Update & slightly different version of Thankful Thursday

I have started but not finished about 5 posts over the past couple of weeks! I took a break from the computer to spend some more time with Jesus & my family. It's crazy how it can steal your time from important things!

It's pretty hard to sum up all God is doing in our city but I really want those of you who pray for us and support us to know that God is hearing, so please keep it up!!

Update/Prayer Requests/Praise:

• God is seriously moving here in our midst!! He is cleansing hearts (ours included), opening doors, building relationships and the gospel is going forth!!
• The Spirit is revealing some things in my heart and I am so grateful for the cleansing He is doing and the freedom I am finding!
• There was a pastor's meeting this week with pastor's from all over the country from many different churches and they all prayed and worshiped together and agreed that God is beginning a work here in Pecs!
• We may be able to move the church to the area of town where we are ministering! God is opening a door and we are going to walk through it! Please pray for the contract and details to be worked out.
• We began youth group in the park last week and had not our usual 5-8 but 40 kids come!! It was unbelievable! We played with the parachute, soccer, basketball, and then sat them down and taught them about God.
• We asked the kids what they knew about God and maybe 2 knew anything at all. Wow! I knew this place needed the gospel but never saw it on the kids faces like I see it now. Please pray for Jesus to change lives. We will do this again tomorrow. Please pray.
• During the play time I and some others talked with the parents and other folks standing around the park wanting to know who we were and what we were doing. The harvest is ripe! Every single person was open to hearing and said that they would check out the church if we move!!
• We are totally changing the women's ministry again. We are going back to the heart of worship with prayer and worship all summer long. I am very excited to see how God will change our hearts, our families, our church, and our community!
• I will be talking to the women in the prison tomorrow about God's love. Please pray for them to receive GRACE. Balazs will be going back to the prison tomorrow after a few months break. Please pray for him to reconnect with the men and to share Jesus boldly.
• We are able to host a one day festival for the troubled school where Balazs shares each week. We expect 150 teenagers to come. We will do crafts, have two bands, and a graffiti contest. Please pray for the gospel to spread like fire to this broken and lost generation.
• We met with our neighbor last night whom we have tried to get to know for 4 years. (We are friends with every other neighbor in our complex except this one couple). I will begin to teach him english next week. We talked with him for over two hours about his life, our lives, and Jesus. God is amazingly faithful that after 4 years, we were able to have this conversation so naturally and it was awesome! Pray for the salvation of all of our neighbors.
• We found a farm that is perfect for raising orphans and being able to raise animals and have a garden, with even enough land for wheat & corn harvesting. The house needs a lot of work before it is livable but the barns are all in good order. We know that if this is God's plan for us, even though it seems impossible, He will provide for this farm.

Our heart are overflowing!! It is so good to serve Him! Thank you so much for being a part of this with us! We really could not do this without your support!

Outreach

*Sorry this post is a little long but I wanted people to have a better idea of what we did for this outreach*

First, thank you for your prayers. This outreach was born out of prayer and it truly was awesome to see God moving in our midst in response to those prayers.

The body of Christ coming together:

Balazs' mom, younger brother, and his girlfriend came down to be a part of this outreach which really was a huge blessing and a new thing for this family to serve the Lord alongside one another. Praise Jesus! A team also came from the bible college to help us. They brought some Americans, a British, an Australian, a Ukrainian, and two Hungarians. That in itself was awesome. We were quite a diverse group! Also, a couple who were a part of our church but had to move to Budapest a few months ago for work came down as well. Many people from our church came out to help as well. It was so cool.

One of the things that blessed us beyond words was another pastor from a different church in the city (he, Balazs, and a few other pastor's meet regularly to pray and work together) brought his family to help for the day. His wife brought all of the things needed to do another craft, they allowed us to borrow their bouncy house and their professional sound equipment. As if that is not awesome itself, nothing says Jesus more than a pastor of another church sharing the gospel with people and inviting them not to his, but to our church. Seriously?? This is just an example of how Jesus worked that day!

Program:

Friday afternoon when the team arrived we set out to the park and some of the guys started to play music and talk to the kids in the park. Others played soccer and the girls had a girls youth group in the park. We handed out invitations to all of the families in the park as well. After a while some teen guys came up (from the school Balazs shares in) and asked if they could free style and beat box with us. After hanging out with these guys and sharing Jesus with them they asked if they could come back the next day. Balazs told them they could perform on the mic if they would not cuss. They showed up the next day and did a great job. Both have promised to come to church.

After the park, I made spaghetti & we had dinner together and prepared some of the crafts and other stuff for the next day.

Saturday we began with prayer and worship before having lunch prepared by one of the ladies from our church and Balazs mom. After that, we headed to the park and set up. We stayed at the park from 1 until 6 or 7.

We had face painting (very popular!), we made Mother's day cards (it was the following day here in Hungary), we made pasta necklaces, gospel bracelets, magnets for the refrigerator, and used foam to make all sorts of stuff. We had a bouncy house, organized games (baseball, parachute games, soccer, etc). Balazs, his brother, one guys from the team, and two guys from the church played some awesome live music. Balazs also shared the gospel on the mic several times over the afternoon.

Outcome:

While we of course do not know all that God did in the way of planting seeds, moving hearts, etc., we know God was with us!

Many of our team were able to go around and talk with the parents standing around waiting for their kids. We shared the gospel and invited them to church and let them know we would be having church in their neighborhood come September. Nearly every person was receptive and extremely grateful and surprised that we came out to bless them (for free!). Many showed interest in coming to the church once it moves out to that area of town in the Fall.

We really felt the presence of God with us all through the planning, organizing, and actual program. It was super cool for us as a church and we look forward to doing more before we move the church there.

*On a side note, a few days before the event, the pastors mentioned above that pray with Balazs laid hands on him and prayed for this event and all gave their blessing and encouragement that we move the church out to that part of town. We have been burdened for this area for quite a while now and have been praying for it for some time. There are 8 schools, 6 preschools, hundreds of block style apartments, the university, old folks homes, etc. and not a single church amongst thousands of people. Not even a Catholic temple. So, we are now looking for a buildings in order to move the church there in September. Please pray that God would lead us to the right building that we can afford.

Thanks again for being a part of our outreach with your prayers!