Winter 2009/10: Bucharest, Romania.

I received a month off for winter break and decided to roll with a friend and fellow intern (Jean) to his home town of Bucharest Romania. We're staying at Calvary Chapel Bucharest and have been working with local youth; ie- participated with a gift exchange, street children outreach, homework clubs, and presentations/teachings with youth clubs.

I need to be back in Hungary by Jan 17th to serve at a couple conferences at ccbce(.com) and finish out my internship, which expires Feb 10th, 2010.

What's next? I've been meditating on moving to Ireland/UK to seek work. I'm in the process of attaining Irish citizenship (due to my late grandfather), which would allow me to work, live and get benefits in most places in the EU. If doors do not open in this direction, i will most likely move back to the States.

Please pray that He'd strengthen my walk, provide vision/provision for the next step and hook Jean and i up with solid opportunities/motivation to get out of the cozy building we're staying at to meet people.

Happy New Year y'all!

Backa Topola, Serbia; Dec 2009

This was my last and perhaps best weekend outreach trip of my two years of bible college/internship; we are required to take at least one of these trip per semester along with a 10-day-outreach. The ministry in Backa Topola is headed up by Pr. Tiawo who is from Nigeria. He married a Serbian gal, and has been serving in Northern Serbia for quite a while; they were very hospitable hosts. Our team got along great with each other and the church, who seemed to have been on their own mission to make us gain weight through excessively feeding us delicious authentic Serbian meals; they were very successful! Viva Serbia!

We were able to serve and encourage the young adults, youth & children's ministry during our stay. We also met many of the city's youth, by playing music in the city centre, which lead us into some great conversation in regards to why we were in there. It was amazing to witness how many Serbian kids actually speak proper English. Kids were very open to talk and were surprisingly friendly with us and intrigued by our team.

Moldova pics from Oct 2009

Took our team over thirty hours to arrive in Moldova in the two rent-a-cars we borrowed; we had delays at the Ukrainian and Moldovan boarders, trouble exchanging money in Ukraine, got lost, shared the gospel a few times, etc. This team was awesome and i can't recall hearing anyone complain the whole way there; it seemed miraculous :) The roads through Ukraine were really gnarly; tons of unexpected potholes on narrow roads flooded with semi-trucks.

Once in Moldova we met our hosts Steve and Teresa (see pic of couple holding baby); they were really cool, made us feel at home and kept us busy, but not too busy to burn us out! We spent time at a local youth club where we taught and gave testimonies, visited youth who were attending a delinquent school, invested a good amount of time on the streets talking with city teens, taught English classes in a primary school, visited a local hospital, went to a drug rehab centre where we performed the 'Everything Skit', visited local villages, spoke at a church in a neighboring town, and spent a lot of time hanging out with the local church body in Briceni.

The drive home was much quicker then our trip there (about 16 hours on the road total) and proved to be perhaps the most epic drive of my life! On our way to Moldova, the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, proved themselves to be very toilsome, yet our return voyage home presented a full moon with a cloudless night sky, leaving me in unspeakable awe by this breathtaking and ancient stretch of terrain of staggering slopes, corners and bounds. We almost didn't need to use our headlights it was so bright. I honestly felt like i was on another planet at times, and found myself in complete jaw-dropping worship, in light of my minuscule stature, in comparison to this nocturnal & peaceful range of creation, formerly known as the USSR. We wisely stopped at Nagy Isti's parent's house on the Hungarian/Ukranian boarder before making it back to the Castle.

Greece Pics from Sept 2009...

The top four pics are at Phillipi, the fifth is the city of Kavala (a.k.a. Neopolis of Acts 16:11; the first city in Europe that the Apostle Paul went to), the sixth pic is at our camp site in the district of Thessaloniki (time of worship facing the Mediterranean and then Pr. Phil read 1st Thessalonians), and the final three pics are in the city of Thessaloniki.

Amazing bus rise there and back. We had some great opportunities to meet kids from the former Yugoslavia at the long boarder lines, who were on school trips down to Greece. I learned so much from listening to what life was like for them, and it was funny to hear all the stereotypes they had heard about American. Serbia was so beautiful and Macedonia really reminded me of highway 101 in California with it's many vineyards and rolling hills; go figure!

10-day trip to Moldova (Oct 23 - Nov 1).

Hi y'all!
I'll be leading a team of 9 students on a 10-day outreach to Briceni Moldova (north on the first map shown...they spell it a bit different then the map shows); it's between Ukraine and Romania. Please keep us in your prayers:
1. That we would unite as a team with the church there and with each other.
2. For a fruitful time engaging with the community
3. For our time at the hospital we will visit
4. For the skit we are planning on doing
5. For a girl on our team who is sick; Candace.
6. Travel mercies: we only have two drivers and are using 2 cars (Isti and i) for a 13 to 16 hour ride; should be an intense journey... lots of pot-holes in the road in Ukraine... grace with the boarders and police there.
thanks for reading!!!
blessings...

