A New School Year Begins!   Praise the Lord for another great beginning to a school year. It was a joy to see our returning students and exciting to welcome a new group of students to begin preparing for a lifetime of service for our Lord. As is our custom, we began our year with a Bible Conference. I had the privilege of addressing our staff and student body during one of the main meetings. One of my primary points from the book of Ephesians was concerning the beautiful nature of God's program, the church. How amazing it is that the universal church is comprised of a diverse group of people, with a wide range of backgrounds, languages, cultures, and ethnicity, yet we are unified because of the blood of Christ. One thing I love about our student body is this unity that exists despite the diversity. This year we have 16 countries represented amongst our student body! We have Germans, Americans, Romanians, Hungarians, Bosnians, Israelis, a Brazilian, a Ukrainian, a Russian, a Swiss, and the list goes on. I am constantly reminded of the great privilege we as a staff have in the training and discipling of young people to continue the work of the ministry literally around the world. Evangelism As you may remember from my update last year, our very first week of classes is always on Evangelism. After our students completed 10 hours of class our staff and students went into Budapest to proclaim the gospel message. Some of our students participated in music, pantomimes, rope tricks, testimonials, and paint boards to share the message of salvation. I had the privilege of preaching one of the paint boards as you can see below. The Lord provided our staff and students with many great one-on-one conversations. Several of our students had the opportunity to lead an individual to the Lord.   Teaching New Testament Survey Below is a picture of my wonderful students. Right now I am teaching our 2nd year students New Testament Survey. I picked up with them where we left off last year. By the end of this quarter I will have taught them the entire New Testament Matthew-Revelation in survey fashion. We have a very interactive class and they are truly a joy to teach. These students have great potential to make a huge impact upon our world for Christ! In addition to teaching New Testament Survey, I am presently teaching two Greek electives, Introduction to Greek 1 and Greek 2.   Break-in Update I want to say thank you very much for all your prayers and encouraging emails. God is doing great things here on our campus, in and through our staff and students. This has been a year of adversity for Word of Life Hungary, and it appears everywhere we turn, Satan is at work seeking to thwart our efforts for God's glory. Please continue to faithfully pray for us as we seek to reach this generation for Christ. Despite the loss of several significant personal items, God has protected my years of labor. Fortunately the thieves did not see my back-up unit below my desk. Otherwise I would have lost everything that I have done for the past 7 years. I have been able to regain about 90% of the information that was on the stolen laptop. Apart from the Lord's intervention it doesn't appear that the thieves will be caught, yet there is still much to be thankful for! The day after the break-in a co-laborer of mine encouraged me with the following quote by Matthew Henry. "I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed." If you would, please take the time to click on the Prayer Requests link to the left, and remember these needs in prayer. In addition to this there is an updated Picture album as well as other resources that might be of interest to you. Thank you for partnering with me in the training of young people for the work of the ministry!   |