Langos anyone???

Hey everyone! I just wanted to get a quick update out to you all while we are between camps.  Thank you all so much for your support and prayers, God's presence was evident throughout.  For this camp we partnered with a church from Veszprem, Hungary, a city that contains around 60,000 people and one evangelical church.  For 3 days we had the opportunity to hang out with 4 members of its youth group, along with their pastor.  It was a time where we had the opportunity to learn about each other's cultures, spend quality time living together, and most importantly we came together and shared the one thing we all had in common... Faith in Jesus Christ of the Bible!  All of the Bible studies were led by Rob Trenckmann, and the Hungarian Pastor, who speaks exceptional english, assisted him in translating for the students.  This was done so that nothing would be lost in translations, although all four of the students were very proficient in their english skills.

Highlights of the camp for me go as follows.  We all went to Lake Balaton for the afternoon, to much of our relief due to the 90 + degree weather outside.  Being emerald green, the lake is one of Hungary's prides, and our friends from Veszprem were stoked to show us it.  At the lake we played some beach soccer, swam, and even rented a paddle boat that had a slide running down the middle... so tight!!!

Traditional Hungarian Camp Food

From the moment we arrived at camp youth kept talking about treating us to a traditional Hungarian beach food called "langos"... Describing it will be hard to do, and I am sure I can hardly do it any justice.  However, I will give it a go for your sake.  Langos is in the shape of a pizza, although not a pizza, this I was made very clear of.  It is a deep fried bread that is most popularly served with sour cream and cheese on top.  It can be served with jam, or ketchup, or other such toppings (Austin, Eric, and Rob, tried one with Jam on top and got strange looks, judged, and ridiculed as heretics for the rest of our time together :) ).  Needless to say it was quite tasty, however I could probably only have one once a year do to the amount of grease they contain.

Another special time we had together was our last night.  We had a bonfire and they showed us traditional camp food.  Their camp food blew s'mores right out of the water in both taste and time.  The tradition was first putting a slab of bacon on a stick, then adding to it a whole onion, and top it off with a chunk of sausage (Check picture for clarification).  These not only took a while to cook, but were well worth the wait because they were stinkin delicious.  More importantly we took the time to exchange camp songs from our respected countries, and to intentionally get to know one another better.

During the week I was able witness and be a part of God breaking down language and cultural barriers and as a result we were able to share life more intentionally, go deeper in bible studies, and learn more about one another.  It was so awesome to see 4 youth that were so mature in their faith and had a thirst to share the love they have received with the people around them.  I learned so much from them.

The next two weeks we will be spending time assisting an english camp with a group from Slovenia! We are so excited about this and are looking for to diving into more relationships with the youth here in central Europe.

Prayer Requests:

- We have a quick turnover between the camp we just finished and our next camp.  So if you could pray for rest and recuperation that would be amazing!

- Pray for the upcoming camp.  Their will be 90+ people including staff.  This is a huge number that we are so excited about, but if you could pray for us in reaching out to these youth, and in return that God will be working in their hearts right now.

- One thing that I am praying for this summer is that God would direct me in his plan for me regarding working with youth long term.  If you could pray that God would continue to direct me and bring me clarity in this direction.

Thank you all for your love and support!

Marc