Wednesday, February 18, 2015

winter 2015 family & church update

Church stuff

as I sit down to write this newsletter I realize that it was 20 years ago this week that I was making my final preparations to move to Baja, Hungary for 1 year to help at the church there. by the grace of God, that 1 year has now turned into 20 as February 21st marks 20 years of me living & serving Jesus here in Hungary. I am truly amazed and humbled that God allows me to do what I do. I am truly thankful to God & to all of you who have over the years partnered with me through prayer & financial support so that I can be part of what Jesus is doing here in Hungary.

since it’s been a few months since we’ve written, let us share with you what’s been going on with us & in the life of Calvary Chapel Szeged

Once again the members of our church prepared Christmas packages to take to 2 gypsy villages in Romania. This is something that we've been doing for a few years now & we are blessed that we know where the gifts are going. 

Last September we changed up the format of our mid-week Bible study. It was on Wednesday nights that I taught through the Bible. Now that I've taught through the Bible, we felt the Lord leading us to make some changes. Not to fear, we are still teaching the Bible but we're teaching in a rotation. Right now there are 4 of us in the rotation. This has eased the burden on me, as I'm teaching English at a bilingual high school and it allows me to focus more on our Sunday service. We are currently teaching through the life of David. What we've also done is set apart the 3rd Wednesday night of the month for worship, prayer, and communion. We've seen God bless the changes He has led us in.

 The Lord has given me a lot of opportunities to teach in the past & I have a lot in the future. Since April I've been helping, advising, and teaching on a monthly basis at a new independent church plant in a city called Orosháza, which is about 60km from Szeged. The leader of this church & his wife really love Calvary & have reached out to me being the closest Calvary to them. I blessed to be part of what God is doing in this new church plant. 
teaching at the new church plant in Orosháza

 As I've mentioned in the past, we've got a really good relationship with the Szeged Baptist church. The youth group regularly invites me to teach there, which is always a great joy for me. Once again they've asked me to speak at the national youth conference that they are organizing here in Szeged in March. I'll be speaking about what it means to be a "digitally active" Christian. 

 To my great surprise, I've been invited to speak at the Calvary Chapel Scandinavia conference outside of Stockholm, Sweden at the end of July. I'm humbled by the honor to go & teach and see what God is doing in Scandinavia. Turns out the Finnish wife of the organizer used to be a part of our church about 13-14 years ago. 

 Odi continues to lead worship on Sunday  mornings and meets regularly with our worship teams to practice & learn new songs. 

family stuff

 it’s been a hard couple of months for us as a family. Odi’s grandmother, who many of you knew, passed on to Heaven in December. This marked the 3rd hard Christmas for us. We rejoice knowing that Mami is in the presence of the Lord and with those who have gone on before in faith. 

 Right before Christmas Zara came down with the chicken pox and that began a 6 week period where at least one of us were sick. We’re all better now, but it wasn’t fun being sick for so long.

 As we shared back in October, Zara has a curvature in her spine, like Odi. According to the x-Ray, her curvature is already 20 degrees.  At this point the doctor has recommended swimming & physical therapy. Zara is going swimming twice a week with her kindergarten class & we are taking her to physical therapy twice a week. We are trying to do physical therapy with her at home at least 4-5 times a week but it's hard to motivate Zara to do the exercises. Please pray that she would continue to have a good attitude about doing her daily exercise.

Kiera is starting to show signs of having a curved spine so we are starting to do the physical therapy with her as well. 
Zara & Kiera dressed up for the Farsang (Carnival) event at kindergarten

One thing we both know is that we want to avoid putting our kids through the “traditional” forms of treatment for scoliosis. Odi had a brace growing up and it wasn’t helpful at all. Both the orthopedic doctor & the physical therapist support our decision cause they know that movement is more important that a brace. 

God has given both Odi & I opportunities to teach English to help make up what we are lacking in terms of financial support. Odi is teaching at an elementary school & I'm teaching at a bilingual high school. We're thankful that God is providing for us this way & that we have many opportunities to share with co-workers & students. We know that God has us in these schools for a reason!

a request

 I’d like to share a request with everyone. I’ve been in Hungary for 20 years & the senior pastor of Calvary Szeged for 15. Every year I get the invite to the Calvary Chapel senior pastors conference in California. This year the conference is July 6-9. I’ve never been able to go but I would really, really like to go, be encouraged & connect with many of the pastors in the Calvary movement. A plane ticket for me to go to the conference is $1500. Would you pray about helping make it possible for me to make it out to the conference this year? if you would like to make a financial donation to help make this happen you can follow one of the 2 links below. thank you so much!!

prayer points

 - for God’s blessing & provision upon our family
 - for wisdom in dealing with the kids health issues
 - for God’s blessing & anointing as I speak at different churches / events
 - for God’s blessing upon Calvary Szeged
 - that God would continue to use us & Calvary Szeged as lights in this wonderful city
 - for God’s provision for me to make it to the senior pastors conference in CA this year.

support the work

if you'd like to support the work we're doing here at Calvary Szeged you can do so by sending your tax deductible donates through either Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa or Calvary Chapel Vista


 here is the info through Calvary Chapel Vista on their website. you can give here (http://www.calvaryvista.com/give-2/) you just need to follow the process and when it asks for the donations put the amount in the "missions" box and in the memo note that it's for "Kyle & Odi Eckhart in Szeged, Hungary". They then will get that to us with our regular monthly support the beginning of each month.

 through Calvary Costa Mesa, you can give here (https://www.easytithe.com/f/?k=6SSHN0DEHB4KG6DH) all you need to do here is go down the scroll down list to my name and the money will be sent to us.

thank you for prayerfully considering this!


 blessings,

kyle, odi, zara, kiera