September update from Leah and Baláz

Our Family
Thank you for your prayers regarding Balázs' visa. We were interviewed by a very nice guy who gave us a 10 year multi-entry visa!! With that, our trip plans have been finalized and we will be leaving for the states on November 20th for a week in Houston and then onto California for a few weeks. We will spend a week in Idaho and then be back in California until January 2nd. We look forward to seeing all of you then. We also had a great time visiting family and a few friends while we were in Budapest.

Balázs' mom came for a few days this month and we all had a great time visiting. She especially enjoyed having some Ellie time and being able to watch her for us while we had some meetings for the church.

Ellie continues to amaze us. She began taking three and four steps this past week and will be fully walking soon it seems. She is a huge source of joy and an amazing tool the Lord uses to teach us daily about ourselves and our relationship with Him.

Church
We began the process for registering the church this month and are in the paperwork process. Please pray for us to have wisdom with the paper work and for the officials at the court to approve all of the documents.

This past month during our monthly church potluck, we had a discussion with the church about ministry within and outside the church and the direction the church is going with missions. The time was very good as we heard people's perspectives from the church and were able to share honestly with them. Please pray as we monthly have these types of discussions with the church after the potlucks.

The students returned in full force this past month and it was great to reconnect with students from last year as well as welcome some new students to our group. Many of the students had difficult times while they were away, please pray that the Lord would use His Word to restore them and to use the body to minister to their needs. Also, some of the new students that are coming do not know Jesus as their Savior, please pray that the Lord would reveal Himself to these young adults. Please pray for Balázs as he teaches this group and for both of us as we disciple these students.

Our first women's bible study was great! The Lord used the time to build friendships and accountability as well as showing us through His Word how to establish Jesus as the center of our lives. Many women shared their struggles in this area and the ladies were all encouraged by one another. Nearly every women told Leah that the small prayer groups were a huge blessing for them as well. Please pray for our next meeting in two weeks that Leah would have wisdom in leading this group and for one of the elders wives as she teaches this time.

Balázs began the preparation for the worship team bible study and will meet with the guys this week. Please pray as he prepares for these times, as he teaches, and for the group to see God's design for the worship in our church. We began pre-marital counseling this past month with one of the young couples in the church who desire to be married and we will be beginning with the other couple this month as well. Please pray that the Lord would teach us and strengthen our marriage as we teach this and for the Lord to allow these young couples to see His true design and blessings of marriage.

Thank you for your prayers regarding Balázs teaching at the Catholic school. He has decided to teach through the bible again there this year. Please pray for Balazs to be faithful as he teaches this young child. Please also pray for Balázs as he weekly prepares for the mid-week bible study and the Sunday service to be led by the Lord and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit for the leading of the church.

Outreach

We have a team coming from the bible college this month to encourage the church. We will meet together on Friday evening for games and fellowship. Saturday we will do practical work and Sunday we will have our monthly potluck together with the team. Please pray for the team to be an encouragement to the church as we spend time together with them.

This month was better for Balázs at the prison. He keeps his lesson and meeting time with the guys shorter which allows the guys to have an easier time paying attention. Please pray for Balázs to be able to minister the Word with boldness and clarity and to have an increasing amount of love for these guys.

Update from Tom Stowe

Hey everyone, we have some recent news from Tom Stowe:

Hello everyone! I know it has been a long time since I last updated our blog, but we have been very busy with a recent outreach, retreat, move, and classes at the Bible College. It has been a little stressful, a lot of fun and really busy. But we are now all situated back at the Bible College and are really excited about everything going on here. Please check out our blog at the link below. Also please pray for us for our scouting trip to the Northeast the end of October to a city called João Pessoa, where we plan to start a church next year. If you remember it was in our last update we sent out. Anyways, thanks for all your support and prayers! Adn as usual, feel free to write us anytime, we love hearing from you all.
In Christ,
Tom and Lu
http://stowe.wordpress.com

Balázs & Leah & Joelle Stanzel from Pécs, Hungary

Our Family
We were very blessed this month by a visit from some good friends of ours from the bible college and one of their brother's and his wife (who are on a few months mission trip around the world). The time was a tremendous blessing and encouragement to us both. Ellie is 9 months already!! She is trying to walk (along everything and with help form us). We found out this month she also has anemia (Leah does also) and has to take some iron drops that make her stomach hurt pretty badly. She also enjoys testing limits and seeing how bratty she can be (we thought this didn't come until she was 2??), but we are having fun with it. Please pray for her stomach as she deals with this medicine, and for us to have wisdom with her eating, sleep, and discipline.

We are traveling Budapest this week to visit with Balazs' dad and his siblings and to apply for his visa to visit the states. We hope to be on the central coast for the month of December. Please pray for our trip to Budapest and for the embassy to grant Balazs his visa.

