Hey Everyone!
I apologize for the amount of time its been between now and my last post, although I am so excited to share with you what God has been doing in Budapest! As you may have gathered from the title of this post, we have been launching ourselves full speed into many different projects.
We have hit the ground running with our research project (which I mentioned in my last post), and... we definitely hit brick wall after brick wall. For our project we are going around Budapest and engaging high school students, trying to figure out the "spiritual dna" of these youth. This involves asking them questions that drive to the heart level who they are.
Brick walls! So many road blocks have hindered us from getting quality interviews. Some of which can be attributed to the language barrier, trouble finding students, and when we do find them they seem to always be in too much of a hurry.
That being said, I have been learning so much through these challenges. Not only about how to strategically mold our project to better accommodate the people hear, but also God has been teaching me about how to trust Him in this project. Remember those brick walls I mentioned earlier, well through God's grace and provision a youth from a local church volunteered to translate for us, and through that Austin and our translator landed our first solid interview. Praise God!!!
We are now better developing strategies on how to better reach students where they are at. One avenue I am super excited about is going through the local schools, and possibly helping an english teacher a couple days a week. If you could pray that God would open doors for connections into local schools it would be much appreciated.
Currently we are preparing for another camp with the group from Veszprem!!! I am so very excited to be able to hang out with these people once again.
Remember that youth pastor we ran into in Ljubljana, Slovenia, well we finally got into contact with him again and attended his Church these last two Sundays! They invited us to join an outreach they are doing in the community later this week, which I am so excited for. Through another person at the church we were able to get connected to play soccer a couple nights a week starting in the next couple of weeks.
There are so many doors that God is opening here in Hungary and I am so thankful to have a small part in it. God has been especially working on my heart about trusting Him and His provision. I am so encouraged by what has been happening these past couple of weeks, and I am looking forward to this week ahead in anticipation.
Prayer Requests:
- Connections will be made with local schools.
- Please pray for the outreach nights with this local church.
- Pray for the camp this weekend with the group from Veszprem. Pray that God would further strengthen the bond we have with this group.
Thanks so much for your love and support!
Marc
For such a time as this - Marc Meland
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Camp!
Hey everybody,
I feel like it has been a long time since my last update, and so much has happened over the past couple of weeks that I can't wait to fill you in on. To avoid writing a book, I am going to touch upon the highlights of what God is doing.
In preparation of a week long camp in Austria with Slovene students we all got sent out into the capital city of Slovenia with questions to ask the youth. These interactions brought forth two very different experiences.
The first one was we asked them about their views on God, atheism, or what they believed in, there was a unanimous response of "I don't know" or "I have never thought about that"... this was super sad to hear and it shows the need here that the youth need to be presented to Christ's love as well as challenged in what they believe.
The second interaction was quite astounding to say the least and was totally a moment where God brought people together in a crazy way. As we were walking around looking for youth to talk to we stopped a guy on a bike and started chatting with him, mostly small talk about soccer, so still really important lol... He asked us what we were doing here and we replied with we are with an organization called Josiah Venture, and we are here to work with young people in Hungary. He said that he had heard of the organization, I instantly thought he was joking, but went on to say that he was from Budapest and was a youth pastor at a church on the outskirts of town. Short story long, or long story short (unsure of which one, haha) we tried to meet up with him a week prior and due to a lot of things going wrong we were unable to find one another. It took us both traveling to the capital of Slovenia to finally meet. We were all laughing about Gods' sense of humor afterwards.
For the camp we were at a castle in Austria with 70 + Slovene students and it was an awesome week. During the week Rob taught on the parable of the Prodigal Son. It was amazing to see students open up more in more throughout the week. It is awesome to see the example that God gives us in the parable of what a loving, forgiving father who runs to us with open arms to take us back looks like, regardless of what we have done.
The camp format was relating to students through teaching them english. Each morning I lead my class of 7 students in discussions and lessons on various world famous companies. It was a blast being able to hang out with students in this setting, I learned so much from them about their lives, goals, and beliefs, that sometimes I felt like the student. I was so grateful to be able to lean on an amazing translator and an english helper from the states. Maybe teaching is something God has for me in the future... :)
Seven students committed their lives to Christ during the week, praise God! It was fun to be a witness of what God was doing in their lives and they are in amazing hands of an excellent team of Slovene leaders!
