November 2020 Prayer Letter

                                                                                     Focus Church:

We are so blessed to be meeting at our new location and have had visitors come every week. Despite the resurgence of the Covid outbreak in Hungary, we continue to have good attendances at our services - often 60-70 which equals or exceeds our pre-Covid numbers. 

 

We have also had several special weekends at Focus Church. The first was a baptismal service held on September 20th. We were excited to baptize Barbie Toth. This was our first baptismal service since our launch, so it will always have a special place in our hearts. We pray that we will see many more baptisms follow in the next few years!

 

The second was a weekend retreat that we held October 9-11 at a conference center near Lake Balaton. We had 38 attend the weekend and had three main services focusing on three different themes: vision, surrender and evangelism. There was a lot of free time for sports, games and fellowship. Several non-members also joined us for the weekend, and I think they are drawing closer to the church.

 

The third special weekend had a focus on spiritual gifts. We had 13 of our members join us for an all day training on this subject. It was great to see the openness and desire of our people to learn and grow in this area, and also their desire for the Lord to use them in ministry. 

 

Esztergom Baptist Church

These have been busy days at our church in Esztergom as well. In September we had two weddings. Then in October we had a baptismal service. I rejoiced to baptize Adam Kruska. He is a young man of 18. It is hard to believe that I also did his baby dedication 18 years ago!

 

We have begun the search for a new pastor, and Lord willing, we will have two prospective pastors meet with our leadership team during the month of November. I can see potential in either one of them. We are trusting that the Lord will bring us the right man in his timing. Would you pray with us to that end?

 

Family news:

The big family news is the birth of our first grandchild. Ben and Kelsi welcomed their daughter Wonder Ellie Patton on October 29th. We are so excited! We will have to wait a few months to meet her in person, but we are looking forward to enjoying this new stage of life!

Prayer Letter - September 2020

We are back!

We arrived back in Hungary on August 27th, and after a week quarantine and two negative Covid tests, it has been great to get back into the ministry here once again.

 

Furlough News:

Our six weeks in the States were a whirlwind of travelling and visiting family, friends, supporters and potential supporters. I had booked a busy schedule, and we were wondering how much the Covid situation would affect our travels. It is quite remarkable that we made it to every one of our 28 scheduled commitments! We also spent quality time with our stateside family members and were able to get Hannah settled at Cedarville University. She is already in her fourth week of classes and is adjusting well. 

 

We praise the Lord that six new supporters joined our team and two others increased our support. We are praying that in the next couple of months we will see a few more partner with us.

 

New location for Focus Church Budapest

Shortly before our furlough, we were informed that we would need to find a new location for our church in Budapest. God has been faithful to provide for us, and we will soon be meeting in a large coffee shop just a 6 minute drive from our current building. The coffee shop has a large room that can seat about 100 where we will hold our worship services. It also has the main coffee shop area which we will use for fellowship and the children, and there is one smaller room that we can use for prayer and counseling.

 

Although the total area is smaller than where we have been, the coffee shop is in a much better location. It has a subway stop and a stop for one of the major trolleys. There is also a sizable public parking lot nearby with free parking. Across the street is a huge public park with a playground, basketball courts, tennis courts and a lot of open space. A few days ago, Charin and I walked around the park praying for the people who live in the area. It was great to see young people, young families and even older people taking advantage of the beautiful weather. We're already imagining holding a summer day camp in the park next summer. We will have our first service in the new location on September 27th, and we can hardly wait!

 

Prayer Requests:

For the time being, we are still pastoring our two churches and have a very busy few weeks ahead. We will have baptismal services in both churches. We also have two weddings scheduled. Our Vertical Church Conference is coming up this weekend (Sept 11-12). Please pray for strength and the Lord’s blessing on all these events! We are also beginning the search for a new pastor for our church in Esztergom. Please pray for wisdom, unity and the Lord’s leadership to be clear. Your prayers as important. Thanks for standing with us.

Marc Patton

Visit with my parents

Montázs Art Café - New Location

July 2020

Relaunch of in-person ministry:

On May 31^st we were able to reopen both of our churches for worship services. It has been great to have the churches up and running again. We started out with about 50% of our regular attendance, but by now most of our people have returned. 

Focus Church Budapest

It has been exciting to see first-time visitors every Sunday since we reopened the church. Several said that they began watching the livestream during the lockdown. A number of these visitors have returned for a second or third visit. Several are unsaved, so we are praying for their salvation. It is great to see how the Lord used the lockdown to get us to livestream, and then used the livestream to increase our outreach.  

