Speaking to students on August 11th at Cru’s Kansas State Campus Ministry student leadership summit gave me a great opportunity not just to share how God has changed the course of history after communism fell in Hungary, but also to encourage these students to stand on the promises of God. He has promised to do great things (John 14:12) through them if they remain faithful, available and teachable. God uses the broken, the trusting and those who honors Him with bold, risk-taking faith. It gave us great hope for the future to see some of these students being tears and wanting to fully dedicate their life in obedience to God.
Sometimes God uses our own talks to speak to us first. Reviewing of what God did in the past and reminding ourselves how it’s worth taking risks for His Kingdom encouraged us in this challenging moment of transition in our new assignment.
In the past month everywhere we’ve turned to, we’ve learned something new. While learning is exciting, constant newness can be time-consuming and stressful. Even normal routines, like grocery shopping, figuring out school supply lists, getting driver’s licences, learning how to fix waste disposals, etc. just takes more time. Not to mention learning more important things: getting to know key players, places and process in our new ministry.
Thankfully 3 weeks after sleeping on mattresses on the floor our container finally has arrived on July 12th. (Unfortunately most of it we had to unload as the moving company didn’t deliver what they’ve signed up for, they’ve only sent 2 laborers.)
On July 17th I had to fly back to Hungary to finish some of the ministry commitments we made earlier and I’ve married Edina’s former disciple, Anna (also Rahel’s best friend). Over the decades we saw Anna (and also her sister) coming to faith, growing in Christ and now marrying Andras who also had been involved in YTL as a student. What a blessing to see entire families being touched and changed!
Unfolding the Future
Our ministry has 3 focuses:
- Nationally - we help build Church and City Movements with Cru and it’s partners and are serving in it’s National Leadership Team. Our main focus in this role is to create, to discover and to catalize strategic initiatives (like YTL or Story of the Soul, etc.) for gospel city movements and church planting. Here is the list of cities and the teams we serve.
- Locally - to build local models mainly focusing on exploring opportunities through YTL.
- Globally - to resource the many demands that comes to make YTL accessible in other parts of the world. Of course this requires focusing on infrastructure, materials, training, partnership, etc..
The learning curve is huge for us, but we hope that while we learn, we can also shape the future of city ministries in and beyond the U.S.
A few key moments and priorities for us in this fall that you can pray for:
- August 21-24: We’ll have a National City Leadership Network staff conference in KC.
- September 18-21: Church and City Movements leadership meeting in Orlando.
- October 10-13: We’re going to a Global Forum for Global Alliance for Church Multiplication.
- October 20: We’ll have Vision Dinner in KC . Gabor will be the keynote speaker.
- November 5-8: We’ll have an evangelistic training in KC for CRU staff from 20 cities who are serving in City Leadership Network.
- October 2-6 and/or 21-29 I’ll try to travel to Memphis and Atlanta area to visit friends, ministry partners and find some new ministry partners.
- Plus: working on getting the YTL curriculum in English.
The potential impact these events, meetings and trainings represents are amazing. Much to pray for!
It was an uplifting moment to be at Rahel’s graduation in London. It was quite hard for Edina that she couldn’t personally be there and share this joyful moment as Rahel walked down and received her First Class Honors Degree in Anatomy, Developmental and Human Biology. Rahel spends another 3 weeks with us before she leaves to Scotland to start her medical school. Entering into a new culture again completely alone, finding friends and a church in a foreign country for such a young lady is not without emotional challenges. Cover her with your prayers, please! It’s heartbreaking for all of us that she’ll be 6 timezones away for at least the next 5 years (and at best we could see her twice a year), but we all are trusting that this is God’s will for her life.
Renato decided that he needs a year break from school after high school and wanted to work. He found a job (delivering pizza) downtown KC and loves it. His plan is to go back to Hungary for college next year. (It looks like our kids wants to be as far as possible from us :)
Gergo starts as a freshmen in Olathe South H.S. tomorrow. Huge challenge for him to keep up with the language and to find friends. He has worked the past couple of weeks also in a job he found at a restaurant.
We all remind ourselves of God’s calling, promises and cherish the last few moments we are together. Yet sorrow over the losses of home, friends, relatives and the future distance from each other grieves all of our hearts. He deserves it all!
Thank you for advancing the Kingdom of God together,
Gabor and Edina