This past weekend the OM team here in Hungary headed off for our once yearly team retreat. no complaints when it means spending the weekend with friends and staying in a castle! Vajta is a small town here in Hungary and in it is a Bible school which has completely renovated a old palace/castle. the story of the castle was that it was built in the early 1900's by the 5th richest family in hungary, they fled during the 2nd world war and the camp fell into the hands of the communist party and was used as a vacation home for leaders and their families, it was then converted into a camp for handicap children. but after the fall of the iron curtain the government could no longer afford to keep it up and it was abandoned. in 2000 the palace was bought and converted into a bible school complete with everything from a pool, to two i must say pretty cool coffee bars. we spent the weekend playing games, we had a guest speaker, and a trip to the pool which included what is needed for true team building... a giant pool wrestling match. we had a great weekend of catching up with team mates, getting beaten in a variety of card games and sipping good coffee. here's a shot of how we've been getting around hungary now a days, it's slow going what can i say. these are all the rage for kids here, there super funny to watch all the kids roaring around on them, i just had to give a try. apparently i'm a little to big though. but really north america should wake up and get their hands on these, we are actually thinking of starting a export buisness to introduce these to the american market! i think it will go. but in reality we do actually have wheels here right now, we are borrowing our english team mate's (jill) car, believe it or not we have had a car since october. first jill's then when she came back and our south african team mates (pranesh and heather) lent us their car and now that they got back jill once again lent us her car as she doesn't need it. and now we found out our brazilian team mates (carlos and rita) will go home for the summer and told us we can us their car......! what can we say but the Lord provides and we have great team mates! this last picture is of our team leader rodney and his wife kitty and their two boys mark and patrick. they are leaving the team to go back to the states. we have enjoyed getting to know them so much and will miss them greatly, we will especially miss their boys who refer to us as kyle basci and lynnette neni which is the formal way to great people but they are the only ones who do this for us and plus their really fun and funny guys to have around. rodney and kitty you will both be missed but we know the Lord had amazing plans in store for you in the states. this coming weekend will be filled with helping our team mates move out and in of various places and also on sunday we have baseball games, our boys team won both matches last weekend, even beating a un defeated team, which we had earlier lost 23-3, and we just found out that we have qualified for the hungarian finals which will be happening in two weeks time, so "hira" pirates! GO Pirates!

well, another week has flown by again....haven't been so great at updating our blog, guess that means we are busy! i have to think back about last week and try to remember what happened

...i will share about english classes...last monday we met with olga again. we are now teaching her how to ask for directions in english...apparently what i thought would be a one week lesson, is turning more into 3 weeks! but we had a great talk with her these last 2 weeks. she is opening up and asking lots of questions. we have talked a lot about assurance of salvation and just shared with her that there is hope of heaven in christ ...and of living eternally there...not here on earth as she thinks she might! but she shared with us that she really isn't even sure where she will go after she dies. today i showed her a power point that a team mate has made, its a presentation of the gospel in hungarian...we are praying that God really uses this to waken her heart to Him.…and that her stubborn heart would be softened! last week when she was talking quite fast (and i wasn't understanding anything she was saying)...i was just looking at her and it really saddened me because i see that she is totally lost. i saw a women who needs God and is so far from Him....and its hard to talk to her because she is old, and her heart and mind are set in their ways! but my prayer really is that God would work a miracle in her life and draw her to Himself. this morning i was reading in a book, just thought i would share something i found encouraging...

“I cry out to the God Most High, to God, He will perform the cause I hold in my hand.” Psalm 57:2

“The very thing that I hold in my hand- my work today, this concern that is beyond my control, this task which I have greatly overestimated my own abilities- THIS is what I may “cry out” for Him to do for me, with the calm assurance He will perform it.”
-streams in the desert

we also have a new student….she is actually the mom of the newest kid that comes on Fridays. I will meet with her on Friday for the first time for English lessons. I have spoken with her lots (in Hungarian mind you) at baseball because her daughter plays with the kids team. So I am excited to start meeting with her on a weekly basis and continue to build a relationship with her. (yes mom klassen, its Adrienne and Atilla’s mom!)
we also got to help with some of our team mates who are doing a church plant 45 mins from here. They are holding English clubs on Saturday nights for teenagers who want to practice speaking. Only 5 kids showed up but it was a good time, we look forward to helping more with it when it starts back up in September. we are also looking forward to seeing my parents in only 2 short weeks...yahoo!!! (-lynnette)

in other news we are enjoying 30'C weather and it should be holding round there for the next couple weeks, summer has defiantly come! sorry to rub it into you vancouverites! oh ya and Go GIANTS Go! (-kyle)

mothers day in hungary.....well not actually since here in hungary we celebrate a week earlier....ahead in time and in celebrations!
yesterday as we told you in our last post we had a outreach in ercsi, a community about a half hour drive from home. the swedish/finish team has been here all week meeting with different families and holding meetings. last evenings meeting went really good, some students from the local christian high school came also and lead worship. i briefly shared my testimony with translation of course! as much as i wished my hungarian was good enough to speak in front of people it just ain't. (my english is also on the quick road downhill!) then we had some special gyspy music from the swedish team and also they shared a message for the people and invited people to the front for prayer, with many people responding to this. this video is some little excerpts from the evening.