On June 21^st we had a special service to welcome 10 new members into the church. Two are young couples. The rest are single young adults. We now have 40 members. It is exciting to see how the Lord is building His church.  

Transition in Esztergom:

On July 5^th I announced to our church in Esztergom that I would be stepping down as pastor sometime in the next year. This came as a shock to many, and many tears were shed. As we helped found the church in 1995, and I have been the lead pastor since 1998, for many of our people, I am the only pastor they have ever had. I will help lead the church through this transition period, as we seek a new pastor to take over the church. The goal would be to turn the church over by June 2021 at the latest. At that point we will be able to turn our attention fully to our new church in Budapest. We will also be planning to move to Budapest at that time, so we will need to sell our house and look for an apartment in Budapest. Please pray for the church and for us during this transition time!

Summer furlough:

Lord willing, we will be in the US from July 14-August 26^th. One purpose will be to get Hannah settled at Cedarville University in Ohio. Another purpose will be to raise some much-needed additional support, so we are already working on setting up meetings with both churches and individuals. Of course, we will be getting around to visit our family as well. Obviously, there is still a lot of uncertainty in regard to international travel, but God is good, and He knows when and where we need to be! 

We are currently finalizing the design for our new prayer card and also preparing a new ministry video. We will pass these along to you as soon as they are ready. Hopefully we will see some of you in the next few weeks. If we can’t meet with you in person, we would be happy to set up a time to talk over Skype, Messenger or Zoom. Thank you for your prayers!

May 2020 Prayer Letter

Ministry under lockdown:

What a unique time of life and ministry this has been for all of us! Thankfully our “lockdown,” which began March 16, is slowly winding down. We hope to reopen both of our churches on May 31^st. We are grateful for the Lord’s goodness to us throughout this time. 

Focus Church Budapest

It has been amazing to see the resilience of our church in Budapest. Considering that we were only six months post-launch, it has been amazing to see how the church has continued to hold together during this challenging time.  Here are a few blessings:

1) Our media team jumped into action and had a livestream up and running in time for our first Sunday under lockdown. Since then we have added equipment, purchased programming, added team members and seen the quality continuing to improve. It is our plan to continue the livestream even after we are back to regular services.

2) The livestream itself has given us outreach to people we may have never reached otherwise. We are receiving steady reports from our members about their friends and relatives who have been watching the livestream. Please pray with us that we will see many of these come to church as soon as they are able.

3) Our small groups moved online and continued through this time. Essentially all of our university students moved back home because their studies were moved online, dorms were closed, etc., but because we were using Zoom or Messenger video calls, they could still stay in touch with their small groups. In fact, one of our gals was an exchange student in Italy, and she has been faithfully attending her small group from there. J

4) One other blessing is that the offerings have stayed strong and even increased a bit during this time. Our people moved seamlessly to online giving. 

One thing we did notice was the difference between our very young church in Budapest, and our slightly older church in Esztergom. Our Budapest church handled the move to online ministry much more smoothly. Things were more challenging in Esztergom, where especially the older generation struggled with connecting to livestreams, Zoom calls, etc.

Esztergom Baptist Church

Our church in Esztergom is still a bit behind the curve. We have been doing a simple livestream using my cell phone, but we are just now getting a team together and buying equipment to get a better livestream up and running. Because we were unable to continue our small groups online, I began streaming a Bible Study on Thursday evenings to replace the small groups. Overall the church has done well. Offerings in Esztergom have also been hitting budget. Some of our older people couldn’t figure out online giving, so they would ask me to drive by and pick up their tithes. This did give me an opportunity for a brief visit with them at the door. J Another positive is that in Esztergom we also saw many non-believers watching our livestreams, so we were thankful for that!

Family News:

One of the blessings during this crisis has been more time with the family. With all of our extra meetings and conferences cancelled, I was actually home every weekend for 2 months. That has not happened in a long time! There have been four of us at home during this time. Charin teaches in the public schools, and with the schools all moved online, she has been working from home primarily preparing and uploading videos for her students. Hannah ended up finishing her senior year of high school online. The students only went into school to do their final exams, and she just finished her last one yesterday. There was no graduation ceremony for her, but we tried to make it a special day and celebrate as a family. We also have 21-year-old Betty Pasztor living with us, whose parents passed away a few years ago. Our other kids are doing well with Nancy and Keith in California, Ben and Kelsi in Zanzibar, Africa and Esther in Florida. 

