January 2019 Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Friends,

Here is our latest prayer letter. You will find a copy suitable for printing in the attachment.

Family News:

Our biggest news is that our oldest daughter Nancy got engaged during the Christmas holidays. We are very excited! She has been dating her fiancé, Keith Wood, for about three years now. Interestingly, Keith’s parents are missionaries in Germany, and like Nancy, Keith grew up on the mission field. They have both graduated from Trinity Baptist College in Jacksonville, Florida, and Keith is currently working at the college in the admissions department. Nancy works at a local credit union and continues to work on developing her writing career. The wedding will take place on April 22^ndin Jacksonville, so we will make a quick trip back to the States for the wedding. Please pray for the preparations to go well and for a great, Christ-honoring celebration!

Esztergom:

December was a tremendous month at our church in Esztergom. We had a new family of five begin attending. They are believers who have been looking for a church home. They seem excited and have already plugged into a small group. We also had a university student from Budapest begin attending. He is a classmate of one of our young people. He is not yet saved but is definitely seeking the Lord. I have begun meeting with him weekly, and Lord willing, we will see him saved soon and also be able to plug him into our Budapest church plant when we get started there. 

Preparation for Budapest:

Preparation for our church plant in Budapest has been picking up momentum. Several new people have expressed interest in joining the church plant. We currently have a group of eight from our church in Esztergom. We also have thirteen others who either live or study in Budapest. Eight members of the core group are university students in Budapest. One of our goals in planting the church is to reach out to the university students, as we know that they are the future leaders of Hungary. These eight young people should give us a good open door into university ministry. On February 23^rdwe will be gathering the whole team for the first time. This will be an all-day event where we will share vision, get to know each other, discuss plans and spend intensive time in the Word, worship and prayer. Please pray that God will form us into a cohesive unit who can work well together to build His kingdom in Budapest. In March we would like to begin holding regular mid-week meetings to build the core group and spend time in prayer together. Please pray that we will find the best location for these meetings. Rent in downtown Budapest in not cheap!

Let me close by expressing our gratitude for your prayers and support throughout this past year. We could not do what we are doing without your help. 2018 was a great year of ministry, and we are looking forward to even greater things in 2019!

Marc

Nancy and Keith

Some of our church planting team