Halfway Around the Globe

Here it is…only a few weeks later than I intended 🙂

Prayer Letter 40 (September)

Well, we are all set to kick off another ministry year!  These past couple of days and weeks have been full of preparation and planning.  This past weekend was the wrap-up to our annual staff conference.  We enjoyed being challenged by a phenomenal speaker as well as opportunities to bond, plan, and prepare.

This time was especially valuable for me as I am trying to sort out what my upcoming ministry year will look like.  I have just completed a year that was dominated by language learning.  Moving ahead, I will be focusing 50% of my time on ministry activities and 50% on language learning.  So, I am having to discover what that balance means practically.  To make matters more interesting, I am a part of seeking to effectively follow up and reach out to students living outside of Budapest.  This is something that has been near and dear to my heart.  Thus, I am really excited to be a part of doing this!

To give you a visual picture of the need, attached is a link to a google map that has all the NON-Budapest cities plotted.  This represents students who came to SpeakOut from OUTSIDE of Budapest.  The color pins showed you whether they indicated on their evaluations if they said yes to wanting to talk more about knowing God, maybe, or no.  Take a look!  I think you will find it amazing!  There is a great need!  Please join me in praying for opportunities and effectiveness in reaching out to these students!

http://batchgeo.com/map/fd829243468f1bd311a6584e782434bf

Everyone enjoys escaping and getting away for a bit…and I am no exception to that!  These past few weeks I  had the opportunity to take a trip to Spain to help with the ministry of L’Arcada camps.  I met the founders, David and Deborah Franks, during a mission conference.  They invited me to join them for a few weeks to see and be a part of what God is doing through their ministry in Girona, Spain.  For two weeks I had the opportunity to help cook for the 140 staff, students, and families who came to be a part of their annual family week.  During the camp, families were exposed to the gospel as well as walked through Biblical principles for guiding and structuring a family.  Many of these families pledged to return next year because they enjoyed the camp so much!

Along the way, I had a few hours to get out and explore during a layover in Zurich, Switzerland.  I really enjoyed the opportunity to visit some new sights, but more than anything, it was amazing and encouraging to be a part of what God is doing in another part of the world!

Have you ever considered taking a mission trip for your next vacation?  The harvests are ripe all over the world!  I can guarantee you will walk away amazed, encouraged, envisioned, and excited about how God is at work!  Take a second to seriously pray about doing this!  I know we would love to have you join us in Hungary (for info about our opportunities check out the How Can You Be Involved? tab above)!

3 Camper weeks and a few days of debrief later, SpeakOut 2013 is over.  What an amazing one it was!  We had an awesome time with the 268 campers that came!  During their time at the camp, they had the opportunity to experience American culture and English language learning like never before.  Everything started with our big kick off night each Saturday evening.  This is when the campers meet their American tutor for the first time…and the fun begins!

Some of the cool activities we engage in at the camp are things like a massive hunt for all the staff throughout the city (we all dress up in different costumes):

Getting slime poured on us at the camp carnival closing party:

And other awesome activities.  But, of course, the most important part of SpeakOut is the spiritual part.  Throughout the course of 5 days, the campers get to hear the gospel about 10 different times both in Hungarian and in English.  This message clearly comes across during their times with their tutors:

And through our “Morning Class” program.  This year we had the theme of 3-D you, taking the idea of people as having 3 dimensions: a physical dimension, a mental dimension, and a spiritual dimension.

God used this summer in a mighty way!  He was pleased to bring 50 campers to Himself!  In addition, we saw many, many campers tell us how they want to think more about God.  One camper who had been to SpeakOut 2 years ago told me that his view of God is changing.  The first time he came to SpeakOut he was comletely against God.  He was entirely closed to hearing anything about the Gospel and was very combative when it came to spiritual things.  This SpeakOut he told me that he is now convinced that God does exist.  He said, “while I don’t agree with everything you all say and I am not going to say I completely believe everything you all talk about, I am much closer than I was 2 years ago”.  What a praise to see God move students closer to Himself, one step at a time!

For more news about Hungary and SpeakOut, don’t forget to check out July’s Prayer Letter!  Find all the old archived ones under the Prayer Letter tab above!

Prayer Letter 38 (July)

After a week of orientation, training, team building, fun, exhaustion, and spiritual growth, we are on the verge of the first wave of campers.  This Saturday (July 6th), the first group of students will arrive.  At the moment, we have 100 campers registered to attend this one week.  Please be in prayer for all of us as we launch into the first week of SpeakOut camp!

You can see the great crowd we had for our SpeakOut Reunion!  There were about 45 new faces in addition to about 100 student staff who are a part of our SpeakOut staff team this year.  Many of them have been either as a camper or a staff so this reunion was for them too!  Thanks for the prayers!!

We are kicking off our SpeakOut Reunion!!  At this exact moment I am in the middle of helping process registrations (well obviously not this exact moment…we have a bit of a lull).  Over 40 previous SpeakOut campers and staff will be joining us for the next 48 hours.  This is a great opportunity to share the gospel once more and to reconnect with old faces.  Please be praying for the programs that we are organizing and preparing.  Pray for God to open hearts and doors!  Join us in praising God for 20 years of SpeakOut and for the reunions registrants who are now living their lives to the glory of God!  It will be a fun mix to see Christians and unbelievers together reconnecting over a common summer camp experience!

Our big summer project is kicking off this week!  Tomorrow I will be heading to Keszthely, the sight of SpeakOut.  The staff will be gathering for 2 days in advance in order to plan, pray, and prepare.  The student staff will be joining us starting on Wednesday evening.  The American student staff will arrive on Saturday and our orientation week for all the student staff will begin on Sunday.  Our first week of campers starts July 6th.  Between now and then there is a LOT of leg work, paper work, logistical work, and preparation that needs to be done.  Please be in prayer for this time!  Each summer we see more than 300 campers come through.  If you combine that with the random people the Hungarian student staff share the gospel with each afternoon, we have the opportunity to tell thousands of people about the great news of the gospel!

Also, this year we are hosting a reunion party since this is our 20th anniversary.  That is something new…and as you may know, new often means unexpected challenges.  Please be in prayer for this as we have the opportunity to reconnect with former campers and former student staff.  Pray that God will use this to impact those people and allow us to share the gospel with them yet again!

It should be a crazy, awesome, hectic, incredible summer!

As I am still getting my feet wet, I think I have figured out how to e-mail you updates if you don’t want to have to check this site routinely (but still want to know what is happening 🙂 ).  Look over to the top right side and there is a place for you to enter your e-mail address.  What should happen is that every day you will get an update if something new is posted.  If there is nothing new, you won’t get an e-mail…so it is just if I happen to post something that day.  I hope this helps you to better stay in touch with what God is doing here through you!