Above L to R: Milán, Gabi and Norbi greeted me tonight by threatening to shoot me with New Year’s canned streamers. Below Left: Elianna helps set the table for our guests. Below Right: Sharon greeting Zoli and Csaba in the hallway where everyone takes off their shoes.



Tonight we continued our journey through the book of Matthew. Highlights in tonight’s discussion include: Personal trials and tests that increase our understanding of how much greater God is than we first believed. How one is assured of his salvation in Christ. The nature of fear and how the enemy uses it against us. The nature of faith in Christ and how He frees us from fear. It has been my experience that new believers in this town have immediately battled against the enemy using different modes of fear as a spiritual attack. From vivid terrible dreams, strange feelings, to physical trouble breathing, or pain in the chest...it has become commonplace in the lives of those whom Christ has brought from darkness to light. Tonight’s study was a good way to prepare the young men for the enemy's schemes and to direct them to stand firm in Christ and His word.



Above Left: Sharon explaining her Christmas gift (an iPod Mp3 player) to Dezső and Miki. Above Right: Reading Matthew chapter 8 together. We also watch each chapter with The Visual Bible’s rendition of Matthew before going into discussion time.

At one point in the midst of our study, I just sat back and rejoiced in my heart seeing what God had put before me: 6 men seeking God. 6 men varying from babes in Christ to maturing men in Christ. At the beginning of last year, one of our major prayer requests was that God would bring men into the church. At that time, other than Miki and myself, there were none. God has heard your requests and is doing a magnificent work in the hearts of this group of men. Now, a year later, our new request is that we could also bring the gospel to the teenage girls in Petőfibánya. Currently, there is only one teenage girl who attends our church, and she lives in the neighboring town of Lőrinci. We look forward to our teammate Brenda Herhei’s return from the States (currently raising support) to strengthen our ministry in this area.

Please pray that God would give us wisdom and the means to make known His love to those who are still unreached in this town. By God’s grace, at the end of 2006, we hope to be rejoicing over teenage girls who have chosen to follow the Savior by faith.