Update from Hungary
Greetings from Hungary!
Sorry I haven’t updated for a while. Here are some of the highlights from the last few months.
For about a year we have been going down the river at a very high speed! Imagine being in a high speed boat with rocks on both sides. Scary...and at times closing our eyes as we rush down this river. I will get back to this later…
I can’t say that I would trade this year for anything. Who is this crazy? I sometimes ask myself…Thank you to those of you that have called us brave. I think in God’s eyes the most important factor in life is our connection with Him. This was a wonderful year of connection with Him. We so need Him for everything!
This is a little look into our life here:
Tuesday and Wednesday, week after week we teach English at the local public school. Building relationships with those who don’t yet know Jesus’s love. We have about 30 kids in our English program. This is a great way to get to know people!
We are very involved with two churches. Both of these churches have around 20-25 people. This is the current state of the evangelical churches here. We feel that the foundation of the work here in Hungary has to be prayer. So on Monday we go to two different prayer groups, the second one often ending after midnight. One of these groups is affiliated with IHOP (not the pancake house but the International House of Prayer movement) and is made up of mostly charismatic Catholics. The first night we went I had tears dripping down my cheeks most of the night, God’s presences was so heavy there. This is a group of eight of us crying out to God to send revival to this land.
Thursday we have Hungarian lessons. We have been learning but have a long ways to go…Hungarian is considered one of the hardest languages.
On Sundays we are either teaching or translating at a church, sometimes going to 3 different services. It is usually a busy day for us. Norbi is currently teaching on the gifts of the Spirit. Last Sunday I preached my first full sermon here in Hungary.
Throughout the past months we were involved in several different events:
In February we were asked to help teach at a marriage conference it was a great event.
In April we helped at a prolife event. Around 750 students went through the Bus4life educating high schoolers about abortion. One student who came through left the bus sobbing. We learned later that her Father performs abortions. Please pray for this family.
Norbi helped organize and produced the advertising for a worship day that we had here in our town. Six churches joined together to have worship all day on Pentecost! It was amazing to be a part of this.
We have been helping occasionally with a gypsy home group. It consist of about 10 men and has been an interesting experience. We have seen some of them come to God and also several prayers answered. It seems that God SO wants to show himself to these men.
Update on our housing situation:
We found out that we need to build a new wall on one side of our house. It was leaning and the house could have collapsed. It also needs a new roof to be able to have the kids sleep in the attic area.
Construction has begun and we have moved into an apartment until it is finished. It feels like heaven here compared to the 400 sqft house we were living in at Norbi's parents. Please pray for this house as well as all the financial costs. This repair is around $15,000.
We are gearing up for a really busy summer:
Norbi will be helping with one of the churches as the pastor will be gone for over a month.
We will run an English Camp in June. In August another camp for the orphans.
We are looking into sending the kids into school for next year to help them learn the language faster. Please pray for us as we try to figure this out and also for the kids as they will be going into a school not knowing the language so well.
As I look back over the year. I can say that God has been amazing! We are excited to see heaven touch earth. God’s plan is to bring restoration to mankind.
Back to the river, last Monday after prayer meeting someone turned to us and said that we have been going down this river with sharp rocks on both sides and yes it scary but we will not be hurt. The day before I had a picture of going down a river also. It is such a comfort for us to know that God is in control and He has taken us for such a ride and all we had to do is step into the river.
We so appreciate those of you that have written to us, encouraged us, helped us, given to the work here, prayed for us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
The Bán Family
