Gyuri & Aniko Varga – Erd, Hungary

Dear Friends,

Our family is doing all right. We all were very tired by Christmas. We enjoyed some relaxing days and good family times. Our oldest son and his wife (Diti) bought an apartment in the suburb and moved in last Saturday with their 6 months old baby girl. We are thankful to God for His provision for them!

 

CENTRAL BUDAPEST. We planned an outdoor Holy Night gathering but we had to cancel it due to Covid. But we gathered around the fire with marshmallows on December 30.  17 adults and 5 children.

We do our church service in person and on Zoom at the same time. Usually, we are 7-12 on site and 10-16 on Zoom. There is a family who joins us from Switzerland, one lady (who lost her husband a year ago) from Gyuri’s village. We hoped there would be ‘watch parties’ in some of the homes where people would gather to enjoy worship service on zoom together. So far it did not happen.

 

HUNGARIAN BAPTIST AID. Anikó got the idea of visiting 37 school teachers around Christmas. She travelled to 5 cities and talked to 28 people. All were grateful for the book and the personal visit. Some did not answer neither emails nor phone calls. Anikó is a new person on the team so school teachers do not know her and are suspicious. This month she tries to organize Bible Study groups in 3-4 cities with those interested and do not find their way to a local church. Gyuri leads the mission team in strategic thinking and planning. We wanted to invite the school principals (and their spouse) who live in Budapest to a nice dinner next week for the ‘Week of marriage’, but we found that only 6 of them live in marriage. So we dropped the idea this year.

 

VERITAS. Gyuri enjoys being among the kids and showing and teaching them how the Bible has an answer to all problems. They are like sponges. The School Christmas party was very good. He read the story of Jesus’ birth from the Bible kids sang songs and prepared beautiful cold dinner for us all. One parent went to Gyuri saying: this was a very intelligent Christmas celebration. There are 22 children in the 2 classes and only 4 goes to church. So parents bring their kids here not because they are Christian but for good values and English education. Before and after Christmas Gyuri had an hour personal talk with his 12 kids and all parents to evaluate the semester.

 

BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. Because of the above he was not able to do all his exams. 2 remaining subjects will make spring semester even harder. We pray he would be able to complete all his exams by the end of June and then do his Thesis this fall. Great challenge with all his responsibilities! Please pray for him!

 

PASTOR’S TRAINING INSTITUTE. One pastor from last year batch is in great trouble. His wife left him and took their 3 children with her. So he lost his family, his job, his income, his everything. Gyuri talks to him every week and tries to encourage him. There are huge holes in their seminary training – self-awareness, dealing with childhood traumas, and many more.

WE NEED YOUR PRAYERS!

Gyuri and Anikó Varga from Budapest Hungary

 

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