January 2025 Prayer Letter

 Dear Praying Friends,

 

January is always a busy month of planning and vision meetings for the new year. We are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for 2025. But let me back up and bring you up to date on the past 2 months.

 

TV interview:

In November one of Hungary’s national TV stations interviewed me and some of our members for one of their religious shows. It ended up as a 10-minute portion of the program describing the founding of Focus Church. The reporter was Catholic, but I felt like he did a great job presenting our vision and ministry in a positive light. It is always hard to know how many people actually watch the broadcast, but we were thankful for this opportunity to introduce our church and vision in a broader way. You can have a look at the show by clicking on this link: 

Advent outreach:

We held an outreach event in December targeting the families of our summer English camp participants. We invited them to a “family advent evening” of games, crafts, songs and a Gospel message. We were very pleased with the turnout. It is our goal to have more than just the one point of contact with these families over the course of the year. 

Advent outreach

Family news:

From December 20-January 3^rd, we made a quick trip to the US to be with family for Christmas. We always treasure these times we have together, especially when we have all four of our kids and grandchildren together at the same time! We were not able to stay long enough to be there for the birth of our third granddaughter. Our daughter Nancy gave birth to Verity Elise Wood on January 20^th. We are so thankful for her safe birth, and she is certainly a beautiful baby. We are enjoying the pictures and video calls now, and hope to see her in person during our Spring break. 

Nancy and Verity

 

A look ahead:

• January 26^th is Vision Sunday at Focus Church. We have exciting plans for the new year and look forward to sharing them with the church.  
• February 6^th I will be cohosting a “church-planting open house” with about 15 young Hungarian pastors to share with them a vision for church planting in Hungary. 
• February 21-23 we will be holding a retreat for church-planting couples at a hotel in Tokaj, Hungary. These are Hungarian couples who are already involved in church plants. The goal will be to not only express appreciation for their faithful service, but also to encourage them in the ministry. 

 

We value your prayers and financial support.

 

Marc and Charin