A Certain Woman in Eastern Europe

Have you been to London to see the queen? .....No, but it would have been a good time to do that as she is now celebrating 60 years of marriage. Congratulations to her and Prince Phillip on their 60th, Roger and Joyce Bullard on their 50th and LaVere and Beth Soper on their 40th, and today, Rhon and Kit Duke's 37(?)th actually 40!!!. Let's here it for looooooong, faithful successful marriages! Actually, I have been on planes, and trains, and have put many miles/kilometers on the car since last I blogged. Also, have upgraded to a new laptop which is a huge blessing but also slows me down a little with the differences, etc. Life has been full of all good things and many great reports. In Johnstown, mom is doing well after a short stay in the hospital that showed her to be in tip top shape (except for that pain that put her there). In Debrecen church life, we have first hand reports of a miracle healing from severe allergies, and healing from persistent leg pains due to vein probl...

. 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....

Arden has been up for hours still working on the power points for worship. It was a very ambitious project translating 3 bands songs into english. The group from Croatia sent 19 songs. One song took 6 slides! It is sunny out whic is a huge blessings - it has been cold and rainy for the last 2 days. Kata just sms'd (texted) this to me...."How wonderful to be in Szeged today with u and the rest of the team. Wherever u r, u bring me the feeling of home and belonging! Szeretlek! (I love you!)Kata Life is sweet and the coffee and so much more..awaits...

What a GREAT time we had tonight at ICF. The presence of the Lord was so sweet and Erik is doing a great job leading us into worship. Tonight he used the mic and amplifier as he played the guitar and it was much easier to follow along with the songs. We did get the projector to work with my laptop so that was good. We were going to do an abbreviated version of our time together so that everyone could help us make 200 sandwiches and still leave by 9. Jim was going to speak but they didn't get here until late because of the traffic in and around Budapest. After worship and fellowship we gathered in a circle and just shared what/how God was using us this week. One of the univ students shared a portion of scripture (John 12.1-8) that had really helped her this week in a practical way. We all discussed that and prayed together for some people God was reaching out to this week. Then Erik played again a new/old worship song "Father we ask". It is a song about healing our land an...

Edith and I drove down to Szeged on Thursday to help Arden with all the preparations. We have had time for planning and then the practical - a trip to the "Metro" (local wholesaler) because every good Hungarian event includes a "buffet". We are preparing sandwiches (sonka, sajt és paprikas) ham, cheese and peppers and drinks for donations. While Edith and I were busy in the kitchen, Arden was preparing the putting all the worship songs on to power point slides. Every song was translated and we will project on one screen English and on another screen Hungarian. More of the "team" arrives tonight and we will have the second (unannounced) "Friday at 7" meeting. Tomorrow at the concert, we will announce the official start up, next Friday, October 5. Thanks for your prayers.

Well, we had our first "practice" as we met in our rented room on Friday. We knew we needed time to adjust from a living room situation to a public service. We are still working out a few things, like the projector BUT God met with us and we had a new girl meet with us that no one knew. That sure encouraged us. It turns out the new medical student attended the Reform Church where we rent and the pastor told her about the english service on Friday evenings. He has been a real blessing to us already. For this first unannounced attempt, we had 12 in attendance, from 7 different nations. The room can hold 200, so we have plenty of room to grow. :-) It is so satisfying to see a dream, or vision begin to come into plain sight. I think too, of the scripture in Zechariah 4.10a For who has despised the day of small things? For they shall rejoice.... We will "practice" again on Friday eve and this Saturday - 29th is our big concert. Please pray for us that all goes well to t...

Sunday, we (International Church of Debrecen) were part of baptism service with a local Hungarian congregation. A member of our church Pablo is shown here giving his testimony and being baptised. Our Pastor, Ed Courtney having the honour. Pablo fled from Castro's Cuba in 1999. He settled with his sister and her family in Slovakia. In 2002 he made a trip to Hungary and was denied access back into Slovakia and has lived as a refugee here. When asked why he was in Hungary he used to reply, "I don't know, it is a mistake". Now, he replies, "God wanted me to know Him, and to know the power of the Gospel." Next, Pablo wanted to follow Christ's example and be baptised. Pablo is now waiting to return to Cuba and tell his family about Jesus, which is a real change of heart. Please, keep him in your prayers as he goes through the process to get permission to return. Thank you. This was a great time as young and "older" got baptised. I especially enjoyed ...

We are enjoying having our roomate Tammy here this week. She lives in Zhitomir, Ukraine most of the time, but we are blessed when she, Edith and I are all in residence at the same time. You can check out Tammy's blog by looking at "Certain Friends" on the left column of this blog. Her blog name in INSTE. Here are some photos of us enjoying our yard and harvesting our walnuts. Notice Edith's lovely garden and the new house next door.

Last March on our first prayer walk in Szeged we stood at an important intersection and asked God to bring down the occultic and witchcraft high places in Szeged. As we lifted our eyes we noticed hanging from a nearby building, 2 bronze figures, one a witch, the second a warlock. We prayed at the same corner last weekend and look - no figures!! In fact, they were removed within weeks of our first prayer walk!! Yeah God!! While in Szeged, one of our young team members, David shared that he had been asking the Lord for a guitar so he could learn to play and help with the music for "Friday at 7". Well, Erik one of our university student leaders from Sweden had an extra so.... We thank you God for answering David's prayer and so quickly. I was so blessed to go to Budapest last weekend and be at the International Church when Pastor Glenn Ford preached on his first Sunday back in the pulpit after a 7 month battle with throat cancer. His voice was strong and anointed as he spoke...