Dear Praying Friends,

The first time I laid eyes on Robert, I would never have suspected that he might someday be a candidate for the Gospel ministry.  His smile is very pleasant, but the hair that ran down his back as far as his waist just didn’t quite fit my picture of a Baptist pastor.  Robert and his wife had come to Christ from the witness of his wife’s cousin in Budapest, but they had not grown much spiritually, because they could not find a good Bible-preaching church to attend.  Last year they enrolled in English classes taught by Tim and Sheryl Hughes and the Hughes invited them to a Friend Day Sunday at Lighthouse Baptist Church in Nagykanizsa.   They have attended faithfully ever since.

How things have changed since the first time I say him.  I still recognize his smiling face but the long hair is gone.  He realized he needed to cut it before he was baptized and joined the church.  Last month he accompanied Gedeon Olah on a preaching trip to Albania.   The experience has had a very good effect on Robert.  As I have been teaching the Baptist Distinctives to his church over the past couple of weeks, Robert has taken in every word.  From such people we expect that God will raise up the next generation of pastors and church planters in Hungary.  Pray for Robert.  He is one of about ten million reasons God sent us to Hungary.

Thank you for praying for the end of the semester for the Romanians students taking Greek.   All did very well on the final exam.  I believe that all of them have enough of a grasp of the basics to enhance their preaching and teaching.   Thank you for praying for the home school conference where Jean and I spoke.  About 30 home schooling families attended from Timisoara, Romania, in the east, to Sopron in the far west of Hungary.  Our teaching was very well received.  Thank you for praying for our new English language Sunday School class which I am teaching to English-speaking university students.  This is a bad time of year to start such a class, yet we have had seven attend so far.  We will suspend the class from the middle of this month until school starts again in September, since most of the students will return to their home countries for the summer.  We would appreciate your continued prayers for this new ministry.

In May I began teaching a class on the book of Psalms for the Pecs Bible institute.   Sixteen students have enrolled.  I expect to finish by the end of June.  Please pray that the students will finish the class and learn and grow spiritually from studying this very rich book.

Peter, whom I asked you to pray for last month, has been attending services.  Pray for his continued growth.  Pray also for the continued growth of Nikolett, who is taking the discipleship class taught by two of the church ladies.  I have asked for prayer for Attila numerous times.  We were encouraged to see him in church last Sunday.  Please pray for his spiritual growth.

This month will be another busy one.  Besides the Bible institute class, we plan to attend the second anniversary and charter signing service for Lighthouse Baptist on the 13^th.  I will be preaching there on June 27^th.  Ami faces auditions for the University of Pecs and for the Liszt Academy in Budapest.  Pray that the Lord’s will would be done and that He would guide her as to the next step in her training.  The Lord willing, on July 2 we are flying to the States to attend the wedding of our daughter, Hannah, to Lieutenant Kenneth Earnshaw.  The wedding will take place in Greenville, South Carolina, at Mount Calvary Baptist Church.  In the weeks following, we plan to report to a number of our supporting churches in the Midwest.

Zoli Kiss, a member of the Pecs church, would appreciate your prayers regarding the Lord’s guidance for his future service for God, as he will be graduating from the University of Pecs next year.

Ami and I have faced some minor health issues over the past couple of weeks.  We are thankful that God has enabled Jean to nurse us both back to health.

Thank you for your continuing prayers on our behalf.  We depend on you.

Yours for Hungary hearts,

David Potter

PS—Don’t forget to visit our web site, www.hungaryhearts.com, for all the latest pictures.

This evening we celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of Bible Baptist Church of Pecs.  After observing the Lord’s Supper and hearing a stirring message about reaching the lost from Jim Knies, we enjoyed chocolate cake and fellowship together.  Your heart would have been warmed by the testimonies from several people of how the Lord has used Bible Baptist in their lives.  Click pictures to enlarge.

Group Picture

Chocolate Cake

Hungarians celebrate Mother’s Day on the first Sunday in May, rather than the second.  Here are some pictures taken this morning.  Sixty people attended, including 19 mothers.  The children enacted the story of Hannah and Samuel.  Click pictures to enlarge.

Children's Play

Hannah and Eli

Mothers

Choir

Today I began teaching the book of Proverbs to a group of university students from Nigeria, Germany and Norway.  Four came for the first class, a good start.  Please pray for growth in this new ministry.

Here is a picture of the first class.  Jan, Rolf, Barbara and Priscilla joined Jean and me.  Click to enlarge.

English Sunday School Class

Colin Christiansen was our special guest speaker on Sunday evening, April 18.  Colin and his wife Sandy had been missionaries in Hungary.  Hearing Colin’s testimony of how God has worked in his life over the past three years was an encouragement.  We are praying that God will bring Colin and Sandy back to Hungary to serve here once again.

Dear Praying Friends,

Peter seems to be a bit shy and socially inept, but his outward demeanor hides an active brain.  He is a tenth-grader who specializes in information technology (computers) in high school, with hopes of pursuing advanced education in that field.  He lives in the same apartment building as the Kiss family, who are members of our church.   Zoli Kiss invited him to our special meetings and he was able to attend on the final night.

After the service, Valerie Knies asked him if he would like to speak to someone about salvation.  His friend Zoli probably would have done so, but he was busy helping Bob McKinney counsel someone else who wanted to be saved.  Instead, young Bela Gado went through the plan of salvation with him.  After Zoli’s first counselee had prayed to receive Christ as Savoir, Zoli joined Bela and the two of them led Peter to Christ.  Pray for Peter.  He is one of about ten million reasons God sent us to Hungary.

