united for Szeged

many years ago the previous Baptist pastor organized monthly prayer meetings for the pastors of the churches in Szeged but since he was "promoted" to a new position about 2 1/2 years ago these meetings stopped. something I've desired for a while was to "restart" these meetings.  this summer I was encouraged by a good friend to not wait for anyone else to start them but for me to start them because all of the pastors know my cause I've been in Szeged for a long time now. 

about a month ago I e-mailed everyone and got a great response. This morning was our first pastor's prayer breakfast at our church. 6 churches were represented (which is about all of the evangelical Christian churches) and turns out everyone has sensed the need to work together for the Kingdom of God and everyone expressed their thanks that I took the initiative and got us all together.

we're going to spend some time praying together and building inter-personal relationships and see how God might have us work together for His Kingdom in Szeged.

I thankful to God that I was able to play a part in getting everyone together and look forward to what God is going to do through these times.

please join with us in praying for Szeged!

Szeged Baptist Chutch

Tonight I had the honor of preaching to about 80 high school & college age students at the Szeged Baptist. I talked to them about reaching their generation for Jesus. The response was great. Praise God!

I left excited that there are many young people who love Jesus and want to reach their generation (a lost generation) for Him.

I also left so encouraged that God has started a new work of unity among the local churches in Szeged. The Baptist pastor was there tonight and said he loved what I preached.

Because I've sensed a greater need for the local churches to be on the same page, I've invited the pastors & elders of local churches to a prayer breakfast that we'll hold at Golgota Szeged. So far response is good and I look forward to building stronger relationships with other pastors & churches so that the Kingdom of God might expand here in Szeged.

Please join with is for this city that we love so much!

mommy's little helper

tonight Zara helped me make dinner for Daddy! I can't wait till she's older and I can teach her more and she can help more!!

late summer / early fall update 2011

family

  the biggest news in our lives is that our second daughter, kiera grace eckhart, was born on August 7th. we've been so blessed because she is such a good baby. we were curious to see how zara would react to and interact with her, well zara absolutely loves her baby sister!!  she always wants to be around her and kiss her. she is so gentle with kiera. 

  (here is a picture of us going to church for the first time as a family. at this point kiera was only 5 weeks old.)

  with our growing family our needs are growing. one of the biggest needs we have is for a larger car. some time next year we'd love to get a minivan, as we feel it would be perfect for us with our 2 kids and also with having my (kyle's) dad living here in szeged. we've learned that the bible is so true that the "borrower is slave to the lender" (proverbs 22:7) and we don't want to be enslaved to a bank over a car. please pray with us that God would provide for us and provide the right car for us next year. 

 we both agree that the "jump" from 1 kid to 2 kids is both easier and harder. easier cause we're more relaxed and more "experienced" but harder for obvious reasons. zara has a lot of energy and to help with that we've been taking her to nursery every day since july. she really loves being around other kids and we know that this is just another great opportunity for us to reach people for Jesus here in Szeged.

 speaking of zara, we can't believe that she turned 2 on september 5th. we're so proud of our "big girl" and excited to be part of her life as God has entrusted her to us. 

 odi is doing a great job being a full time mom and God is giving me the strength to do all that I need to do (pastor the church, teach english, study for school).  

 on september 4th, calvary chapel hungary celebrated it's 20th anniversary here in hungary. about 20 people from calvary szeged went to budapest for a "nation-wide" celebration. what was a real blessing to me was to think that God has allowed me to be a small part of His work in hungary for 16 1/2 years. I'm looking forward to many more years of serving Him here in Hungary.

church/ministry

 as i've written in the past, summer tends to be a "down time" for our church with many students going home for the summer and people going on holiday. this summer was different, in that we didn't see such a great drop off. as a matter of fact over the summer the church grew some.

