meeting with the deputy mayor - part 2

as I posted yesterday, I was called an invited to a meeting with one of the deputy mayors of Szeged in regards to the church's desire to open 2 pre-schools and a soup kitchen for the homeless. what really surprised me (oh me of little faith) is that they took my letter and our desire seriously. so, today I, and Balázs, one of the elders from the church who is a lawyer, went to the mayor's office & we met with the deputy mayor and the head of the social services office. they were prepared and knew who "Golgota" (Calvary Chapel) was. after them asking me some questions about Calvary here in Hungary and the church in Szeged they asked about why we want to do these things. I told them that as we look at the life of Jesus, He reached out to people on a real, physical level and met their needs, which opened their hearts to hear the spiritual message. I told them that it is our desire to meet the needs that are obvious in our city. the head of the social services was open to us from the get go and by the end of our meeting the deputy mayor was also open to us operating social services. when he asked what we want from the city I told him we need facilities. we will be able to get the money to operate these "ministries" from the central budget but we need places to operate. he said that they will look for places for us and get back to me in a week. so we left very excited and hopeful.

when I got home our "contact" in the mayor's office called me. he told me that he laid the ground work for the meeting by giving the deputy mayor a lot of info about our church. he showed our letter to his boss, the deputy mayor in charge of city development and said that after he read the letter there was a "sparkle in his eye" that we want to do this. and because of this we were given audience today. our contact told me that the request for facilities would land on his desk in a couple of days & that now he would be able to finish a study that the city commissioned this summer about were new pre-schools need to be operated. he said that the city stopped this inquiry for some reason but now with us wanting to open two pre-schools, his boss would reopen this inquiry.

needless to say, I am in awe of what is going on. when I think about this rationally, we're a small church, with not much experience in things like this, with little money. but I know that we've got a big God on our side and we've got a heart to reach out and meet needs here in Szeged. so if this thing happens all I can say is, "all glory be to God."

please continue to keep this in prayer & check back often for updates on this.

thanks!