August Prayer Letter
Dear Praying Friends,
Having been born between Beius and Stei in the Transylvanian section of Romania, Tibor first heard the gospel from the Baptist Union church in his town. Due to his Hungarian roots, he has since moved to Hungary, obtained Hungarian citizenship and now works for IBM in a warehouse that supplies all of Central Europe. A jolly looking sort of fellow, he has a wife and three children, two girls and a boy.
I first met Tibor on Saturday. A missionary in Budapest has gone on furlough and asked Jim Knies to mind the store for him this summer. This week was our turn to have the midweek service on Thursday and the three Sunday services. Tibor came to the church with his wife and his older daughter on Saturday morning. While his wife cleaned the church, he took his daughter along with Ami and me to a section of town near the church where we passed out copies of “John-Romans” along with invitations to his church. On Sunday, I preached on the Christian home in the morning and on child discipline in the evening. Tibor sincerely thanked me for the messages. He very much wants to be a good father and have a strong Christian home. Pray for him. He is one of about ten million reasons God sent us to Hungary.
This month has been quite eventful. The first week was our annual Children’s Bible Week. Numbers were down a bit this year. Please pray that we will be able to reach the parents of the children who visited. After the conclusion of Bible Week, we traveled to Romania to preach in two independent Baptist churches in the exact same area that Tibor came from. I was able to speak for a youth meeting and Sunday services in Stei and for the midweek service in Beius. After that we attended the European Family Retreat of Baptist World Mission in Germany, where I spoke in two of the men’s sessions. We ended July and began August in Budapest, as mentioned above. Meanwhile, four young people from the Pecs church spent two weeks serving in Camp of Joy near Stei, Romania.
This week the church teens are in Budapest where they will serve in two churches. Next week I have been asked to speak for the college and career week at Camp of Joy. For the following week we have invited Baptist World Mission missionary to Ireland, David O’Gorman to speak for our annual church Family Camp. Pray that people will come not only from Pecs, but also from Budapest and Nagykanisza.
We are also very excited about what is going on in Nagykanizsa. The Gedeon Olahs had two more professions of faith just a week and a half ago. Brother Gedeon had laser surgery on his sinuses last week and needs your prayers for a speedy recovery.
We also ask that you would pray for preparations for my fall teaching schedule. I will be teaching two Bible classes in Pecs, as well as first year Greek in Romania for the Bible College in Beius. The classes in Romania will require me to make the train trip ten times between September and December.
We would like you to pray about an unusual opportunity the Pecs church has. You may remember that we had to spend a lot of money to reinforce our building due to structural problems. Several schools in the area had the same problem, but have not addressed it up to this point. The engineers refused to sign off this fall that the buildings are safe. The church voted to let a local school use the upper floor of our building temporarily for two kindergarten classes. The principal of the school and city officials are very interested, but several problems need to be worked out before they can use the facility. Classes begin in two weeks. This could prove to be a great opportunity for the church to reach young families.
Today we said “bon voyage” to our daughter Ruth who left for Manila, the Philippines. She was asked to teach music as a furlough replacement in the Bob Jones Memorial Bible College, founded by my old friend from student days, Dennis Potts. We are thankful that God sent in the needed support in such a short time. She would appreciate your continued prayers.
I have posted this prayer letter as well as several new pictures on our web site. Please visit us at http://www.missioncentral.net/miss/potter/index.htm and click on “Our Journal” on the upper left-hand side.
Thank you so much for your prayers.
Yours for Hungary hearts,
David Potter