Monday – I had the chance to share a little bit of my testimony in a classroom with a small group. After school, I went with 2 teammates to do some random evangelism. We had an opportunity to talk with a group of 7 students that we had met earlier in the day while speaking in their English class.

Tuesday – My teammate Jillian got to share the gospel with a girl, Nori, that I had met on Monday in a Hungarian school. Jillian spent 4 years living in Budapest with her family. They are with Campus Crusade. Jillian shared the gospel in Hungarian and then I had an opportunity to share my testimony as we were answering some questions that Nori had.

At the student leadership meeting, I had the joy of seeing George. He was a student in Debrecen and was involved in the ministry while Anne and I lived there in 1998. I had not seen George in almost 10 years. He and his wife are on staff with the Campus ministry in Budapest. It is exciting to see enduring fruit from the ministry that we were involved with in Debrecen. He also caught me up on several others who had been student leaders in our ministry there.

Wednesday - I got to go back to a Catholic boy’s school that I had been in a year ago (pictured above). I saw Balint, a boy that I had talked with last year but did not get into spiritual things. I found out that he is a Christian and has been involved in the high school ministry here in Budapest. He has gone out with several of the staff when they have shared their faith. It was exciting to hear what God is doing in Balint’s life. (There is a picture of Balint on our February newsletter.)

Thursday – We tried to pass out flyers for the Battle of the Bands outreach. This day was a national holiday. We did not find a lot of students but did get to witness a couple of political rallies in the city. Hungarians are unhappy with their present government and there were threats of large demonstrations and even some violence. There was a small element of right wingers who caused some minor problems. We were never in any danger because the problems happened at night and we stayed away from the areas we knew would be a target.

Friday – Hundreds of students attended the Battle of the Bands outreach. I do not yet know the numbers or how many showed spiritual interest.

Earlier in the day, I witnessed some university students playing softball in a park. This was an unusual thing in Hungary. I approached them to ask about it and next thing I know, I got to play with them for a couple of hours. It was a very fun memory of my time here.

One of the highlights of the trip for me came last Monday. After school, I was out with Jillian and Caleb, 2 students from Orlando. We had the opportunity to talk with a group of 7-8 students. About 3 of them were very interested in spiritual things and we had the chance to share about our lives and give them 4 Spiritual Laws booklets. It was fun to hang out with them. One of the guys offered to buy me a beer which was a very gracious gesture. (I very gracefully refused but did my best to show my appreciation for his gesture.) It shows how much they trusted us and enjoyed engaging in conversation.

Later today, Laci and I are going to a university to try to talk with some students and share our faith. I look forward to a chance to do ministry with my good friend and do ministry in a university which I have not done in Hungary since we lived here almost 10 years ago.

One of the girls Marcia met was Inez (on the right in the picture). Marcia invited Inez to SpeakOut, a summer English camp outreach. At the end of our time in Budapest, Marcia felt called to apply to be part of the SpeakOut staff this summer.

Inez showed up the third week of the camps and was put into Marcia’s tutor group. Here is what Marcia wrote at midweek of the camp:

This week has been a challenge. For all of you who went to Budapest this spring, Teó and Inez are here. Inez is my camper. PRAY for them.They are 14 and breaking my heart. They’re just into lots of drinking and partying it’s no good. They found them outside fairly intoxicated. Pray for them and for me as it is breaking my heart and spiritually exhausting.

What Marcia didn’t know is what was going on in Inez’s heart. Through the week she realizes her life is going no where (her desires for attention from boys, going out drinking with friends, etc… ) and she wants more out of life. Marcia continues to express love and acceptance to her and talks with her about the gospel. At the end of the week, Inez puts her faith in Christ! The Hungarian team in Budapest will be following her up and getting her involved in their ministry this Fall.

Many other students came to SpeakOut this summer as a result of our mission trip to Budapest in March. Each day as we spoke with classrooms of Hungarian students, we invited them to come to the English camps this summer. It is exciting to see how God continues the process that we were a privilege to be a part of.

Read more about the Budapest Spring Project and/or our family’s experience at SpeakOut last summer. Also, my friend Laci posted some pictures from this summer’s SpeakOut outreach on Flickr.

• Read stories of how God used Jeff’s mission team on their recent trip to Budapest, Hungary.
• See pictures from the classrooms and Battle of the Bands Outreach
• See pictures Jeff took around Budapest

I am excited about what we saw happen over the past week. I could not have asked for a better team of kids to lead. I am really proud of the hard work they put in and the servant attitude that they had throughout the week. We planted seeds that we hope others will harvest this spring or this summer through the SpeakOut English Camp.

One of our desires was to be an encouragement to the five short-term interns working with the Budapest team. Almost every one of them made a comment about how we had encouraged them through our hard work, our hearts for the lost Hungarian students and by our willingness to do whatever it took throughout the week. What an answer to prayer.

We fly home on Monday and arrive in Orlando at 11:50 pm. Please pray for our day of travel and pray that we will get through customs quickly in Washington D.C. and make our connecting flight to Orlando.

I saw a handful of familiar faces of students that I met this week while visiting Hungarian high schools. I talked with Balint for about 45 minutes. He asked me a lot of questions about my life and I showed him pictures. I gave him my email address and I hope to have a chance to talk about God in the future. He has also been building a relationship with one of the American staff here.

Today I had an exciting opportunity to share the gospel to 5 young men and their teacher while in the classroom. I mentioned that one of the things I enjoy is talking to Hungarians about God, what they believe and what I believe. The teacher (pictured to the right) made the point that he did not think many Hungarians believe in God and that he did not. Then he challenged me to convince him to believe in God and the Bible. I told him that I probably did not have the time to do that. I reached into my backpack for a Hungarian gospel booklet and explained the basic points of the gospel. I explained how Jesus died for our sins and that we each had the choose to accept the gift. I even gave them an illustration of receiving the gift.

One of the things that I told the students is that I had come to college with a belief in God and Jesus. But things about God were had not been very important to me until I someone explained the gospel using the booklet was I giving to them. I shared that before I was a Christian, I had believed that I was a good person and that was enough to please God. But I also recognized that I had sin. The teacher, Ferenc (Frank in English) said that he use to think that he was good but now sees evil in himself.

I sense that Ferenc is very open to the gospel. He is 60 years old and that is rare to see. I told one of the staff here in Budapest to make it a point to talk to him the next time they visit that school. It is exciting how God used the teacher to open the door for me to share the gospel. At least four of the students took the gospel booklets from me and they seemed very interested. They enjoyed the time we had to talk and one of them asked me for my email address. Please pray for Ferenc and pray that students in that class would come to the “Battle of the Bands” outreach tomorrow night.

We have been inviting students in the classrooms that we have attending this week to this outreach event. We are hoping many of them will come. There will also be a coffee house set up that we could have further conversations with these students. Please pray that God will bring Hungarian students to Christ through the outreach and conversation with students that we have been meeting in the high schools this week.

Everyone was very excited and tired when we arrived in Hungary around 6 p.m. on Sunday. Many of them had to be up by 6:30 a.m. this morning to visit their high schools. Many of them got to speak to five or more classes today. They are very tired tonight but in very high spirits after their first day. They have been looking forward to this for the past two months. Several of them were able to have spiritual conversations in different McDonalds throughout the city.

We enjoyed snow flurries throughout the day. At least one of the guys in the group has never seen snow before. We have another busy day in the classrooms tomorrow. We are praying that more students will come meet with us after school.

Another praise for me was that I was able to connect to the Internet tonight so that I could post this update. I had been unsuccessful earlier in the day. Amazing what prayer can do.