Ippistle 31

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope that all of you are enjoying the coming of spring and the disappearance of snow. Kispest is certainly more colorful these days with the flowering shrubs and trees. It is such a cheerful place now that spring is here. On Saturday we went to the market and bought some beautiful flowers (szazszorszep - meaning one hundred times beautiful) for our flower box on the railing. As long as we keep watering, we will enjoy our little area of beauty here.

We have decided to stay here in Hungary for another year, knowing that God is continuing to bless us and use us in so many ways.

"Blessed to be a blessing" is a phrase we have all heard, but it has taken on new meaning for us recently. There have been a number of ways that God has impressed us with this idea.

Each Tuesday evening we join others to eat, fellowship, and "hear" God's word. Recently, we've been focusing on Jeremiah 29 and how God impresses on His exiled people to "build homes…plant gardens…work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the Lord for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you." We talked about what it means to be exiles, how we are all in a sense exiles, not because we are far from our homes, but because as Christians, no matter where we are living, we are not really "home". We have been impressed with the idea that God has placed us in Budapest to "prosper" others as well as ourselves. We use the term "prosper" to refer to a whole and full life in relationship with Christ, for that is real prosperity. We can see how God has made us prosperous (blessed us) and others have been drawn to be in relationship with us to share in this blessing. As we impact the people that God places in our lives here in Budapest, God is using our blessing to bless others.

This past week we had a very different "Tuesday night meet up", where we watched the movie "Chocolat". For those of you who don't know the movie, it is filled with themes of grace shown particularly by the woman who comes to a small French village and sets up a chocolate shop. Her presence in the village transforms the people in how they view themselves and each other. The next morning Cindy was reading Genesis 39 in her devotions. You know the story of Joseph and his coming to Egypt. Repeatedly the author impresses us with the words "The Lord was with Joseph and blessed him greatly…" and then he says "From the day Joseph was put in charge, the Lord began to bless Potiphar for Joseph's sake." Then he was thrown in prison and even there "the Lord was with Joseph there too, and he granted Joseph favor with the chief jailer…The Lord was with him making everything run smoothly and successfully." It's amazing how often others were blessed because of their relationship with Joseph. It wasn't just Joseph receiving the blessing, but everyone he came into contact with. We can also see how God is blessing us and then blessing those He has put us into relationship with. We aren't doing anything extraordinary. We are just being faithful to do the work God has called us to do. This city is so big, which makes it hard to imagine how we can have any impact. But God is showing us that it's through being faithful in the relationships in which he has placed us that we are having an impact.

Sometimes it seems a disadvantage to be as old as we are doing this job. But recently, we have noticed that there are some real advantages. We are definitely "the old ones" in all of our relationships. We're even older than most of our friends parents! Because of our age, we are given a respect that allows us more of a mentor relationship with so many of the young people we are working with. There are four couples, one American and three Hungarian, with whom we are in a close relationship that are all planning on marriage in this next year. God is using our marriage as an example to them, and we have been asked by some of them to be mentors to them as they move towards marriage.

Three years ago Jack began a tradition of giving his graduating students Bibles on their last day of class. Since this Friday will be his 13th grade students' last class day with Jack, he has prepared Bibles for all seventeen of them by writing a personal message in each. Few of them believe in God, and only one attends church. It is our prayer, and we ask it to be yours also, that the Holy Spirit will use those Bibles at the right time in the lives of those students.

It is still exciting for us to think of what more God has in store for us in the coming months. We hope that you too will continue to be enthusiastic with us in this work to which God has called us.

Áldás és Békesség! Blessing and Peace!

Jack and Cindy