Greece trip on the horizon; 9/24/09 to 9/28/09

A door has been opened to visit Greece next weekend. We'll be going via bus through Serbia and once in Greece, we'll visit Thessalonica and the ruins of Phillipi. I'll be staying at a camp site on this trip to save a few duckets; should be some field trip as this was the apostle Paul's stomping ground!

Fall 09, Vajta Hungary

Hello there! The summer has past and we are in week two of the semester at CCBCE (www.cbce.com). During the summer i managed our dishroom during conference season; we washed approximately 40,000 plates, cups, eating utinsels during our conference season.
A new intern has taken over the dish room and i'm overseeing 7 other ministries; Book Reports, Morning Devotionals/Announcements, Guys Dorm, Servanthood (Assigning/overseeing campus job detail), Off Campus Student Correspondence, Weekend Dishroom/Dinning Room/Conference Overseer. Things have been pretty non-stop!

Top pic:
My friend Jean (fellow intern from Bucharest) and i at Norbi's wedding last week.

Middle Pic:
Former student and friend Jake Stockill from Bradford England just paid us a delightful visit.

Bottom Pic:
I'm excited to be sharing a bunk with my good buddy Nagy, Isti from Budapest; ie- holding the napkin. New students: to my left is Kálmán (Romania), Arpi in the back, and Piros on the right (both from Hungary).

Upcoming events:
- Planning on leading a team to Moldova (between Ukraine/Romania) for our 10-day outreach (Oct 23 - Nov 1); that is, if students sign-up and doors continue to open. Pray for the pastors out there (Steven and Teresa), the community, and for a potential team to follow me out there. Sounds like a cool work and potentially an adventurous trip.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2881291.stm (BBC News article on poverty in Moldova).

Summer Itinerary (in a nutshell)...

Summer Conference Season:
The Zichey Castle (here in hungary) goes from bible college to a busy conference center during the summer season, which is run by staff, interns, SOSers (summer of service) and A Vision-4-Life students (check out ccbce.com for details).

Summer Goals:
Daily Hungarian language studies
Finish last class

Next on the horizon???

• 14 days on the East Coast of the U.S. (July 1st-14th) for a family reunion, meeting up with Cros & Miria Morton to attempt to minister in NYC/Boston, and also trying to meet up with East Coast friends from High School era; should be adventurous.
• I'd also like to make it out to England to visit some friends if the "Lord is willing and the creek don't rise;" as Mr. Harry Miller from The Family Care Network (FCNI) often said.
  

If you're the praying type, then please pray:

• for the formation of this 14 Day trip; ie- for family, friends
• for organization/locality/inspiriation of the the post reunion excursion w/ the Morton's.
• for kids/students coming for AVFL/SOS... intimate life changing encounters/hearing, etc.
  
• for staff/interns- unity/harmony/maturity/growth/break-through/etc...
  

Split Croatia 10 Day Outreach; Spring 09

10 days in Split:

Split was an experience for sure. Most of our time was spent in the following ways:

1) Spent time with youth who frequent the coffee shop.

2) Trips into town to meet and converse with local youth and invite them back for coffee.

3) Assisted running the coffee shop that Calvary Chapel Split Croatia owns/operates.

4) Construction work at the coffee shop; painting, sanding & staining the spiral stairs, etc.

5) Hosted an open mic night.

Testimony: "stolen goods."

After walking a friend home with three people from my team, I approached a group of about 5 rough looking teenage boys. The alpha of the gang seemed to be in the process of fixing his scooter, while giving me about half of his attention as i verbally engaged he and his posse. Before sharing the good news with these lads, i began w/ the bad news by giving the good person test; ie- comparing oneself to the 10 commandments, while admitting my own failure to keep God's law. The leader replied with honesty and said, “sure, I’ve stolen thousands of times.” He then looked over his shoulder and then grabbed his lighter, running it over the front of the ignition socket. I suddenly discerned what was happening as he began to pry the front of the scooter off. He then speedily walked off with the aid of an accomplice to stash his newly stolen goods.

We began to pray for this young man and his friends and moments later he surprisingly returned to finish the conversation; it was so random but felt miraculous that he would return, yet perhaps he was perplexed that a person would talk to him about steeling in the process of his transgression of this civil and moral law. Robbery seemed to be so second nature to this lad, that he didn't seem to think anything of it.

We talked with the boys for about 45 minutes about the love of Christ, co-mingled with His justice, and substitutionary death and also about religion vs relationship with God. Seemed like most of these kids could really benefit much more from a mentor rather then a theological conversation from bible college students, but when your on the move, that's how it goes and God's word never returns void.

Please pray for:

• For this young lad and his friends.
• Scattered seed dropped in Split Croatia.
• Tim and Grace's team of 7 that are living/serving/church planting in Split Croatia.