Church
As the summer comes to a close, we look forward to a changing city with the influx of nearly 60,000 university students. We are excited to have our students return and to welcome new faces. Many of our students are English majors and want to reach out to the nearly 20,000 international students that study here. Please pray for the Lord to guide as as this new year
starts with the students. A couple of the young adult guys in our church want to begin a teenage group for the few teenage boys in our church who are currently do not have a separate meeting. Please pray that the Lord would provide time for this and wisdom to Balazs and the guys leading this. In two weeks we will have our first ladies bible study. Thank you for
your prayers as we have seen the Lord really bring together Leah and the elder's wives in preparing for this. We have decided to have guided discussion time followed by small group prayer and accountability groups. Please pray as we prepare and begin this that the women would come wanting to be changed and that we would see Jesus in this above all else. Balázs will also be beginning the bible study with the worship team as they look into what the Word says about worship. Please pray as he prepares for these times, as he teaches, and for the group to see God's design for the worship in our church. Two young couples in the church desire to be married and we will be beginning marriage counseling with each of them.

Please pray for us to be able to lead this as it will be our first time and we want to help these couples as they enter into marriage. As fall begins again, Balazs was asked to teach the bible at the Catholic school again twice a week. Please pray as we seek the Lord for direction as there are many things to consider in making this decision. We continue to have monthly potlucks with the church. Last month we BBQ'd hamburgers and everyone was quite impressed with real "American" hamburgers. It was a great time and we always look forward to these times of fellowship. Please pray for Balázs as he weekly prepares for the mid-week bible study and the Sunday service to be led by the Lord and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit for the leading of the church.

Outreach
This month was difficult for Balazs at the prison. The inmates were not attentive and were mocking the Word. Please pray for Balazs to be able to minister the Word with boldness and clarity and to have an increasing amount of love for these guys.

Other
Leah had a break from Hungarian lessons for a couple months as her teacher was away. Please pray that she would be able to jump back in where she left off and that she would be faithful to study during the week.

News from Kagarlyk, Ukraine

Greetings from Kagarlyk!

Summer has come to an end here in Ukraine but instead of the usual peace of mind that we gain from that experience we are faced with a busy schedule. I guess that makes up for a mellow summer. Let me bring you up to date on our summer and what is ahead of us.

This summer our church stepped back from the usual full throttle/ make every moment count/ do as much as we possibly can schedule that we have had the last couple summers. We felt that God had other things for us and that this year we should focus more on personal ministry. Instead of organizing concerts we just sat in public places to play music and talk to people. Instead of soccer tournaments a couple people made some portable soccer goals and have started once a week to head out to the school fields with their friends to play pick up games of soccer. Instead of a huge vacation bible school the children's ministry decided to spend more time with the kids that come to church and visit them in their homes and now that summer is over instead of being tired out from a long summer they are ready for the school year and preparing to expand the children's ministry. I don't think this change in ministry direction will be permanent but it has been good for our church to move from an event oriented way of looking at evangelism to a personal way of looking at evangelism.

Our role in all this was really low key and I spent most of my time doing more "pastoral" stuff like meeting with people and preparing bible studies as pastor Wayne and his family were in Australia for most of the summer.

Now that Wayne is back he is going full throttle with the bio-diesel production and over the summer they set up equipment to produce foam blocks. (Foam blocks, the translation of what they are called in Ukrainian, are cement building blocks that have a structure similar to foam so they are insulated and better for building than regular bricks.) The mushroom farm is now completely replaced by the block production which stands to be just as profitable a venture as mushroom farming, a lot less risky, and it offers more stable work hours for the workers. The goal in these enterprises remains the same: provide jobs for people in our town so they can work in Kagarlyk and not go to Kiev, teach Christian business ethics and in doing so build a platform to transform the business community in Kagarlyk. Please pray for these enterprises that God would continue to lead Wayne and that God would use them to transform the lives of the workers and the business community.

This week our church starts back up many of the ministries that take a break for summer. Computer classes, English lessons, and dance/aerobics are the main ones. Please pray for these ministries that God would use them to bring young people to Himself.

Coming up at the end of this month is a conference/retreat in Chernigov. It will be a small gathering of 5 or 6 of the smaller churches in the Calvary sphere in Ukraine. The theme of the conference will "The Church" and Danny will be teaching one of the main sessions. Our worship team will be leading worship for one of the sessions as well which is a huge step for our worship team. Please pray that the conference would be a time of growth and encouragement for all who go, and pray for Danny as he teaches.

Check out more of what we have been up to at our blog and also at our church website.

Thank you for your prayers,

Daniel and Annaliese Foote