Thank you for praying for our special meetings.  They were well attended every night.  God used Bob and Tina McKinney to encourage us all.  Bob did a wonderful job of explaining how the biblical concept of love applies to the problems of contemporary life.  Besides the two who professed Christ on the final night, we had a number of visitors who expressed a spiritual interest.  Pray that God will use us to guide them to Christ and that the new converts will follow Christ in baptism and church membership.

Thanks for praying about the Greek classes in Romania.  The students are doing well.  Our final classes will be May 3 and 4, with the final exam to follow.  We ask you to pray with us for God’s guidance about what contribution He wants me to make toward the further training of these men.

Please pray for our new Sunday School class for English speaking university student, which begins tomorrow, May 2.  I have long had a burden to help these students, but the opening to do something like this never presented itself before.  The present opportunity has come unsought.  Pray that the classes would result in spiritual growth for these students and for salvation of others as the ones who are interested invite friends to come.

On May 15, Jean and I will be featured speakers for Hungary’s first ever Christian home school conference, which will be held near Budapest.  Pray that God will use us to be a blessing to these new home educators.

On May 20-22 and 27-29 I will be teaching a series of lessons on the Baptist Distinctives in Nagykanizsa.  The Lighthouse Baptist church has many new converts who know nothing of the Baptist heritage and practice.  Pray that the lectures will be both interesting and effective in teaching these new believers about this important subject.  We continue to watch the progress of the Olahs and the Hughes.  In special meetings which ended last Sunday, the Lighthouse Baptist Church saw three new professions of faith.

We would also appreciate your prayers concerning our daughter Hannah’s upcoming wedding, July 6.  We plan to leave right after Ami’s audition at the Liszt Academy in Budapest.  Ami would appreciate your prayers as she prepares.

We appreciate your prayers and notes of encouragement.

Yours for Hungary hearts,

David Potter

PS—Check out our web site, www.hungaryhearts.com, for several new posts, including a musical selection from our recent Easter program.

Bob and Tina McKinney, missionaries to Poland with Baptist World Mission, visited us for a series of special evangelistic meetings. We have a number of visitors to follow up on and two professions of faith. Here is a picture of Bob preaching on Sunday evening. Click to enlarge.

Bob McKinney

We are grateful for the people God has given us to work with. Young Bela Gado, whom I wrote about in our October 2009 prayer letter, entered a national competition for high schoolers who want to go into civil engineering. He placed third. The head of civil engineering department at the university where the competition was held sat in on the oral portion of Bela’s exam and invited him to come back and teach there whenever he earns his degree.

I promised to post video of our Easter musical program.  In this clip, some of our church youth sing “Is This Place Familiar to You?”  The composer of the music (Lajos Bardos) and writer of the lyrics (Istvan Jobbagy) are both Hungarians.  Here are the words in English:

Say, is this place familiar to you:

The place where blood ran down the tree?

Do you understand why the Savior

Accepted this suffering?

My sin and your sin

Were the reason He had to die.

The whole punishment of our sin

The Son of God carried.

Say, O soul, do you know

What wonderful portion will be yours?

Does your heart rejoice

That your Father has forgiven you?

O look into Jesus’ deep wound.

Out of it comes salvation’s river.

Though your soul from sin was red

It will be clean as the snow.

Like the Snow from David Potter on Vimeo.

Dear Praying Friends,

Barbara’s smile is enough to light up a room.  Her light complexion and blond hair mark her as Scandinavian.  Lots of Norwegians speak English well enough that they can study abroad in our language.  Getting into medical school in Norway is no easier than in the US.  For that reason, Norwegians occupy some of the 120 new places reserved annually for English speaking students in the University of Pecs medical school.  This is a win-win situation, since the foreign students can study medicine more easily and cheaply than in their home country, and the university ends up with cold hard cash.

Some of the Norwegian students found our church on the web.  They decided to check us out because we sometimes have preaching in English, and we have interpreters who can interpret the messages simultaneously with the preaching.  Barbara told me that although she is Lutheran, she is more comfortable around Norwegian Baptists than she is around liberal Norwegian Lutherans.  Barbara and two of her friends have attended our services twice now.  We are wondering if we should start a special Sunday School class for them so that they can learn in English.  Please pray with us about this matter.  And pray for Barbara.  She is one of about ten million reasons  God sent us to Hungary.

Thank you for your prayers for my itinerant ministry.  I was able to preach in Nagykanizsa last month and teach in Romania three times.  The Greek students in Romania would appreciate your prayers for the remaining sessions of class that will culminate in a final exam the first week in May.

Thank you for praying for Nikolett.  She continues to attend services and is growing in the Lord.  Pray for her husband, who is not interested in the Gospel at this time.

Please continue to pray for Bori Horvath, the mother of our pastor.  The pathology report from her surgery showed that the cancer she had previously has returned.  Bori is one of Jean’s best Hungarian friends.

Easter Sunday evening we had a musical concert at the church.  We had ten visitors, including the Lajos Horvath family (no relation to our pastor) with their three teenage daughters.  Pray that the Gospel will penetrate the hearts of the unsaved who were present.

Attila, Miklos and Anna continue to need your prayers that God would bring them into the fellowship of the church.

I hope to post a film clip later this week at our web site, www.hungaryhearts.com.  The site already has several new pictures.  I had to shut down the comments due to the large volume of spam the site attracted.  Our web master has now installed a spam filter, so I will be allowing comments in the future.  Please feel free to browse and comment.

The next big event on our church calendar is the spring evangelistic meetings, April 25-28.  Bob McKinney, Baptist World Mission missionary to Poland, will be our speaker.  Pray that God will send us many visitors and that people will be saved through these meetings.

We appreciate your intercession on our behalf before the throne of grace.

Yours for Hungary hearts,

David Potter