Our Email Update - January

Dear Friends:

Next week we hit the road for our family's first 3-month road trip!! Hungarians love the idea of Route 66 and the open road (or so I keep trying to tell Zsofi!), and who am I to stand in the way of our daughters' yet undreamt dreams?! :-)

We will be visiting supporters and supporting churches in Texas and the Midwest, and in the midst of all our travels, I will also continue pounding down the coffee while taking more classes at Wheaton. It will be a crazy but wonderful time, and we are looking forward to connecting with you at some point during the HungaryWilsons' North American tour.

Here is our itinerary for the next two months:

• 2/1 - 2/14: Spring Branch, TX

• 2/15 - 2/28: San Antonio, TX

• 3/1 - 3/14: Wheaton, IL

• 3/15 - 4/4: Des Moines, IA*

• 4/5 - 4/17: Wheaton, IL

Viki's Experience on Alpha

In closing, we wanted to share with you something that really touched our hearts. Before the end of each Alpha Course, we ask the guests to fill out a short feedback form concerning things they liked about the course as well as ways we can improve it. Responding to the question, "What effect has Alpha had on your life?", one of the young mothers on our most recent course wrote:

"Finally I understood who Jesus was and this changed my life. Until now I thought I was a Christian, but in reality I wasn't. I went to church and hoped that there was a God because many smart people told me so, but deep down in my heart I did not believe. Through the Alpha course--the excellent teaching and the wonderful people--now I truly know that there is a God and that He loves me."

Thank you for all your prayers and support. Through it, you are impacting people's lives!

With our love,

John & Zsofi

Merry Christmas!

We would like to wish you a peaceful, joyful Christmas. Tomorrow our little family will sit on a plane and we will fly to Washington DC to celebrate with John's family. Thank you for your support, prayers and love for us in 2009. May your 2010 be filled with God's blessings!

Love,

John, Zsofi, Eszti and Elizabeth

T.I.M. = This Is Mission

What comes to your mind when you think about mission?

Long trips...?
Eating something weird...?
Serving Christ in a different culture...?
Being blessed and to bless many...?

It would be really interesting if we could collect all the associations because I am sure we all have a little different ideas, pictures but let me share with you what it meant to me during the week we served together with a wonderful mission team from the US.

We spent a lot of time together and it was a joy to get to know the team better. The friendships that were formed and deepened are an extra bonus to the many wonderful things that were accomplished during our joint service. The team consisted of 12 amazing people, with open and willing hearts to bless and pass on what God has been teaching them throughout the years. I have seen God using them in many people's lives, they encouraged, built up and brought healing to so many. I drove them around, translated for them and together with John tried to take care of the logistics of their stay here and we ourselves were ministered to and so blessed by experiencing how God meant his children to work together in unity.

Here is a video of the trip Mercy, one of the team members put together. Enjoy!

Cheeese!

I recently updated our web gallery. Check out some new pictures of our ministry and family.

http://www.hungarywilsons.com/photogallery/index.php

Enjoy and we love to get pictures from you too!

Go Johnny go!

I have been asking John hundred times to write a blog entry, he seems to be willing but rather slow accomplishing this (my mom-in-law whose maiden name is Quick always says Wilson has s-l-o-w in it :-). But so here am I again giving you a little update about our ministry and hopefully we can all enjoy John's perspective sometime in the near future. (I hope you are reading this dear John. :-)

So we have 2 Alpha courses running. One in the morning designed for mothers with small children and an evening course. I am involved with the morning one as a table leader and it has been a stretching but good experience so far. The evening course is running smoothly too. We have lively discussions after the teachings. Last time one of or guests who is a Buddhist asked why is it if Jesus came to overcome sin, that the world is still in such a sinful state. Pretty good question, don't you think?

An other update on the ministry front is John's summer interim pastor role. Before we joined this church, our prayer was that God would use us to strengthen this body of believers. It seemed like this summer this is exactly what happened. The end result of our summer service is that we have gotten to know many people, were able to serve in different capacities (e.g. making sure the service would run smoothly, discipleship, teaching, prayer ministry etc.) and now John has become a very valued adviser, helper to the pastor and the elder board.

So go Johnny, go! :-)

Happy Birthday sweet Eszti!

Eszti turned 3 today. What a nice thing to celebrate that God made her and gave her to us! She wanted some trains and a bear on her cake. So that is what she got. :-) My favorite part of the day was in the morning when after Eszti's favorite breakfast (pancakes), John and I prayed for her and blessed her. It was such a precious time. In the afternoon we had guests and some nice presents, like the little house you can see below. The building together process was hilarious.

Our Hungary Team

Here is our United World Mission Hungary Team. They are a wonderful group of people and we feel blessed being able to serve with them. One part of this group works at a Christian School, where the children of the missionaries study and the other group is the church planting facilitation team on which John and I serve.

The making of our newsletter

Here you can see some of what goes into making a newsletter.

First you write it...



Then you make it ready for the long journey over the ocean...


It is all about team work. :-)

Quotes from the Cutie Pie #3

One of Eszti's favorite games nowadays is putting Daddy to sleep. Eszti pretends to be Daddy and Daddy is Eszti. Daddy gets the normal bed time routine. He gets something to drink, Eszti tells him a story, she prays with him, holds his hands and then sings to him. Then she leaves the room. Daddy is peacefully sleeping on the couch. Eszti gives him further instructions from the other room:
"Now you need to cry!" :-)

Eszti fell asleep by herself the other night and we gave her a piece of chocolate in the morning to celebrate it. Sharing the big news with Daddy:
"Daddy I went to sleep by myself!"
"Good job Eszti, how did you do that? You just closed your eyes and went to sleep?"
"Yeah."
"That is how daddy goes to sleep too."
"And then mommy tells you a story?" :-)

We are coloring and solving exercises in a booklet. One page has different things that need to be paired. For example a cow and milk. I am explaining to Eszti.
"See Eszti here is the cow and it has an udder, which can give milk. It is like when mommy gives milk to Eliza."
Eszti looks at me surprised and asks:
"Mommy, are you a cow?" :-D

Eszti looking at the fan:
"Mommy this is the fan, that turns the cold louder?" :-)



Eszti, Eliza reading with Grandma

Video shooting

This is a picture of our UWM team video shooting. The video is going to be a brief introduction of our work and team here in Hungary and I am really curious how it is going to turn out. I told John, that I am probably gonna be horrified when I will hear my own voice (you know... it sounds so different than what I hear on the inside :-). But the shooting was a lot of fun and I am thankful that we will have a short video about us, our great team and work in Hungary.