Summer furlough:

Current plans would have us in the US from July 14-August 26^th. One purpose will be to get Hannah settled into college at Cedarville University in Ohio. Another purpose will be to raise some much-needed additional support, so we are already working on setting up meetings with both churches and individuals. Of course, we will be getting around to visit our family as well. Obviously, there is still a lot of uncertainty in regard to international travel, but God is good, and He knows when and where we need to be! Thanks so much for your prayers and faithful support!

Media team and livestream

Hannah and Betty

Corona virus - March Prayer Letter

Corona virus…

Ministry has taken a drastic change with the worldwide outbreak of the new corona virus. Who would have thought that we would be holding our small group meetings online? We are also scrambling to put together a decent livestream of our Sunday services, so that we can not only minister to our churches, but also share the Gospel with people who don’t yet know the Lord. I am thankful for today’s technology which makes all of this possible. I truly believe this can be a time of growth for our churches, as we are forced to focus on purpose and not on methods, and we can be creative to do things differently than ever before. I also think we have a tremendous opportunity to reach new people online, as people are stuck in their homes and looking for a message of hope. Pray for us to use these opportunities to the best of our ability.

Focus Church Budapest

The past two months have been great for solidifying our core group. I held two membership classes for people interested in joining our church. We also had personal meetings with each of them. In the end we added two new young couples and seven new single young adults to our church membership. We now have 42 committed members. Several have already jumped into ministry and small groups. Once again God has brought us some really quality people. I am  especially glad to have two young adults from Catholic backgrounds come to the membership meetings. Both are university students. The young lady made a profession of faith and is preparing for baptism. The young man is very open, and we are praying for his salvation. Hopefully we will be able to add them to the membership later this year! 

Esztergom Baptist Church

We spent the early part of the year doing painting and renovations on our church building in Esztergom. I was especially pleased to see one of our new young couples take the initiative in completely remodeling our nursery. They organized the men in our church to do almost all of the work, and they also purchased new furniture. We now have a beautiful new nursery. In Esztergom, I also met with people interested in baptism and membership a few weeks ago. We have one teen who wants to be baptized, and three adults who want to join the church. All this is kind of on hold now until the virus situation settles down. 

National ministry:

In February I took a team to the Ukraine to minister with a Hungarian missionary we support. I preached and our team did the music for their winter camp. It was great to see the Lord work and use us there.

We do thank you for your faithful prayers and support. Do join us in prayer for our support level to increase this year. God bless!

Serving in Ukraine with missionaries Daniel and Lona Nagy-Kasza

January 2020 Prayer Letter

The Year in Review

2019 was one of our best years ever! The Lord gave us much fruit in many different areas. Allow me to share the highlights. 

Focus Church Budapest

One year ago in January, Charin and I met with two other couples to begin planning the planting of a new church in Budapest. We had no name for the church, no location and no people. But we did have a call from the Lord and the faith to believe that this was all a part of His plan. One year later on January 19^th Focus Church Budapest met in a beautiful rented building with about 55 people in attendance. After the service most of our 31 committed members were present for our first church business meeting. What a blessing to see how the Lord led and provided each step of the way! We are beginning 2020 with three weeks of prayer and fasting. We are praying for the Lord to double our attendance, our membership and our giving in 2020. Please join us in prayer for these things!

Esztergom Baptist Church

Despite our attention being focused on the new church plant in Budapest, we had one of our best years ever at our church in Esztergom. We had 5 baptized and added a total of 9 new members. We also saw our weekly attendance increase by about 20 per week. Offerings were up about 30%. There is a spirit of unity and anticipation in the church, as we see what the Lord is doing. Our goal for Esztergom this year is to get our new people integrated into small groups and areas of service. We also want to have a better presence in the community outside the walls of our church. 

National ministry:

I continue to partner with two Hungarian pastors in leading the Vertical Church movement in Hungary. Our national conference drew 700 participants from 140 different chuches. We also held regional conferences in Serbia, Romania and Eastern Hungary touching hundreds more. In 2020 in addition to the conferences, we are also holding special days of training in the areas of small groups, Biblical soul care, assimilation and worship. God continues to use this movement to stir the fires of revival and God-centered ministry.

Family time:

This past year brought many changes within our family. Our oldest daughter Nancy got married and she and her husband moved to California. Our son Ben and his wife moved to Zanzibar, Africa to begin their ministry there. Esther began her junior year of college in Jacksonville, Florida. Hannah is now in her senior year of high school here in Hungary and preparing to head off to college in the States this summer. We were very glad to have three of our kids here for Christmas. We value each opportunity we have to be together!