 one of the most amazing stories of this summer is a young man named ovidiu. the amazing thing about ovidiu is that he's from timisoara, romania. he got saved a couple of years ago by listening to bridge.fm (calvary chapel old bride - pastor lloyd pulley) and by watching hischannel.com. god moved on ovidiu's heart and showed him that he needs to be in fellowship with other believers and because there isn't a calvary chapel in timisoara (yet) he decided he'd drive the 120km (75miles) one way to come fellowship with us at golgota szeged because we are the closest calvary chapel to him. we are blessed (and so is he) that he comes when he can. we've prayed with him about starting a work in timisoara. I believe that God has brought him here for a reason and we continue to seek the Lord's will regarding this. 

  this summer i was blessed to preach at an outreach that the baptist church of szeged organized in hódmezővásárhely. not only did I preach but many of the members of calvary szeged took part in the week long event because we believe that Jesus loves our region and we're excited to be a part of whatever He is doing!  i personally was blessed to spend time with the baptist pastor, barna balogh, who came from debrecen and was close to bodi (zsolt bodogán).

  i'm looking forward to spending more time with him and some of the other pastors here in szeged. i know we all have god's heart for szeged and i hope we can all work together for his kingdom! 

  because of my growing relationship with the baptist, i've been invited to speak to about 40-50 of their youth this month. i'm excited to talk to them about loving and serving jesus here in szeged in their youth. the youth of this city are the hope of this city and the only way we're going to reach them is if we're in love with jesus and taking his message to them.

  september always sees an influx of new people into our church. this year we're blessed that many students who are returning have a few more years left in their studies and we have more time to help train them to be missionaries for Jesus wherever they might end up after college. 

  to help "ring in" the new school year, this sunday (september 18th) we're hosting a "welcome (back) to szeged" bbq after church. there is already a lot of interest in this and we're looking forward to building relationships with many of our new members.

  on wednesday nights i've been teaching through the old testament and in the next 6-8 weeks i'll be finishing it, after which we'll jump right into the new testament. i hope to complete teaching through the bible in the next 3 years. to the best of my knowledge this will be the first complete "through the bible" in hungarian/english by a calvary pastor here in hungary. i'm continually amazed that god is using our church website to get his word out to hungarians (and others) all over the world.

prayer requests

 - for wisdom to raise our daughters to love Jesus.

 - that God would continue to use golgota szeged to reach szeged and our surrounding area.

 - for strength in this busy season of life.

 - that the hungarian government would approve golgota for official church status. (a blog about this coming soon)

 - that we as a family would love jesus more!

 - that god would raise up people to help in the church in the areas of administration and other practical areas.

ways to help

 - we really need help in some practical things. we're looking to redesign the logo and "artwork" of our church. if you can help, please let me know. we've got some genearl ideas but would need someone who knows what they're doing.

 - as many of you know i've been teaching english to supplement our income. i've been blessed to do this but sometimes i feel as if i need to put too much time into this. having a family with 2 kids, i need to make sure that our needs our met. if i wouldn't have to teach so much i believe i could invest more time into the church and the work of God. if you'd like to help support our ministry you can send your (tax-deductible) offerings through calvary chapel costa mesa (https://www.easytithe.com/f/?k=6SSHN0DEHB4KG6DH) or calvary chapel vista (hhttps://webview.shelbyinc.com/app/04423/Default.aspx tabindex=1&tabid=17). please be sure to indicate that your tithe/offering for us. what you give helps us not only meet our monthly needs but we will be putting part of it aside for a bigger vehicle next year.

 thanks again for your time (that you read this) and your prayers for us. please consider supporting us financially that the kingdom of god might expand in this part of the world.

 may the Lord bless you richly! 

 kyle, odi, zara, kiera

finally

I'm happy to say that Google just released a Blogger app for iOS. Hopefully this will inspire me more to blog about the goings on in our lives & ministry.

Here's to hope! :-)

2011 spring update

just a quick update about all the happenings in our lives and the ministry here in Szeged

Family


 well, as you probably know that our family will be growing as we're expecting the birth of our second daughter in August.  Once again, life is going to change. We know with 2 little ones at home things are going to be interesting (and maybe a little crazy) but we're looking forward to this 2nd little blessing!!

