“It was one of the best evangelistic mission trips I have ever been on!” Brent Harrison, Director of "Experience Missions Intl."
Here I am contending for the faith with Akos, a Hungarian student at Budapest's ELTE campus. With me is Mitch who before this mission trip had never been out of Georgia or Florida and he got on a plane (for the first time) to join us in Hungary.
During BHHP week the Lord chose to both use us and work in us in a wonderful way! 21 Americans from Atlanta, Dallas and Memphis all came to Budapest to labor alongside our Hungarian Campus Crusade staff team. Wow! Here are some of the highlights.
*We distributed 1400 SSKs (student survival kits;) that contained evangelistic materials and invitations to several of our outreaches. Over the whole month of September, our campus ministry team distributed over 10,000 of these kits across Budapest.
* Over 40 students came to our English Clubs on Business Ethics. The recent meltdown of integrity within the Hungarian government added a thirst for this topic.
* Over 200 students attended our “Personalities Profiles” evangelistic event at Karl Marx University. (I always love it when we share the gospel inside this school named after this influential atheist!) This presentation spurred conversations about Christ that continued long after the event ended.
* 20 kids from a middle school met us at a McDonalds to hear more about Christ. The school invited 8 of us to speak in classrooms all morning. We then invited the students to meet us after school to hear more about Christ. The promise of free ice cream certainly was a draw too! Although Campus Crusade in Budapest does not have a middle school ministry, this is an open door we just must pursue!
* initiative evangelism: The American “BHHP”ers, many of whom had never shared their faith before, jumped at the chance to fan out across a campus and witness individually with students. Honestly, I was skeptical about this outreach. But the project participants displayed great faith in the midst of their own fears. We had meaningful conversations and even led several to Christ!
I had a long talk with a college student named Andras. He said he was mad at God and the church. “Why?” I asked. “Because I could not live up to all the rules and expectations. Then they kicked me out of the church.” “That doesn’t sound like my God,” I told him. Then I spent the next 15 minutes talking through Ephesians 2:8-9 and how salvation is not by works but by faith; salvation is a free gift from God!
It is an affront to the holiness of God if we think we can work through a checklist of activities that ensure our salvation. Our good works come from our salvation; those good works do not lead to our salvation. Centuries of people doing evil in the name of the Lord and ignorance of the meaning of the cross has caused a lot of hardened hearts across Europe. The body of Christ must serve tirelessly and selflessly, pray, and fast in order to reverse this trend.
It was also great being able to speak during BHHP to the weekly meeting of our high school ministry. About 50% of the 100 students who attended were unchurched. Using quotes from popular music, I pointed these students to the glory of God and the privilege we have through Jesus Christ to call Him, “Father.” Most of these kids come from homes where “father” is not an endearing term. Once again, I had conversations after my talk where I was able to explain in more detail the meaning of the gospel.
I even had serious talks with two of the participants who are genuinely considering moving their families here to be involved vocationally with the spreading of the gospel!
“Europe is a hard continent for the gospel. But what we [American short term missionaries] can do is to build up a bank account of contacts for the national ministry. What BHHP does is to gather contacts and opportunities that the Hungarian staff can mine for the whole school year. Short term missionaries, mostly because they are either native English speakers or Americans, can open doors and gain respect that are sometimes difficult for our Hungarian staff to achieve.”
Quoted from David Coles. (He and his wife Nancy are from Atlanta and stayed an extra week after BHHP ended to help begin the follow-up process. I asked him to share some of his insight from their 2 weeks here.) Here he is below sharing his faith with a student after a morning of distributing Student Survival Kits.
Jay from Atlanta illustrates jokingly the intensity needed to make phone calls to Hungarian students to follow up from an outreach. Csilla is not sure whether to laugh or pray!
Roland (left; one of our Hungarian staff), Jean (BHHPer from Oklahoma City) make friends with two Hungarian students during the Survival Kit distribution.
Marilyn from our sending church in Atlanta initiates with a college students a conversation about Jesus Christ.
Pat from Memphis witnesses with middle school girls at McDonalds after we spoke at their school that morning.
Thanks for praying for us and thanks for those that gave up vacation and family time and spent their own money to join us for a week. Most of the participants had no previous experience in sharing their faith; they just had a willingness to try and an abiding faith in Jesus Christ.
