YTL in the U.S.

Dear Praying Friends,

25 years ago God opened the door in our post-communist Hungary to be able to saturate the education domain with the gospel through a program we’ve launched called “Youth at the Threshold of Life” (YTL). It’s utilized now in over 60 countries. The U.S. seemed to be a bit harder arena to break in, but God keeps opening doors and opportunities for us.

While we are waiting for the translation of the YTL curriculum to be finished by the end of this month, Edina had the passion to start locally a YTL club in a High School in KC as she always were leading girls in such settings in the past decades. Recently she contacted a school principal in a under-privileged neighborhood. A few days ago we had a chance to meet with this high school principal and he was very opened and wants us to start a YTL club for girls. It’s a very diverse school with lots of muslim families. If we get the final approval from the district superintendent, than Edina can start the first YTL club in a U.S. high school this month. This is very exciting while it’s greatly challenging!

When leaders are united, envisioned and committed…

God is always up to something when He brings together leaders and unites them around the same cause. Between August 26-30 well-seasoned missionary leaders with decades of various ministry experiences joined us in KC to pray and plan about how to reach the 160 million Americans who are considering themselves post-Christians, and how to envision, equip and empower believers to saturate the cities of America with the gospel in word and deed. In a recent study we’ve found out that 84% of those who considers themselves non-religious are willing to engage in spiritual conversations.But there are too few who would initiate with them in a proper way. That is why one of our focus is on conversational evangelism training. ’The Changing Face of Evangelism & the Well-being of the City’ is a 4-hour-long, interactive, experiential training on how to start spiritual conversations in real-life situations. This school-year we are taking this training to 10 cities.

Significant moments to pray for…

Between Sep 4-7 and Sept 9-12 we meet with teams in KC and in Orlando to finalize, sharpen and digitize some of the most effective, simple evangelism and church multiplication tools Cru is using in 192 countries.
Sept 28-30 Gabor will be the keynote speaker at KC campus ministry’s student retreat. Many of the students will not be believers - pray that the gospel would be presented clearly and boldly through these talks.
Between Oct 20-30 Gabor will travel with Dave Robinson to East Asia to various cities to train pastors and missionaries on YTL, on church-planting, on evangelism and on leadership development
On November 17th, we’ll have the “Changing Face of Evangelism”training in Memphis at Harvest Church. (If you are at that region, we’ll let you know about the details later.)

OUR MONTH BACK IN HUNGARY

Dear Praying Friends,

As we are getting ready to fly back to the U.S. after spending more than a month in Hungary of which two weeks at "SpeakOut" camp, we are full of mixed feelings. We've enjoyed seeing how God CONTINUES to work in and beyond Hungary through the ministry we had the privilege to lead for so many years. (You can see direct impact of SpeakOut camp on the first picture above). God continues to add believers to the Church and the number of laborers is growing, too. We met with most of the staff personally while we were back, Gabor had a chance to give a talk to the students and staff at SpeakOut, and Edina could personally encourage her former disciples.

Reka, who was a student at the 1st camper week at SpeakOut wrote this:

"Woooooooooooooow! This is the best camp I have ever been to. I will be always coming back here. I will remember it forever. What was my favorite? Everything. What am I going to miss? The atmosphere, full with acceptance and love, everyone is so friendly with the other and we could have a really heart-felt relationship with the tutors. I had a wonderful time! Thank you for everyone. We love you! We will remember it forever! I have to tell you I felt like SpeakOut is my home, and it's a world that I only thought it exist in my dreams. But it is great that it's true. I am coming to week 3 as well!"

A STORY OF THE LEGACY OF YTL

About 15 years ago a couple (Attila and Eva, 1st picture on the left) came to a YTL symposium we held for educators. They were not educators, he is a car mechanic, but enthusiastic believers who wanted to reach their community and get the gospel to high school students. After they got trained using the YTL curriculum, they went back to their town, Esztergom and started to lead YTL clubs in high schools. They were doing that faithfully for years. This became a key engine for their church-planting efforts. About 7 years ago they led a young high-school girl, Viki to the Lord and they baptized her, followed her up in her new faith. Viki later moved to Budapest and started to get involved in our local YTL campus ministry. Now, Viki (2nd picture on the right: Edina and Viki) served as staff at 'SpeakOut' for already 3rd time, and her dream is to start an orphanage in a 3rd world country.
What an awesome work of God! A seed sown 15 years ago by mobilizing and equipping 1 couple, a car mechanic to penetrate the education domain is bearing fruit in and through a young girls life! And who knows how God will use her in the future? YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT CONTINUES TO BEAR FRUIT FOR GOD'S KINGDOM!
IMPORTANT TO PRAY FOR: The translation of the YTL curriculum into English is in good progress. While in Hungary we were able to work with the translator and the translation into English will be ready by the end of September!!! After that a HUGE work of editing will be required and we hope to have many volunteers to help with that!

FLASHBACK:

OUR 1ST SUMMER PROJECT THIS YEAR WAS 'IN THE CITY FOR THE CITY' BACK IN JUNE IN KC (we wrote about that in our pervious email). HERE YOU CAN SEE IT'S IMPACT IN NUMBERS, TOO.

PERSONAL UPDATE
& PRAYER-NEEDS

Our time back in Hungary wAS great, but challenging too. Taking care of our parents and family brings huge challenges. It's hard for our kids that we are so scattered and it's an emotional roller-coster for us all to say so many 'good-byes'. All 3 of them continue to express this: "Where is my home?" We are thankful that they handle this with maturity and they continue to trust in the Lord.

On August 4th we fly back to KC and that's when Rahel will arrive home from London, too. After she has finished her exams at med-school in Scotland, she got an offer from King's College London to work in a scientific research during the summer. It was a very demanding job in a lab, but she loved it. Can't wait to finally see her!
Renato continues to stay in Hungary until Aug 21st before he returns to KC. He signed up going to the Army in the U.S. for two years. The U.S. Army is doing a background check on him now which can take up to a year. This is a major step for him and for us all!
Gergo will be a sophomore and continues to improve in his English skills. Because of his age, it's very challenging for him to be separate from his culture, his friends and grandparents.

Regarding the fall: please, pray for the many evangelistic trainings we will held in various churches and cities across the U.S. Soon we'll send out more details about that.