 

 As with Zara, Odi needs to rest as much as possible but because Zara is a bundle of energy it's not so easy, but we're managing.
 I've finished my 1st year of college and hope to be able to continue to work hard to get a degree in 2013. with 2 little ones studying is going to be interesting so it'll be a lot of night work with the help of coffee!
  This summer (end of June) we'll be attending the Foundations Conference in Vajta & look forward to a week of encouragement and reconnecting with friends from all over Europe.

Church


  by the grace of God the church is doing well and growing. not only in spiritual depth (which has really been helped by our small groups) but we're seeing more and more people come to church both Hungarians and international students.

 this last weekend we had "church by the river" and baptized 8 people. it was an amazing event for all who came to celebrate the public declaration of faith of those who were baptized. Afterwards we had a "love feast" cause everyone just brought SO much food!  One of the great things about this day was that people invited & brought guests who normally wouldn't come to church. We hope to have more times like this where non-believers would come to do life with us & hear the Word of God.

  I believe that this was a very important set for us as a church not only being out publicly as a church but also for people to catch the vision of doing life together. These pictures don't really communicate fully the blessing that day was but I hope they do somewhat.

  as summer is a little bit of a "down time" for our church (many students are gone and others are on vacation) the elders and I will be praying & talking through a lot of things for the coming school year. We want to continue to invest time & energy in small groups but we also want to plan larger events, including possibly another Golgota Gospel Choir concert in December.  We are also praying for open doors to start a Bible study in a city about 25km from Szeged.

I continue to be amazed at how God is using our church website to get the Gospel out to Hungarians all over the world.  I would like to redesign our website but I don't have that "talent" and it doesn't seem like anyone else in the church does either, so if anyone reading this can help, please let me know!

  we've decided on a one year extension of our rental agreement because our landlord won't be raising the rent because the economy is still so bad over here.  this is an answered prayer & we're excited to stay here for another year!

prayer requests


 please pray


 - that God would continue to use Golgota Szeged to get His Word out  
   to many people here in Szeged and the surrounding region.
 - that the church would continue to grow in number and in spiritual
   depth.
 - that God would speak to myself and the elders about His vision for the church for the next school year.
 - that God would bless Odi with strength and that the baby would go to full term
 - that God would give Odi & I the grace and strength to adjust to being parents of 2 little ones.
 - for God's provision for both us and the church.

  thanks for your time that you read this update & we'd like to ask that you'd join with us in prayer for the work of God here in Szeged! We know that a background of prayer is vital to what God wants to do here.
 we'd also like to ask you to consider joining with us financially so that we can continue to focus on the work of the Lord and not so much on having to teach. Teaching is a blessing (in that I'm able to meet a lot of people) but I'd rather spend more time doing what God has called me to do. So please consider partnering with us financially (even the smallest amount every month helps).

  we pray for you that the Lord would bless you & cause His face to shine upon you!

 In His service,

 Kyle & Odi

pray without ceasing

well it's been way too long since I've blogged so here goes.

this weekend was the culmination of the 10 day "Szeged days" festival and as we were out walking around on Saturday morning we saw a large crowd of people in front of city hall for a big event with traditional music, dance and a speech from the mayor. As I was listening to it all, God just moved on my heart that I need to be praying more for Szeged. I've been reminded of the power of prayer in two books I've read in the past 8 months, Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret & Charles H. Suprgeon, a Biography. It was through much prayer that God used both of these men mightily to touch the world for Jesus.  So I began praying. On Saturday as I was walking, I just prayed for people, for the city, the mayor, that God would move upon their hearts & that they would come to know Him.

 well an interesting thing happened. Saturday evening I got an e-mail from a friend who is pastoring a church in London & he told me that he just got done sharing the gospel with a guy from Szeged! Since they guy's English wasn't so good, my friend asked if I could help with some translation if necessary. Of course I would!

 this was an amazing encouragement for me that God does want to work in Szeged and bring people to salvation.

 so I'd like to ask if you'd just join with me in prayer for the wonderful city of Szeged??

 pray for....

  . many to come to know Jesus
  . wisdom for our city officials & that they would come to know Jesus
  . that Jesus would be glorified in all the churches in Szeged
 

 thank you!

 praying for you as you read this!

  kyle