Dear Family, Friends and Prayer Warriors,
Merry Christmas to each and every one! May the God of Love who gave His only begotten son to bring about the greatest gift, the salvation of souls, richly bless you this Holiday season. The awful tyranny of sin was crushed when that baby grew up and gave Himself as payment for our failures so that we can stand blameless before the Almighty God on the day of judgment. Can there be any greater gift than being born again out of the kingdom of darkness into His kingdom of light?
Thank you all for your prayers and continued support. Without your prayers the work in eastern Hungary would not be possible. Our prayer supporters are from many different churches and denominations…people with a heart to see God redeem a lost and dying world. Sometimes those prayers feel as tangible as a warm blanket on a cold winter night.
We also want to thank each of our Southern Baptist friends that meet our financial needs through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon missions offering. The Cooperative Program is a system of giving where the churches pool their resources together for the furtherance of the Gospel. The missions offering is named after Lottie Moon, a missionary who gave her life serving in China many years ago. It is taken up by most of our churches at Christmas time.
Also, thank you to those that support our work through special gifts. Since our personal financial needs are met through the IMB, all of the special gifts can be channeled directly into evangelism and outreach projects. Special gifts received from churches and individuals have purchased Bibles, provided a cell phone which seekers can call to ask questions, and have allowed us to begin translation of leadership materials for new churches and pastors.
Carolyn and I are currently in the U.S. for our first official Stateside Assignment. It used to be called a furlough, but since the word furlough implies a vacation, they changed the term to Stateside Assignment because we are still fulfilling our job responsibilities. We are traveling a lot right now raising awareness of the needs in Hungary. We will, however, take some time off at Christmas to spend with our families and recuperate a little bit. Gary will be continuing his studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for the spring semester, so we will be based in Texas.
Cross Timber Baptist Church in Burleson, TX welcomed us into their missionary house and has gone out of their way to help us get settled in and familiar with the area. Everyone we have met has been extremely friendly, and we look forward to serving here with them for the next six months.
The following story is one example of the wonderful welcome we’ve received here. There wasn’t room in our bags for Carolyn’s clarinet, so we had to leave it in Hungary. While one of the church members was showing us around town, we met the church music leader in front of the post office. During the course of the conversation Carolyn mentioned that she would have loved to be in the church orchestra but couldn’t bring her clarinet. He said, “Well, about a year ago I had one refurbished. It’s just sit’n down at the church. You’re welcome to use it if you’d like.” Not only did they provide the clarinet, but when we went to the music store to get cork grease and a couple of new reeds, they were already paid for and waiting with Carolyn’s name on it. The salesman winked and said Santa Clause had come by.
Our first full term as career missionaries has been one filled with both great joys and great difficulties. Health issues continually plagued us, but at the same time God our sustainer saw us through each and every struggle. It is true that only through suffering can you know the sustaining grace of God. We have come to know God more intimately because He carried through the difficulties, holding us close to His heart.
But still it was very difficult to leave Hungary. The four weeks just prior to our coming to the States were filled with divine appointments where many of the contacts we had been trying to make for years suddenly began to come about. There are many doors wide open for us to serve, so while we are in the States we will make plans for next summer’s work. In addition to the towns where we have already begun work, we are hoping to launch totally new initiatives in several other places as well. We are already very anxious to get back.
We have more requests from Hungarian churches for help with evangelism than we could possibly fill. The opportunities for outreach in partnership with national churches continue to grow, but we have found very few who have a vision for planting new churches where they are desperately needed. Many want us to help increase the size of their church, but that is the responsibility of the denomination’s church growth department. A missionary’s work is to get the gospel to where it is not being preached. So we partner together with churches in areas that have very little evangelical Christian witness. This fulfills the need for evangelizing in primarily unreached areas for church planting, as well as helping grow already existing churches. The opportunities for this type of partnering are numerous and we are looking for churches and volunteers to help.
Mentioning unreached areas, how’s this for a billing? Antique bikes, custom choppers, biker babes, belly dancing, topless body painting, and two missionaries. Well, the two missionaries didn’t make the official billing, but we still attended the Debrecen motorcycle show to begin new work to reach the motorcycle crowd. We gathered valuable information and then left just prior to the belly dancing and topless body painting. As it turns out, there is a Hungarian chapter of the Christian Motorcyclist Association (CMA), and we are trying to coordinate with the Arkansas Baptist Bikers’ Association to partner with the Hungarian CMA chapter for outreach and evangelism. One of the largest motorcycle gatherings in Europe is in Hungary, with thousands of bikers from all over Europe and even some from the US. It would be a great opportunity to use the common interest of motorcycles to share the gospel with hundreds of people.
Many times the town of Puspokladany has been in our newsletters and prayer requests. We recently discovered that in this town of 17,000 people there is a small nondenominational church of eight people. They are facing very strong opposition right now, yet they continue to reach out to their neighbors and loved ones. The leader said there are about 30 people very close to making a decision for Christ. Please pray for the church’s steadfastness and for the lost they are trying to reach.
Again, thank you to each and every one and a very merry CHRISTmas.
In His Love,
Gary, for the Eastern Hungary Team
