Thursday, January 27, 2011

I boast

boasting isn't always a good thing because it puts the spotlight on us & removes it from God. but as Paul did boast in God's people (2 Corinthians 1:14, 9:2 & 2 Thessalonians 1:4), I would like to boast about those who call Golgota Szeged "home".

Golgota Szeged is an international church as we have, not only Hungarians but many people who attend from all corners of the earth (India, Nigeria, Cameroon, Romania, Serbia, etc.)  I was informed 2 weeks ago about how the father of a girl from our church, who is form Cameroon, passed away suddenly. Carine is here in Szeged studying medicine & will finish university this year with a degree in pharmaceutical medicine. She is here with here sister who is also studying at the medical university. when I heard that their father died (he was a believer in Jesus) my heart broke for them because they haven't been home for 5 years because their family didn't have the money to get them home.

I was told about this the saturday before I was to talk about the vision for the church for 2011. the vision God gave me is, "Christ, care, community". Those 3 words have been bouncing around my head for some time now.

Sunday morning I shared this vision. that my desire is that we'd fall more in love with Jesus this year, that we'd live as the community God desires and that we'd show care for our members as it seems things won't get easier in 2011.  when I talked about care I brought up Carine & her sister Louise. I let the church know what happened & to prayerfully consider a generous gift to help get them home to Cameroon for the funeral (which will be around the middle of February). I told the church that this is the perfect time for us to show our love & care for our own.  2 tickets from Budapest to Cameroon cost $3150 (630.000Ft). That might not be a lot for some people but for them & for our church that is a lot of money.

I was hoping we'd be able to put together $1000 (200.000Ft.) to help them get home. well I must say I was put to shame. God moved on people's hearts & His people gave enough money to get them both home for the funeral!!

I bought their tickets today & when I gave them to Carine she was simply overwhelmed at the goodness of God through Golgota Szeged. I told her that "we're family & this is what family does".

After all of this, I am, once again, humbled & honored to serve a great group of people who understand what it means to "love one another".

so, I boast in God because He is great & I boast in His people!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

winter update 2011

Happy New Year! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season and that Jesus was glorified in your celebrations! As we moving into 2011 (which we’re excited about) let us share with you what happened in the last few months of 2010. But before we do that, we want to thank you all for the prayer & support shown to us this past year. We know that the work we’re doing here in Hungary for the Lord is made possible in large part by the sacrifices you make for us & we pray for God’s abundant blessings upon you in the coming year! 


Family 


  As some of you might know, my Dad is retired and has COPD, because of this he decided that he wants to move over here to Szeged to be close to us. So in October I went to CA to help him get things organized and packed & got things going on the sale of his house and we came back to Hungary on October 23rd. My Dad is adjusting well & is enjoying being close to us & especially enjoying being a part of the church here as he is coming to church every week and says that he’s actually being to understand the Bible as I preach it! It has been more responsibility for us to take care of him but we know that this is the Biblical way to “honor your father & mother”, so we’re blessed to have him here, close to us.
  I’ve finished my first semester of college through Calvary Chapel Bible College Europe (working on my B.A. in Theology) and am waiting to hear about my grades. I hope to continue this semester towards the goal of getting a degree in 2013. 
  Odi & I continue to be blessed to be Zara’s Mommy & Daddy. She truly is a gift of God to us & now that she’s walking she’s all over the place!! 


Ministry


  As I’ve written before we have been wanting to get the Golgota Gospel Choir (from CC Budapest) down to Szeged to do a concert. Mark Zeeman, the choir director, called me in the beginning of October saying that they were going to be in our region on December 11th & asked if we’d like them to come do a concert in Szeged. I jumped at the opportunity and the elders & I began planning. We looked into a couple of places to hold the concert & the Lord opened up the door for us to hold the concert at the Szeged Youth/Conference Center, which is a beautiful facility & they gave us their large hall (seats 600) for ½ of what the other places offered to us. So we began looking into advertising. A girl from our church writes for a local online paper & did an article about the concert, the newspaper also gave us a free banner on their homepage. A friend of mine knows someone who works at Szeged’s largest & most popular radio station and set up a meeting for me. They offered to promote the concert for free! Every Sunday night they have a program in which they talk about the cultural events (concerts, exhibits, etc.) in the coming week, so they recorded a short interview with me for the show which would air the Sunday before the concert. Then they asked me to come into their morning show to talk about it. So the Friday before the concert I was driving to the radio station & heard the host say “this hour Kyle Eckhart will be joining us to talk about the Golgota Gospel Concert this Sunday”. That was weird to hear but very cool. When I got there the Lord gave me great grace with the hosts. I thought I would only be there for a short 10-15 block but they wanted me to stay for an hour and a half till the show was over. I jumped at the chance because this morning show is listened to by 10’s of thousands of people in and around Szeged. They asked about the concert, the church & how a guy from California ended up in Szeged. It was a great opportunity to talk about Jesus & they were amazed that you can love Jesus & not be a cold religious person like they are used to here in churches. So if nothing else came out of the concert, this was a great thing. But the concert was successful far beyond what I could have hoped for. About 500 people came to the concert & the Gospel was clearly communicated. The responses I’ve heard from people was that the message really caused them to think about the Lord. Other people can’t wait till the choir comes back again!! So we praise God that the message of the Gospel went for both at the concert & over the radio. And I also praise God that we “broke even” on the concert! 


   Once again we had a midnight Christmas Eve service & once again God drew out many people to hear the message of Christmas. 


2011 


  The elders & I believe that the Lord has great things in store for us in this New Year. With the success of the Christmas Choir concert, this year we’ll be praying / planning about doing another one towards the end of the year. But before that we have a lot on our hearts.
 The major thing God has placed upon our hearts is the need for a greater sense of community in the church. We want to live as a community not just as a place for people to come once or twice a week. To help foster a community we’re going to be investing time in the men’s fellowship, women’s fellowship, and the Thursday night Bible Study group. More than just another gather, we want these to be opportunities for us to do life together & serve God together in our Jerusalem. 
  There are two pretty large cities close to Szeged both about 25km away (Hódmezővásárhely and Makó) in which we’re praying about starting bible studies. These are our Judea & we want to be faithful in reaching out there as well.
  Our rental agreement for our facility ends June 30th. For us the most convenient thing would be to stay but in 2010 we saw a 25% decrease in tithes and offerings. If the landlord wants to raise the rent (& I think he will) then we’re going to be looking at new places to meet.
   Lord willing I’ll finish teaching through the Old Testament this year (hopefully by the end of October). We’ve had a lot of feedback from Hungarian Christians from all over the world that download our messages. There is such a lack of good Christian material in Hungarian & it’s my desire to provide as much as the Lord allows me. 


   With our desire to invest more in the community life of the church & also to start new Bible Studies, it’s going to take time. For the past few years, I’ve been teaching English part time but to do all that God has put on my heart, I’ll have to cut back on teaching, which obviously will create a financial burden for us. That is why we’d like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining in the work we’re doing by financially supporting us. To do so you may click on the “support our ministry” link on our blog (www.kyleodi.blogspot.com - if you're here it's on the left side)


 Prayer requests


 - that we’d walked closer to Jesus this year.
 - that God would use us to build a sense of community in the church. That we’d love others as God loves us. 
 - that we’d have wisdom to raise Zara in the ways of the Lord 
 - that God would lead us in regards to our church rental agreement.
 - for open doors in Hódmezővásárhely and Makó to start Bible studies soon.
 - for financial provision for us & for the church.


In His service,


 Kyle & Odi