an English program, took a top vacation in Florida and had lots of fun with my uncle, who attends Calvary Chapel, Fort Lauderdale. I accompanied him once, and I was stunned by the style the preacher shared the gospel (they have an incredibly blessed pastor over there), and this new attitude towards religion: that Christianity is really not a bunch of rules to follow, God wants our best whatever way he’s leading us. I regularly visited then, and later on the message reached me too (especially when my English improved). The message, that there is hope, forgiveness and justification for life, an ”eternal reason” to happiness in God’s glory, and this hope is the sacrifice of the Son. I accepted Christ and asked him to come to my life, and He certainly did.
By the time these seven weeks of miraculous vacation passed, I was a different man. Whoever knew me before and after, took note and I couldn’t describe how much better this new life was, knowing and experiencing that God loves me. I understood that I am a precious part of His plan, and so is everybody else, I could finally accept myself and the world around me. Such positive change gave me great strength to live in light of the Father’s wisdom. I continued to follow Calvary Chapel’s teachings through the internet sometimes I read the Bible and I maintained a relationship with God. To maintain, however, was not enough. Once again it was time to grow, when I ”moved” to Budapest, so I let God continue with his plan with me through FÉK and I’m delighted to feel that He draws close to me as I draw close to Him.”

Lilla Pecsenka

We are going to start something. We will put up the testimonies of several of our students in the ministry.
She is the first one. Her name is Lilla (it means purple) and she is one of Julcsi's disciples... but I should let her tell her own story:

"I grew up in a Christian family but i didn’t know that living a Christian life can mean more than i had thought until I was 12. My mom took us to church every Sunday and i really enjoyed being among other kids in Sunday school. I learned Bible verses and i knew every story in the Bible i had to know. I thought that being a Chritian means being a good child, nice to everyone, going to church where i need to sit in silence, praying before going to sleep, knowing the stories of the Bible and knowing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. I had no problems with these and i even believed that Jesus died for me personally but that was all. It didn’t mean much more to me, it was just a part of my life. At that time i was attending a state school where my friends weren’t christians. I didn’t talk to them about my faith because i thought it wasn’t important that my family was christian.
The first time i felt that being a Christian is more than going to church was at a summer youth camp with my church, but i didn’t know what i feel exactly. After that summer i went to a christian high school where i met christian students. They were so different from my friends in the other school! They were much happier, they loved each other, they had goals, and they knew which way their life was going. These students had a prayer group every morning before school and i started to go there. I would have never imagined that there was anything like what i experienced there! When these people were praying, they were talking to God as if He was sitting among us! At once everything seemed to be so exciting. Can i get to know God personally? Can i talk to Him? Is He listening to me? And answering too? I had already known that Jesus died for me personally but i didn’t think that this meant something like that… I knew that this was i needed and all i will ever need. A personal relationship with the Creator of the whole world! So when i was about 13 years old i decided to give my whole life to God. I knew i would never regret this! After that there came no miracles, i still had problems like anyone else but i knew that my life was in the hands of God. I could share anything with Him and He showed me the way through His Word. There were times when He didn’t answer my prayers and i felt that He left me – and then i learned how to trust Him when i can’t see the way. During these six years I learned that there’s nothing more important than glorifying God and one way of it is to share my faith with others. I am involved in CCC student ministry: Youth at the Threshold of Life which is a good way of doing evangelism. I also have a disciple whom i try to help in growing in her faith."

Prayer requests - 06.10.2008

As you can see God is answering our (and your) prayers in many ways!

„And all things, whatsoever all of you shall ask in prayer, believing, all of you shall receive.” Matthew 21:22

The coming weeks are about following up with many student and the SSKs. Also beginnig one-on-one and group discipleship.

Requests:
- Many students are still sceptical about us calling them to meet one-on-one. We need wisdom in our phone conversations with them.
- The Spirit would convince the students of their sin. The "low point" of most meeting is the "Your are completely in sin" part. They need to see God for who He is, in order for them to see themselves correctly.
- Lasting relationships with students
- God would raise up student leaders, who would be willing and teachable to lead others.