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photosthe two middle clips are a mothers day gift for my mom. while they were here they met little robbie and she especially asked for some video of him. robbie is such a special little guy, blind since birth but he has a glow and fire that really can't be described. you can't help but smile when around him, with his sporadic loud AMENS, and Hallelujahs. and he sings like no other kid i have ever heard, as we pull up to his street he always knows and comes running out of his house yelling CARLOS, CARLOS (our brazilian teammate). the other videos are of the swedish/finish team with some gyspy music and also a little three part translation which was quite funny to watch, from finish to roma (gyspy language common throughout europe), and then to hungarian since not all the gypsies speak roma. praise the Lord for the work he is doing in ercsi and pray for a continued openness in the people there!

april showers......

well this month has been quite a busy one as you can see from the lack of posts,..but we have had a great time hosting family. Catching up on old times and making lots of new memories, it was so great to be able to just "be" with family and also get to show them life and work here. we look forward to the coming months as other family will also be coming. but it has also made us really miss home and especially our new niece and nephews, some of who we have only seen over web cam. but we will be able to catch up in only a few short months which will fly by!

this shot of me was taken in vienna while there with my parents, we convinced lynnette to go and give this "statue" some money but as she walked up he lunged out and freaked her out, the rest of us had a great laugh and she refused to go back and give him the change.

we also had "take your family to work weeks", we had told our family that if you come, your joining us where ever we go and basically that's what happened, hope you guys didn't mind it! they joined us at English club, clothing bazaar, baseball, and many other things, mom even cooked team lunch on tuesday for over 20! thanks again mom! we also ran into a older couple in our neighbourhood, while on a walk back from ice cream. Their grandson plays baseball with us and lynnette has met the grandfather a couple times at the field and chatted with him. they invited us all back to their place for drinks and snacks, we had a great time. the picture is of lynnette, my mom and the lady, they broke out the family pictures and gave us a tour of their small farm (backyard). it was great since moving to our new place we were hoping to get to know our neighbours and now we have a great relationship with this family (good for practicing our hungarian too!), the grandma promises to stop by for tea every time she walks by with her grand daughter!

baseball continues to go well the boys teen team had games last weekend out of town so we had a good time heading out on the road last weekend, we can see them improving and they were quite excited to win their second game. we also have two kids from the team now coming to weekly English club so we are thankful that the relationships built at baseball are reaching further than just on the field. this is the teen team at our game last weekend.

we are really excited for this coming week since a team from sweden will be joining us to work in ofalu and erchi with the gypsies, they are also gypsies who speak roma (gypsy language) and have been here numerous times and have great response in these communities, on sunday we are hosting a special evening in erchi. we have rented out the community hall in erchi (the same one we used at christmas) for a outreach evening. it's always a good time with this group and we know they will be excited to see were there semi truck of donations went from christmas, although we have worked through a good chunk of the 1000 banana boxes they sent there is still plenty more clothes to be sold/distributed. please pray for this week of outreaches. we also took my parents and mark and bonnie to visit miklos and eva, carlos and rita (our team mates) have a weekly bible study at their place, they are both doing much better but continue to pray for them both.

more visitors....we are having a great time with mark & bonnie here...always good for laughs when marks around! we love having you two here!

week review in pictures...

kyle bbq'd some burgers baseball practices

drank some cappucinos

saw the city at night
...during the day!

took the tram
....and much more!!! we have had a great week. mom and dad klassen have helped out with so much....clothing bazaar, mom taught some english, baseball practices. its great having them here and showing them what our daily lives are like!

well since winter never really came this year it seems like summer wants to come a month early. just perfect timing for my parents to stop by for a little visit. they arrived on saturday in vienna and so we met up with them there and spent a couple days seeing vienna. we had a great time taking a tour of the summer palace and many sites around the city, it was alot of fun to tour mom and dad around since they had never been in a european city and ever site was something totally new, since a heritage site in vancouver is anything built before 1970 and over here it's more like anything built before the 1900's. the weather was great, so we spent most of the time walking around catching up, and of course visiting many cafe's along the way. we are no back in Hungary showing them our home and ministry, today we were out visiting miklos and eva and seeing the gypsy community. and yesterday they got to experince the clothing sale and we did a clean out of the ministry center, hey if we got them here might as well put them to work,.... they were more than happy to help actually. and this afternoon it's off to baseball practice were they full suitcase of gear which they brought will be put to use.....many thanks to you all who helped contribute to that, the kids will love the new stuff. oh and did i mention all the goodies we got, i got enough root beer flavoured things to last me a year plus all sorts of other treats, guests are so great to have....... not just for all the gifts they bring! so ya we are having a great time and look forward to the weekend when we can take them into budapest and show them around.

