August prayer letter

July 27, 2015

Dear Friends,

July was one of the hottest months we have ever had here in Hungary, with record breaking high temperatures.  It was also a busy, fruitful month in our churches. Thankfully, the Lord can work whether it rains or shines!

English Camp in Esztergom:

July 13-17 we held our English Camp in Esztergom. We had about 70 children attend in the mornings and about 30 teens and adults in the evening. This was our biggest attendance ever. With the help of 15 American volunteers here for the week, everything went very smoothly. We had a closing ceremony on Friday where the children showed what they had learned. 50-60 parents and grandparents were in attendance, and I was able to bring a brief Gospel message. We also had about 10 visitors return to our service on Sunday. Please join us in prayer that we will see at least one family reached through this year’s camp.

VBS in Nagysap:

We simultaneously held our VBS in Nagysap. Gergo and Rose Simon  organized that, and about half of the American team went to Nagysap every day to help out. They averaged about 15 children each day over the course of the week. They also had a Wednesday evening service for adults and teens and had a good attendance and spirit. Please pray for the work in Nagysap, that we would see real growth and consistency in the lives of those who attend.

Baptismal Service in Tata:

July 19^th we held a baptismal service at our church in Tata. We were pleased to baptise three adults. Sandor and Szilvia Galamb are a wonderful young couple with three children. They were invited to our church by church members about 2 ½ years ago. They were drawn by both the preaching and the loving fellowship that they saw and experienced. The Lord led them both to repentance and faith, and they were both pleased to make a public profession of their faith in Christ. Andrea Szabo was from a very strong Catholic background, but through various circumstances became disillusioned with the church. Our first contact with her was about 6 years ago at a special evangelistic rally. She attended sporadically for several years, and then made a decision to commit herself to the Lord during the past year. Please pray for her also to stand firmly in the faith.

Building project in Tata:

We have made good progress on the building project in Tata. Our men finished the pouring of the foundation and concrete slab on July 17^th. After the baptismal service on July 19^th, we had a short service “laying the cornerstone,” which is a tradition here in Hungary. We placed a list of church members, a picture of the church family, a signed decision to build and several other items in a box and sealed it into the foundation of the building.

This past week the prefabricated walls of the building were also put together. There will be a brief break as we have a teen camp and outreach camp the next two weeks, then the work on the roof will begin. Please do pray for wisdom and safety during the project. Our men are doing much of the work themselves. Please pray also for the needed funds to complete the building. Our goal is to be in it by the end of October.

Thank you for your prayers and faithful support!

                                                                       

Serving for His Glory,

                                                                       

                                                                        Marc, Charin, Nancy, Ben, Esther and Hannah Patton

English Camp in Esztergom

English Camp in Esztergom

Baptismal Service Tata

Baptismal Service Tata

Baptismal Service Tata

New building in Tata

New building in Tata

July 2015

Dear Friends,

Summer is here, and we are enjoying the change of pace. Nancy and Ben are home and we are grateful that we can have our whole family together for a few weeks. Summer is also a busy time for our ministry. Here is an update.

Summer Day Camp in Tata:

June 22-26 we held our day camp in Tata. This is one of our biggest outreach events of the year. We had about 30 children participate. The majority of the children are from families in the community who are not believers. It is a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel and build relationships. It is always great to see our church members in Tata band together to make this week a success. Many take time off of work so they can participate. Please pray that we will see fruit that remains.

Family Camp in Slovakia:

June 30-July 4 our church in Esztergom held its annual Family Camp in Pribylina, Slovakia. The conference center is located in the High Tatra Mountains of northern Slovakia. It is a beautiful location that reminds us of the majesty of our great God. It was a special joy to have Istvan Lados as our special speaker of the week. Istvan is a young pastor who married a girl who grew up in our church. It was a joy to spend the week with them and see how the Lord is using them. Istvan brought some powerful messages, and the Lord spoke to hearts. Many gave testimonies at our campfire service of what the Lord did in their lives. It was a special joy to see one of our teenage girls make a profession of faith. We have been praying specifically for her salvation for the past several months.

Building News:

Good news! We did finally receive our building permit in Tata. The work began this past week with the demolition of the back section of our current building. We will have pictures and an update in the near future. Please do pray for the remaining funds to come in. Our goal is still to have the new auditorium completed and ready for use by the end of October!

Upcoming Events and Prayer Requests:

1. July 13-17 – Our annual English Camp in Esztergom and VBS in Nagysap.

2. July 19 – Baptismal Service in Tata.

3. July 27-31 – Day Camp for Teens in Tata.

Thank you for your prayers!

Marc

Day Camp in Tata

Family Camp in Slovakia

Building Project in Tata

June 2015

Dear Friends,

Preaching and Teaching Opportunities:

The Lord gave me several opportunities to speak in other venues over the past two months. On April 24^th I preached to about 100 Baptist pastors at the annual meeting of the Hungarian Baptist Union. I was asked to speak on  the theme: “I Believe in Preaching.” Hopefully it was an inspiration to the pastors to preach with conviction and Holy Spirit power.

April 27-30 I taught at the Word of Life Hungary Bible Institute. I teach a 10 hour class on the Christian Family to the second year students. I had 20 students from a number of different countries. It is my prayer that the class will help them not only build their own families on a firm foundations, but be able to teach others as they move on into ministries of their own. I also had the opportunity to preach to the entire staff and student body in chapel.

On May 16^th I taught a class on Homiletics at the Szunergosz Bible Institute in Budapest. The students were very receptive, and I trust that the class will help them become effective communicators of God’s Word.