BHHP 2008 Comments

These are some comments from the Americans attending BHHP 2008:

"Although I've been a believer for many years, I have not been very faithful in terms of sharing my faith with others. Sure, I tell people when asked, but I have not been very good at proactively sharing my testimony. So, for me, the BHHP week was one of the highlights of my journey with Christ and a catalyst to go out and proclaim the gospel."

"I just wanted to send a great big THANK YOU for helping to arrange another amazing year with BHHP!!!!! I know that none of it could have been possible without God, but God definitely used you to arrange and schedule everything and without that, the things we did would not have happened."

"God taught me more about Himself this trip and I have learned to be more focused and responsive to the Holy Spirit.As we observe you and your staff modeling this, it encourages and even corrects us - Your ministry is not to Hungarian students - it to many Americans also. Praise God for His love and care and that He doesn't want to leave us where we are but complete His work in us, using any means necessary."

"While my goal was to give, it is apparent that the Lord wanted me to receive as well. Your love for the Lord, your love for each other, your love for the lost sheep, all of these are inspiring to me. As I learn more about your country and what your people have struggled through, I am amazed. Just eighteen years out of communism and a hopeless environment. Now you are there spreading the Word of God…the only hope that any of us truly have whether we live in Europe, North America or anywhere in God's creation. After two or three days in Hungary, that I felt there could be a real revival in Budapest. You are planting the seeds throughout your city and we know that God works in mysterious ways."

BHHP 2008 Video

BHHP 2008

We've had some quite full weeks behind us. 2 weeks ago we had the BHHP Project, through it, 20 Americans came to serve with us among the students of Budapest. Julcsi and I both got sick in the first half of the week, but were able to attend most of the programs we organized throughout the week. We had:

1. Evangelistic events for students: We organized a "4 basic personality types" evening a little "refreshed" during our weekly meeting again this year. About 40 new students came. Kalman and an American called Kevin talked to a catholic student that afternoon on the Technical University campus and invited him to come. He seemed interested and showed up! After the evening he said: "I do not regret coming tonight." He also said he wanted to stay in contact with us, because he liked what we do.
On Tuesday we made a presentation at one of the dormitories of the Corvinus University of Economics about business intuition. It the room next to our the dorm had an alcoholic drinking contest. They were quite loud and we prayed that God would use even this to glorify Himself. He did, as we noticed that several people started coming over to our meeting from the contest. I had a conversation with a Jewish student studying politics. He had his convictions but we had a good conversation about the divinity of Christ and the authenticity of Scripture. Please pray that God would show Himself to this student named Gergo.
On Wednesday evening we had a similar presentation about EQ in the Bethlen dormitory of the Karoli University. One of my disciples, Sara lives here. She helped us a lot and we had 30 people come. We could see the presecne of the Lord in the depth of the discussions, the powerful testimony of Sara and the fact that at midnight they still didn't want to let us go. This was a huge encouragement to me. We planed to start a FEK Club in this dorm. Our plan was to have open discussions about topics, like: relationships, superstition, astronomy and other religions vs. Christianity.
Last night we had the first FEK Club and about 20 students come down for about 2 hours to talk about relationships. Most students were a bit quiet, but some had something to say to every question. A staff gave her testimony. Please continue to pray for openness in this dorm.

2. English classes: We came in contact with many open student and teachers(!) as well. Praise God It seems that we have an open door to go and do English classes any time we want.

3. SSK (Student Survival Kit) distributions: With the help of the Americans we distributed about 2000 SSKs during the week on 6 major campuses and dorms. We are thankful that we can have a presence on these campuses!

4. Random Evangelism: Every afternoon we went to the Technical and Corvinus Universities to randomly walk up and talk to students about God. For many Americans this was the first time doing something like this and they showed tremendous faith in stepping out and initiating to students like this. God blessed us and them as well. See the comments in the following post.

