Sow, Water, Harvest

Hungary 10- Szentendre

Situated along the Danube, Szentendre is a lovely, quaint town with cobblestone pathways, old buildings and Hungarian culture.  To put it another way, it's a tourist area.  We could tell that because of all the different people we saw and heard from other countries, including our own!   The street was lined with all sorts of Hungarian souvenirs which are always a treat to look at.  

Our concert was held in the courtyard of a school.   We arrived late morning to have a look around.  Since the school wasn't being used due to summer vacation, a Church was hosting an English Language camp which is a VBS style day-camp where people send their children to learn some basic English. Its a fun day for kids with all sorts of activities to help them learn some English.  After lunch, however, part of our youth group performed some children's action songs for the 100+ kids.  We then set up for our evening concert.

Parents of the children are invited to come to the concerts too.  Fliers were posted all around the town inviting people to come, so we get a got quite a variety of people coming to this concert!  

The Concert went extremely well - Bill and Michelle shared their testimonies of brokenness, and the audience literally clung on to every word.  Once again the music and the dance pulled people in from off the streets, and people were given an opportunity to hear the gospel and respond to The Lord.  But as with so many of our events, the real action takes place after the concert!

Testimony from our team:

Jeremy (Hungarian Translator and teen evangelist!) was able to relate to some older teens about growing in Christ and relying on Him. While Jeremy was sharing, one teen said he had to go catch a bus home so, Jeremy followed him to the bus stop so they could continue talking.  On their way, someone they didn't know and hadn't seen, came up behind them on his bike, skidded the tires, and started swearing and cursing at them (Jeremy lived in Hungary for six years and can speak fluent Hungarian). Jeremy slowly turned to the guy on the bike, stretched his hand out slowly, and began blessing him in Jesus name!  The man began to look befuddled, and then almost afraid, and he turned tail and biked off.  The power of blessing those who curse you, as the Bible says, has amazing effects!

Amy, one of our dancers, spoke with two boys that had attended the English language camp.  She talked about receiving the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, and they both said yes, they wanted that. One boy asked her to pray about the fact he wasn't good in math.  He seemed to be really happy about the conversation, the prayers and Bible verses she shared.

Mary and Jeremy - were talking with two boys but then about 6-7 more kids gathered around.  Some were workers and some kids from the camp.  The workers told them, "We're so impressed with the way your group is so "alive", "so in love with God" and so "effective".

Mary led them in a prayer about giving their dreams, hopes, and futures to Jeses.  Based on their questions, she then felt led to ask if  they knew where they would go if they died. They didn't know for sure. She shared verses from the Bible demonstrating how you could know. By the time she left, and had prayed for them again, all  6-7 said they knew now that they were followers of Jesus.  This was the beginning of the camp so Mary encouraged the teen leaders that they can impact the kids for the rest of the week.

Crystal (another of our dancers) talked with two girls around age of 12.  She asked if they knew God and if they were certain of their eternal destination.  They said no, so she explained from scripture how they could know God and be certain and they prayed and surrendered to Jesus.  

Bill Trimper got to visit a woman named Monica that he had led to Christ five years earlier!  She was working in one of the souvenir shops then, and still does.  Monica was so excited about seeing Bill again and through interpretation shared she is growing in The Lord.  It's quite an interesting story on how it came about:  Monica was given a scripture coin five years ago by a different and unrelated (well, obviously related in the Lord!), which was about a month before Bill Trimper came into the shop and started sharing two scriptures with her.  They were the very same scriptures on the coin!  So she ran and got the coin from her purse to show him. One was John 3:16.  So Bill shared with her further on what those scriptures meant.  She accepted Christ that day and now five years later she is growing and flourishing in The Lord!