Dear Family, Friends and Prayer Partners,

Thank you all very much for your continued prayer support. I (Gary) apologize for not getting our summer update out. I am not sure where the time went, but somehow it just got away from us.

Quick list of prayer items in this newsletter.

Praises:

• Summer work.
• Team is growing.
• New residence permits.

Prayer Requests:

• Bible distribution in Balmazujvaros the morning of October 26.
• Possible scripture distribution in Nadudvar November 30.

In our last newsletter we asked you to please pray for healing for both Gary and Carolyn. Gary´s back problem turned out to be a pulled muscle, and the doctor said it would take time to heal. He spent the last two weeks of May going daily to physical therapy to help relax it and then to strengthen it. It gave him problems well into the summer but is now back to pre-injured state. Carolyn is healing very well from the surgery. Having to lie in bed so much and not getting to do her exercises caused a flare up of the Chronic Myofacial Pain. She is now back into her exercise program to help it. Please pray that it will help.

A team came from Cross Timber Baptist church in Texas to hold an English camp in the town of Hajduszoboszlo the last week of June. Cross Timber is the church where we stayed during our time in the States in 2007. We have come to love the members of this church greatly, and it was an awesome experience to get to serve together on this side of the big pond. They put together a team in less than two months and organized an excellent camp. The Hungarian pastor, Tibi, is over four small churches, and the team ended up holding services in three of the four on Sunday.

Levi, our Roma (Gypsy) church planter intern from Romania, arrived the following week and was with us until mid-August. We spent several days orienting him to the city and to the work. So many things were new to him since he came from a very small, very poor village. Until the week before his arrival there were supposed to be two interns, but the other one´s father had a stroke and she needed stay and help care for him.

We had to totally rethink our Roma work after Levi arrived. He had to spend time studying language because in Romania they speak an older form of Hungarian. One friend from church told him that it was actually refreshing for her because she has not heard Hungarian spoken like that since her grandmother passed away. But in Levi´s village they mix in Romanian and Romany words so he had to learn the Hungary-Hungarian vocabulary. He told us when he left that he realizes he now speaks a more proper form of Hungarian.

In July, we partnered with the church in the town of Puspokladany, which is one under Tibi´s care. We held a Scripture distribution while the church held a tent evangelistic outreach and sports camp. We gave out Bibles in the open market on Friday morning and then set up our booth next to the church´s tent for Saturday and Sunday. Volunteers from all four of the churches came to help while we were out in the market. One volunteer was a nurse´s aide, so she offered free blood pressure checks. Gary then preached one of the services during the outreach. You can read more about that part of the work on the Heart for Hungary website: http://www.teamhungary.com/spotlight.html. Scroll down to the August 2008 entry.

The following week the church held a sports camp. Levi was able to attend the entire camp. During the week the attendees got instruction on many types of sports and physical education. Gary taught a block on baseball which went over well, but the complexity of baseball is difficult to get down in one afternoon. We hope to hold a baseball camp there again next spring.

Each night of the camp there was a special presentation offered. On Friday evening Gary held a lecture on "Heaven and Hell: What Does the Bible Really Teach." Even in the church there is a lot of misunderstanding, and we use words interchangeably that are different terms in Greek and Hebrew. Since then we have met many people from the camp who have thought about the presentation and want to ask more questions.

After the sports camp we focused on Roma work. Our goal was to get a group started in Puspokladany and then let a national church planter or pastor take over. We have a good relationship with the Roma community there and felt this was the best place to start. Our plan originally called for the two interns to help in the Bible distribution and sports camp to get accustomed to the town, then travel by train from Debrecen to Puspokladany two or three time a week for outreach. Levi, however, never got comfortable enough to go alone, which meant that we did not get to go back as much as we had wished.

In 2007 our interns met some Roma women with whom they began to build a friendship. We took photographs from the girls back to the ladies as a way to get our foot in the door for this summer´s work. We gave them the photographs and introduced them to Levi. We had several rounds of picture-taking and giving, and each time we went back we got deeper and deeper into spiritual matters. We then planned a large cookout for the end of the summer as a going-away party for Levi. This was to be the point to see if we could get a group started. However when we arrived no one came out to greet us, and we knew there was a problem. We called to the neighbor lady and she came out and invited us in for coffee. The husband in the home where we were to hold the cookout was drunk and the wife asked if we could postpone the dinner. We stayed for about an hour, and in the course of the conversation we were able to share the Gospel. Even though things did not develop as planned, the door is still open for future work.

We have a Bible distribution planned for Sunday, October 26 in the town of Balmazujvaros at the open market. The church we attend here will be helping with the distribution, and then we will help with a presentation that afternoon in the same town. Our church wants to use it get a new church plant started in the city.

We are trying to get one more Bible distribution organized for the town of Nadudvar. Hopefully this will be the first day of Advent, which is the last Sunday of November. It is a special day here for both Catholics and Protestants, and we felt it an appropriate time for giving out God´s Word.

Another praise report: we got our new residence permits. They are for three years and are renewable. A number of our colleagues had received visas or residence permits that are not renewable. It took almost two months for ours to be processed and we were afraid that there was some type of problem. It was a great relief to see them stamp the new ones into our passports.

Busy schedules often keep us from sending out updates as often as we would like, but those with internet access came keep up-to-date by checking out our blog at http://www.xanga.com/gcmiller2hu. Carolyn typically updates the blog every few days with news from special events.

Thank you again for your prayers and support. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated. We are also eager to pray with you about matters affecting your life. It has brought us great joy to be able to lift many of you up as you have done for us.

In His Love,

Gary for the Eastern Hungary Team

IMB Eastern Hungary Team