Praise God for such a wonderful Sunday!  After a delicious breakfast, we hosted a traditional Sunday morning worship service for the Hungarian students and families.  There is no established church in Hegyesd (the village outside of Tapolca where we are serving). So this was the perfect opportunity to show an example of a Christian church service and preach the true gospel of salvation by grace, through faith, and not by works.  We were overjoyed to see the turnout.  Bence Stark, one of the advanced students, brought his whole family.  I was humbled to see Dorina, one of my intermediate students, show up without even a means of getting home. We also had the pleasure of meeting two new students and a translator who will be joining us for the second week of camp.

After summarizing the past week’s camp sermons for the parents, Josh dug in to John 10:7-18. This was a continuation of how Jesus describes himself.  In John 10:9, Jesus says “I am the door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”  Josh went on to debunk many common presuppositions regarding Christianity, particularly salvation.  Jesus is not a ladder, requiring us to cleanse ourselves to a certain degree before gaining salvation.  It would be completely fair and just for Jesus to act as a wall, preventing us from reaching heaven because of our fallen nature.  However, we have been justified through Christ’s sacrifice, giving us the opportunity for salvation.  Also, Jesus does not say he is a window, showing us a view of paradise without any means of reaching it.  Jesus is a door.  He protects us from spiritual forces of evil and offers entrance into salvation, life with God, heaven, and eternal peace.

We have many exciting praises and prayer requests to share. Pray that the Lord would work in the hearts of those who heard His gospel message at church today and encourage them to step through the door of salvation. Praise God for continuing to watch over and provide for us.  Everyone on the team is healthy and well rested after a nice long weekend. Josh finally got his long awaited pork trotter at dinner today. It has been a week long process searching out his favorite Hungarian meal. We were also blessed to share dinner with Larina, who will join us as an additional translator for next week.  Pray that the Lord would work through her dialogue with the students during small groups after chapel. Lastly, pray that we would continue  to serve the Lord with enthusiasm, remaining open to the students and ready to share the work God has done in our lives. We can’t wait to see what God has in store for us and the students in this final week.

There is a lot of preparation ahead of us, especially for Thursday’s parent night, but we are excited to hear the ideas the students have for skits and other activities that will show what they have learned. We look forward to sharing the hope God provides with the parents when we meet them Thursday. None of this would be possible without His power! Thank you all so much for your prayerful support of God’s work here in Hungary.

In Christ,

Nathan C.