During the week I made so many new relationships, with so many awesome people... it has been especially encouraging to be a part of a camp that has been going on for many years and has nationals leading it. It made dreaming for Hungary and what camps could look like down the road a bit more graspable.
So much more has happened that I wish I could tell you about. Feel free to post your thoughts, questions, or send me a message. I would love to hear from you all on what is happening back home.
Some prayer request are:
- That the soil would be rich for the 7 people that committed their lives to Jesus. Pray for people to come alongside them to for guidance.
- We are starting an upcoming research project here in Budapest. We will be chatting with youth around the city and figuring out their views on life, religion, God, friendship, love etc. If you can pray for high schoolers connect with, as well as important information on how we can better relate with youth here in the future.
- God would continue to work in me and transform me to be more like him. Recently He has been carving out areas of doubt and false expectations that I have in my life. It has been a rough process, but to see His love enter those areas has been amazing. So if you could pray for more carving out of junk like this that would be great
- Also, less important... two weeks ago my new camera got water spilt on it, so if somehow it started working again that would be amazing.
Love you all,
Marc
Email or Skype me at marcmeland@gmail.com!!!!
I feel like it has been a long time since my last update, and so much has happened over the past couple of weeks that I can't wait to fill you in on. To avoid writing a book, I am going to touch upon the highlights of what God is doing.
In preparation of a week long camp in Austria with Slovene students we all got sent out into the capital city of Slovenia with questions to ask the youth. These interactions brought forth two very different experiences.
The first one was we asked them about their views on God, atheism, or what they believed in, there was a unanimous response of "I don't know" or "I have never thought about that"... this was super sad to hear and it shows the need here that the youth need to be presented to Christ's love as well as challenged in what they believe.
The second interaction was quite astounding to say the least and was totally a moment where God brought people together in a crazy way. As we were walking around looking for youth to talk to we stopped a guy on a bike and started chatting with him, mostly small talk about soccer, so still really important lol... He asked us what we were doing here and we replied with we are with an organization called Josiah Venture, and we are here to work with young people in Hungary. He said that he had heard of the organization, I instantly thought he was joking, but went on to say that he was from Budapest and was a youth pastor at a church on the outskirts of town. Short story long, or long story short (unsure of which one, haha) we tried to meet up with him a week prior and due to a lot of things going wrong we were unable to find one another. It took us both traveling to the capital of Slovenia to finally meet. We were all laughing about Gods' sense of humor afterwards.
For the camp we were at a castle in Austria with 70 + Slovene students and it was an awesome week. During the week Rob taught on the parable of the Prodigal Son. It was amazing to see students open up more in more throughout the week. It is awesome to see the example that God gives us in the parable of what a loving, forgiving father who runs to us with open arms to take us back looks like, regardless of what we have done.
The camp format was relating to students through teaching them english. Each morning I lead my class of 7 students in discussions and lessons on various world famous companies. It was a blast being able to hang out with students in this setting, I learned so much from them about their lives, goals, and beliefs, that sometimes I felt like the student. I was so grateful to be able to lean on an amazing translator and an english helper from the states. Maybe teaching is something God has for me in the future... :)
Seven students committed their lives to Christ during the week, praise God! It was fun to be a witness of what God was doing in their lives and they are in amazing hands of an excellent team of Slovene leaders!
During the week I made so many new relationships, with so many awesome people... it has been especially encouraging to be a part of a camp that has been going on for many years and has nationals leading it. It made dreaming for Hungary and what camps could look like down the road a bit more graspable.
So much more has happened that I wish I could tell you about. Feel free to post your thoughts, questions, or send me a message. I would love to hear from you all on what is happening back home.
Some prayer request are:
- That the soil would be rich for the 7 people that committed their lives to Jesus. Pray for people to come alongside them to for guidance.
- We are starting an upcoming research project here in Budapest. We will be chatting with youth around the city and figuring out their views on life, religion, God, friendship, love etc. If you can pray for high schoolers connect with, as well as important information on how we can better relate with youth here in the future.
- God would continue to work in me and transform me to be more like him. Recently He has been carving out areas of doubt and false expectations that I have in my life. It has been a rough process, but to see His love enter those areas has been amazing. So if you could pray for more carving out of junk like this that would be great
- Also, less important... two weeks ago my new camera got water spilt on it, so if somehow it started working again that would be amazing.
Love you all,
Marc
Email or Skype me at marcmeland@gmail.com!!!!
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