A Certain Woman in Eastern Europe

. I am enjoying some beautiful weather, sweet times and family celebrations here in my home time. Johnstown is a colonial town situated in the foothills of the Adirondacks about 50 miles northwest of Albany, New York. Here is a picture of me and mom, my brothers Jack, David and Jim and my sister Kathi and a picture of our family home. More updates next week from "home" in Hungary.

What a nice surprise on an otherwise rather overcast, normal day. Early this morning we were blessed to see 10 hot air balloons over our house. As we do not get the local paper because we can not understand it 100% :-). We were surprised rather than prepared. I wonder why they flew today, is it in preparation for a bigger event and one I would LOVE to attend? We do have a calendar of events for this year. September was Debrecen Jazz Days, October is the Autumn Auto Exhibition and Cultural Days. In case you could visit :-), November is Debrecen Days of Literature and December brings us a 2 day celebration as farewell to the old and welcoming the new, complete with a national band concert, and fireworks in the beautiful town square. Wish you were here for that!! I guess the hot air balloons are just an October extra!

In England, Brian Mills promoted the concept of prayer triplets, where believers came together in threes, each in turn bringing three other names to pray for. Prior to the Billy Graham and Luis Palau campaigns in England in the late 80’s, prayer triplets were active across Britain, and many were coming to faith in Jesus even before the campaigns had started! Prayer walking was an activity we engaged in as YWAMers back in the 70’s, walking through neighbourhoods and cities, praying quietly for God’s Kingdom to come among families, in schools, in businesses, in government buildings and in police stations and so on. It was not such a broadly practised concept in those days. However it led directly to the Marches for Jesus, firstly in London in the late 80’s, then jumping across the Channel to the continent, and eventually going worldwide. These events were called at the time ‘the longest prayer meetings in history’ - sometimes kilometres long! The global climax was on June 25, 1994, then ...

THINK FOR A MOMENT OF HOW MANY TYPES OF PRAYER INITIATIVES THERE HAVE BEEN IN RECENT YEARS. RIGHT NOW, FOR EXAMPLE, WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RAMADAN PRAYER SEASON FOR THE MUSLIM WORLD. HAS THERE EVER BEEN A TIME IN HISTORY WHERE SO MANY FOLLOWERS OF JESUS HAVE PRAYED FOR THE WORLD’S MUSLIMS? And has there ever been a time in history where God has been at work among Muslims in such a sovereign way, revealing himself to seekers through dreams and visions? I sometimes wonder what some of the old 17th century Puritan leaders would think if they could see what was happening in the world today. As they read their Bibles, they saw many promises as yet unfulfilled, concerning what God wanted to do in the world. They understood that these promises would only be come true when God’s people prayed. They held on to scriptures that talked of the glory of the Lord covering the earth as the waters covered the sea (Hab. 2:14); or that all the nations would come and worship before God (Ps. 86:.9). T...

Jim & Tanya Person, Bethany & Jennifer Person, Kata Bartha, Erin Barrett, Tiana Person, Edith Bond, Mary Jill, and David Person on the occasion of the concert in Szeged. Don't you just love the before picture? So, David how do you feel about being ....one teenage boy! :-) in the midst of all those females!

We sadly said goodbye to our dear roomate Tammy and waved her off this morning when she headed back to her "other home" in Ukraine. Here she is at 6.30am working on my computer whom we are calling Lazurus as it was dead and has now recovered (PRAY!) We were so blessed by her visit. Since she mostly lives in a typical Ukraine home with three generations (and three little boys under the age of 3) she seldom gets a chance to cook and she never has wireless connection so.... when she is "home" in Debrecen she sets up shop in the kitchen and enjoys! We sure enjoyed too, as she tried out new and old recipes on us (and our guests). The refrig is packed full of interesting leftovers and looks like a "mom" lives here :-). Safe trip and hurry back, Tammy! You can check her blog at www.tswailes.blogspot.com Here we are celebrating Pastor Ed's birthday. Edith made a great carrot cake and Tammy made her special pasta with fresh basil from the garden while I set th...

Well, it was a pretty good success. We did learn some things...like 2 o'clock on a brilliantly sunny day is too early to start a concert :-) the free drinks and sandwiches should not be available at all times God can fill in our "gaps" in really cool ways! One of the surprises God did was have a beautiful young Hungarian woman sing Psalm 84 accappela. She did it in the traditional folk style and blessed us with 3 encores. So, we had a Croation group doing anti-drug rock & roll, a Debrecen group doing hip-hop and rap, the Hungarian folk singer and very anointed praise and worship in the evening. The evening concert was the best attended as the sun had set :-). The Holy Spirit was at work all day as we had a number of divine appointments, the sweetness of old friends meeting together, dramatic testimonies, a deaf ear healed and many people prayed for. We also "understood" more of the gospels. When crowds gathered and Jesus fed spiritually some gathered also b...

Time for coffee, recap and a little time to play....