Esztergom:

The big event in Esztergom was a baptismal service held on May 24^th. Benjamin Dobi is a 21 year old young man who was reached through our youth ministry. Benjamin is very bright, but mildly autistic. It has been remarkable to see the transformation in his life over the past two years. Benjamin gave a wonderful testimony of his salvation and his commitment to follow the Lord. Rebeka Body is the daughter of Bulcsu Body. You may remember Bulcsu is our deacon who became very ill several years ago and is now an invalid. Rebeka has been in our church since she was an infant and was saved during last year’s English camp. It is great to see how the Lord is using our children’s ministry, youth ministry and special events such as our English camp to bring people to Christ!

Not only were these two baptised, but we also received six others into the church membership. We are thankful for the Dorka family who began attending our church about a year ago. They have been believers for a number of years, but had gone through some very difficult times in their family and had been looking for a church home. It has been great to see the Lord bring healing to their lives over the past year, and we were glad to add them to our church family. We were also glad to bring Rachel Csiha officially into our church family. We are thankful for Marci and Rachel’s ministry with us in Esztergom and Nagysap.

Tata Update:

We are still waiting on our building permit in Tata. It has been promised with specific dates several times, but there always seems to be one more signature missing, or one more hurdle to get over. Please pray that the building permit will come through soon! We received several more gifts toward the building expenses – one very significant, so we are very grateful for that. Please continue to pray for the needed funds to come in.  All monetary gifts can be sent to our mission board and designated for “Hungary Building Project.”

Nagysap:

We have had several positive developments at our church plant in Nagysap as well. Our team moved the main service from Sunday mornings to Wednesday evenings, and that brought an improvement in attendance. They also just launched a course called “Christianity Explored,” which is an eight week overview of the Christian faith. They had their first meeting last week and had 26 in attendance with several adult visitors. Please pray that these visitors would continue through the entire course and that several would be saved. We are thankful for the faithfulness and hard work of our team.

Family news:

Nancy and Ben finished their first year of college. We are really please with how well they did with their school work, jobs and ministry involvement. Ben’s health has also been gradually improving, for which we are grateful. They are going to work for a few more weeks and then fly back to Hungary on June 23^rd. We can hardly wait to see them again! Esther and Hannah (and Charin) have a few more weeks of school. Hannah will be graduating from 8^th grade on June 13^th. Thank you for your prayers!

Dear Friends,

 

We have had several big events during the past month, and I would like to take moment to bring you up to date.

 

Marriage Retreat:

We ended up with a total of 12 couples attending our couples retreat March 20-22. The Lord gave us wonderful weather and a good spirit. Our theme this year was on childrearing. I think we were able to give some good, practical, Bible-based advise on this vital subject. We had five couples attend who don’t yet have children, so I had Charin do one separate session for them on how to prepare for your first child. We knew two couples were expecting, but since then two more couples have announced the good news. So it was a practical and well-needed addition to the other sessions!

 

Genesis Choir:

We had a homeschool choir of about 30 young people from New Jersey sing for us on the weekend of March 27-28. We were very blessed by the quality of the singing and their good spirit. Charin teaches English three days a week at two nearby elementary schools, so she was able to arrange for the choir to perform for several hundred of the students and teachers. The school was very impressed. Although the choir did primarily American folk songs in the school, they also worked in a couple of Gospel songs and a powerful pantomime presentation on the crucifiction. One teacher was so impressed, she brought her entire family to our church to hear the choir again in the evening. We are praying for lasting fruit. 

 

Mark Drama: Thank you for praying for our special Easter Outreach. It was awesome! We did two presentations of the Mark Drama. The first was at our church in Esztergom on Easter Sunday evening. We had a full house without a single empty seat. I counted 50-60 visitors in attendance. The presentation itself went very well. The drama is a powerful presentation of the Gospel of Mark which ends with the crucifiction and resurrection of Christ. It was obvious that many were moved by the presentation, and we got a lot of positive feedback from the visitors.

 

On Monday evening we did a second presentation at the Community Center in the nearby town of Tat. This is the town where we live. We had another good turnout with about 90 in attendance and another 30 visitors. We were very pleased that a couple of our neighbors came. Charin also had four teachers from her school in attendance. The drama not only had a powerful effect on those who attended, but also on the 16 church members who performed. It was very enlightening to step back in time and try to bring the Gospel story to life. Most of the performers enjoyed it so much they want to do it again! We invited all the visitors back to our church. We had five visitors in church the following Sunday. We are encouraging our people to follow up on those who attended and are praying again for fruit that remains.

 

A Prayer for Unity:

The situation I mentioned last month has not yet been resolved. Although it is not really in the forefront, it sometimes cast a shadow over what we are doing. Please continue to pray for a resolution, so that we can move forward with full unity in our church. 

 

Tata Update:

We are still waiting on our building permit in Tata. Progress is being made, but the permit has to work its way through the system. Please pray for the permit to be approved so that we can begin the building project during the month of May. Please continue to pray for the needed funds. We had a supporting church contact us after our last letter to say that they would be taking up a special offering toward this need. We are thankful for each gift and believe that it is an investment in eternity.

 

Family news:

Our older kids, Nancy and Ben are finishing up their first year of college with just three more weeks to go.  They will be staying for another month to work a bit before coming home the end of June. We are really looking forward to seeing them again.  Ben has had some health issues that landed him in the hospital for a couple of days last month.  The doctors are still not sure what is causing his muscle pain, swelling  and rashes. We would appreciate prayers for his complete return to health.

Marc 

                                                                   Marriage Retreat

                                                               Genesis Choir in Dorog

                                                             Mark Drama in Esztergom

                                           Mark Drama in Tat