Technical University SSK distribution - 2008-09

Származási hely: FÉK

Last Monday and Tuesday we handed out 2500 SSKs at 3 main entrances of the main Technical University of Budapest during freshmen registration. 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.

ELTE Law School SSK distribution - 2008-09

Származási hely: FÉK

We have been handing out student survival kits and starting up our weekly group meetings for the students these previous couple of weeks. We are trusting God that He will bring us students who will be open to the Gospel. We have so far handed out over 2700 of the 5500 we have for this year on 4 campuses. We'll be doing this until the end of the month and also start calling back those intersted for a personal meeting. We are excited. :)
Two weeks ago Friday we went to a historical city called Eger, about 2 hours from Budapest to attend the ELTE Law School's Freshmen Camp. There are only 350 freshmen this year and we were able to hand out 200 SSKs and got 100 responses back to the survey. Not as many as we had hoped, but God is in control. :) It was fun to see a freshmen called Kata, who attended our summer camp, SpeakOut this year. She said she wants to be part of FEK (YTL) this year. Pray for her, she is not a believer yet. Over all we made some good connections with students and the only thing that made this day difficult: this was the second day of my diet... :)

Greece

Dear Friends, our ministry year has started with full-throttle in mid August. But before we dug in we went on vacation to Greece with another staff couple and had lots of fun. We were on the beach a lot and even went to a Waterpark near Thessaloniki for a day. Had the chance to see old Philippi and the ruins of the first Christian Church there as well as the prison of Apostle Paul. Here is a picture of us at the prison entrance:

Származási hely: Greece

Whiteboyz and Rhonda

A bit of Speakout FUN!

Whiteboyz


with Rhonda

Cookie Dance by Zach

A bit more of SpeakOut FUN!



The famous Cookie Dance at Speak Out 2008!

Speak Out 2008

This is a little video about the SpeakOut summer project we have every year by the Lake Balaton in Hungary. It is really good for the whole family!

God spoils me...

We are 2 weeks after our student weekend retreat and are very happy to have been there. Many students came, actually more than those signed up to come. Our guest speaker was a pastor named Monty Taylor, who’s been living in Hungary for over 27 years. The title of the weekend was “Issues of the Heart”. He mainly talked to us about missions. One of the great things for me was that my disciple, named Gábor – I wrote about him in a previous email and on our blog as well, though to protect his identity then, I titled the blog entry “Robert” – came and really enjoyed the weekend. He said afterwards that it allowed him to understand much more about the things of God. Gábor has just submitted his application to come to SpeakOut as student staff last week! This is wonderful also, because this summer project will give him a great vision for the Christian life and ministry. This week Gábor and another student as well as 2 of my staff colleagues we started taking them out to share our faith! Gábor was paying close attention to how we shared and enjoyed it a lot! God spoils me with Gábor :). Click to see a picture of him.

Mission: Hungary

Please check out this short video about the Hungarian Ministry!

Area Staff Conference 2008 - Tihany, Hungary

In this short video Gábor Grész, country director of the Hungarian ministry speaks in english. You can download the whole session by clicking here. You can see how 1100 full-time missionaries from 18 countries worship together. It was a wonderful experience to listen to teachings as well as worshipping together day after day for a week! It has truly encouraged our hearts!

Old Testament 2

No, Old Testament 2 isn't a new translation or version of the Old Testament... only one of a dozen IBS courses we, as CCC staff are required to take. I was quite nurveous in the beginning. Many hours of daily reading, several tests and an essay filled my first two weeks of January. I really enjoyed the course taught by Paul Dickason. It was wonderful to go deeper in the Old Testament and to understand its big picture, history and literature better and thus understand the God of the Old and New Testament. A God who is the same in both and does not change. Oh, and I passed!
Praise the Lord!

K