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
Mark Drama in Tat
No comments:
Post a Comment