Before I start writing a new blog update, I always re-read my last one and take time to think about what I have seen change since then whether it be a change in the physical world, or rather a change in my heart or attitude. The month of February was certainly the hardest month I have spent in Hungary thus far. I was feeling discouraged about the number of people attending English Clubs, I was feeling over whelmed by the number of things that I had going on and I was feeling like a failure in relationships with others and those on my own team. I felt like I was continually hearing the message ‘You are such a failure, you will never be good enough.’ Instead of processing my feelings I for the most part convinced myself that I didn’t have time to think about this stuff and kept going. This whole attitude left me feeling lonely and honestly a little homesick.
Thankfully, God never gives up on us even when we feel like He is far away and through this difficult month He was busy working and we saw some really great things happen. One thing that I have been fighting hard to make a bigger focus not just in my life, but for all of the things that I am in involved in is prayer. I now have three weekly prayer meetings where I am meeting with others to lift our pleas to God and give Him our thankfulness. This small act has made such a big difference in my attitude toward things and I believe is the reason for many of the amazing things that I have seen happen lately.
One of the prayer meetings is at the university I help out at on Tuesdays between classes. The plan was originally for just the professor and I to pray, but in just the few weeks we have been doing this, we have had three students join us! This might seem small, but it is such a huge encouragement to Julia and I and what an amazing thing to have students praying for their university and fellow students. Although the university is in name a Christian university, right now there are no Christian student groups and in thinking about what an impact Inter Varsity had on my life, I would really like to see one start. This seems like far to big of a thing for me to take on, but I am praying for it and maybe God would even raise up some of the Christian students I have met to be the leaders of such a thing. After all, these things start with prayer!
Another big answer to prayer and something that I am super thankful for is the Tuesday high school parents group finally starting. We have met for three weeks and have had 20 – 30 parents coming each week. It has been a challenge as neither Katie nor I have ever taught a beginner English class, but it has been fun and we have had a lot of laughs. This week I was teaching about using infinitive verbs with another verb and it was super fun! I would write a slightly incorrect sentence on the board and they would have to figure out what I did wrong. One of the things that I am most thankful about for this group is the support of the school and the church in Szentendre. The school provides snacks and water, whiteboard markers, paper and cleans the classrooms for us. And we have had three amazing young adults come from the church to build relationships with the parents and help translate when needed. We still have a lot of work to do to make this club as much as it can be, but I am so thankful for the start that we have and pray that God use us to love these people and draw them toward Christ.
The last big praise that I have to share is about one of the Bible studies that I am leading. I had originally hoped that it would be a group of several people meeting together to study the Bible, but the most that I have ever had come was three and admittedly I have been a little disappointed by this, even more so because the last few weeks it has dwindled to just me and one woman. However, I fully believe this is God’s plan as the one woman left coming is an atheist who is very open to studying the Bible and meeting one on one with her has given me a lot more opportunity to share my heart, answer her questions and build a relationship with her. We had such a good study yesterday and I am so excited to see what God will do in her life.
In other exciting news, we have a new teammate! Elise came yesterday and is here for just three months. She will be helping with English outreach and youth programming. I am so excited to have her here in Hungary and am also excited to see our team growing in number, and in heart, perspective and experience.
As I have talked a lot in this update about prayer and what great things I have seen God doing here, I just realized that the last thing that I really need to mention is that 2015 is the year of prayer for Hungary! If you want to really partner in praying for Hungary, for my team and for the things happening here, you can go to the Reach Global website here
.http://www.reachbudapest.org/prayer/index.html to find updates and things to pray for. Also in just a couple weeks the Hungary Prayer Summit is happening (March 20-21) in the Chicago area. If you want to go there is more information about it on the above website, but if you can’t go, setting aside time to pray for Hungary specifically on these two days would also make a huge difference!
Thank you again everyone for your love and support! I wouldn’t be here without you. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time!
Liz