post from ofalu....well here i (lynnette) sit in the ofalu centre. i was waiting for my english student to arrive, but i guess she forgot today! so i decided to get my prep done for english club with the kids for this friday...finished that off! (we are still reading the story of david and goliath) and since they have internet here i thought i would just post on something i was just thinking about as i was waiting.....my student that was supposed to come today i meet with once a week. she is a great girl, super nice, a little older than me, but we get along good. she is such an easy student to teach too! last week before easter i gave her the gospel of john. she said that she had read the bible before, but she seemed excited to recieve part of it again. i havent talked to her since and was hoping that we could talk about it today! through out this week i have been re reading john again and praying through it, that it would speak to my student as she is reading it also. its amazing how many new things that God has been showing me through it too! but my prayer is that even though we meet to learn english....somehow God would use this time to speak through me and kyle and that our student(s) will come to see Him for themselves!!! please pray with me for my one student who didnt show up today,that we could meet again soon and have a good talk together.....thanks so much for all those who are continually lifting us up in prayer, know that God is using your prayers in a mighty way.

watch out ladies it's easter time in hungary,

and with easter monday approching the hungarian tradition of boys spraying perfume on women will happen once again throughout hungary, i was actually just reading a article on this hungarian tradition and about how it is slowly fading away, especially here in the city. the tradition goes..... that as the boys spray women with perfume they recite a poem that basically says "as one sprays water on a flower so it doesn't wilt.... i spray perfume on you so your beautywon't wilt", what does this have to do with Easter, honestly i really don't know. but it did get me thinking, what has faded/wilted in my relationship with God. in what ways has the power of Christs Resurrection faded in my life,in what areas of my life do i need to be washed anew to prevent my wilting. i'm pretty sure a spray of perfume won't keep anyone from the inevitable wilt, albeit disguise it for a while but i am completely assured that Christ alone can save me eternally.





many people have been asking about how miklos and eva have been doing, sorry to not have kept you updated lately on them, carlos and i went out to erchi last thurs to visit and bring out some new clothes for the family and he is doing much, much better. for those who don't know just after christmas he had kidney failure and was admitted to hospital, after being there for a couple weeks he decided to leave and go home, because in his mind nothing was wrong with him. after 2 weeks of ignoring ours and his families requests to go back he fell really ill and was given days to live, the Lord worked a miracle and he survived those very dark days and now is doing so much better, the doctors even going so far to say nothing is wrong with him. Praise the Lord. Miklos and Eva both received the Lord during this past christmas season and our teams is now having weekly prayer meeting in their house. During May a group is coming from Sweden to work in Erchi and other places and it's our hope that both miklos and eva and maybe more would be baptised during this time. we continue to be amazed at how the Lord is working in their lives. yesterday we also had a special kids club in ofalu, carlos and rita had a easter presentation for the kids, opening 12 eggs and each on containing a item that helped to tell the story of christs death, ressurection and why it is so important in our lives, it was really well done and the kids really got into it. it was so great to see the kids so captivated by what the next item would be, sometimes it can be really crazy specailly if there is a larger group which there was. we left really encouraged at the response of the kids. continue to pray for them. they have a really understanding of the gospel, but pray it wouldn't just be knowledge but that they would seek a relationship with the one true saviour. sorry no recent pictures both these ones where taken this last fall, but if you have a craving for something new here is our latest prayer/ministry letter

Boldog Szülinapod,

Lynnette! Well I know it's a day early but i figured why not celebrate and have some fun, plus it was a super nice warm spring day. Well me being the last minute planner i am was still piecing the day together this morning but thankfully it was a sunny day which makes things much easier. So in celebration of the coming 2010 Olympics in vancouver i thought maybe we would test our skills at the bobsled and begin training for our Olympic dreams! Canadian bobsled team here we come, ok not so much, as will be witnessed by the following video. We found two things out today, one we will never make the Olympics and two we should never get a motorbike, since as we went around the corner one of us, who will remain un-named leaned out of the corner and one of us leaned into the corer, nothing quite like sliding around a corner feeling every rivet on the slick metal and smelling the flowers all at the same time!
Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photoswe left with only a couple bruises, but the hurt of realizing your Olympic dream has come to a crashing end is what hurts the most! oh well makes for good laughs afterwards. since we were on a children's theme we headed up to the highest point in budapest via the children's railway. kinda a smaller scale train run by kids, now i'm sure you all have in your minds those tiny little kids trains where the conductor is larger than the engine he's sitting on. But it's quite a bit bigger than that and takes you through the rolling hills just above budapest, it really quite nice actually, we then hiked to the top of janos hill and took in the view. To end the day off we headed into budapest to our favorite Italian place for some good pizza and pasta, ( i know not so hungarian, but who can say no to italian).

nothing better than enjoying a great day with my amazing wife!