Day 43, Budapest

We had an amazing street outreach this week. I'll tell you all the events leading up to it. One of the things God has really been showing us lately is the power of prayer. I have always understood that prayer is good, and that every once in a while something great happens from prayer, but I never really understood the importance of prayer and how it can affect things. I used to always be the first one to get bored and lose focus ten minutes into the hour long prayer times......I still do...but I "used to" too. ; )

This week we were reaffirmed of how important prayer is, and heard all kinds of different stories of how prayer changed things. Well, right before outreach we fasted lunch, and spent the time praying for the our ministry on the streets. We arrived at the metro we were going to do our songs and testimonies. We spent about 10 minutes, in pairs, walking around praying for the people, and claiming the area for the Kingdom. I decided to give it a try, I would usually say a quick prayer and then tune my guitar and get ready for worshiping. So I walked around praying, the whole time. Then we sang. It was rough, we were having trouble with the sound system, and half the worship team couldn't get set up, so we fumbled through it.....but people were watching intently. It was different. And then while they were giving testimonies and translating it into Hungarian, I would usually just sit and wait for the next set of songs. But I decided to pray again, and walked around praying for the people's hearts to be prepared and again claiming the area for the Kingdom. I was about to go back up when a man walked up to me and started talking about our songs. To make the story short, I eventually led the conversation to his belief in Christ, and he immediately changed the subject. A few minutes later I started talking about God again, and he said he had to leave and hoped I had a good time in Budapest, then walked away and stood there watching the dramas. He didn't have to leave, he just didn't want to talk about God. I was a little put off, I figured I was too forceful, but whatever, I tried. A few minutes later a guy in his mid-twenties stood about 5 feet away from me, watching the program. He inches his way closer, and kept looking at me. He had seen me talking to the other guy, and I think he noticed how I was touching the other guy's shoulders and heart (its amazing what touch does to people). I looked up at him, and smiled, and he walked over to me and said "Do you believe this F$%&ng $#!T?" I smiled, knowing that I was probably one of the only ones on the team who could talk to this guy without my head exploding because of his language, and that's why God led him to me and not someone else. I said, "Yeah, actually, I do man" He asked me a few questions, and I asked him what he believed. He didn't believe in God anymore because of some deaths in his life, he didn't understand how God could let people die so young. I told him about Christ, and how we can have personal intimate relationships with God. At first he didn't want to accept Christ into his life. I asked him again, but still, he didn't want anything to do with Him. I shared about some of the things God has done in my life, about how I changed and how I'm living a completely different life now that I have a relationship with Christ. He asked about talking to God and prayer. We talked for a while, and at the end I asked Him if he would like to know Christ like I do, and have a relationship with God. He said, "Yeah....I....I do." I just kind of stood there....in disbelief, did that actually just happen? After fumbling through that whole conversation, it actually got to the point where he asked to have a relationship with God....I couldn't believe it. We prayed and he asked Jesus into his heart, repented for living away from Him, and asked the Holy Spirit to live in him! Totally blew my mind.

We sang more and did more dances and testimonies, and then had a debriefing. One of the Hungarian pastors who was there thanked us, saying that he had been doing this every week for years and years, and had never had so many people open to receive Christ! Many people entered the Kingdom of Heaven that day!

Totally opened my eyes to the power of prayer.

This week Jim Isom talked about "Family". Intense stuff. He talked about our roles in the family, how we receive different wounds and identities from the way our family interacts. He spoke on building joy, and family blessings, visions, and used Biblical examples. One of the things that he said really stuck out to me,

"The place you learn the most about God is the place God has destined you to be"

Moses didn't know much about God before he led the Israelites out of Egypt, it was when he stepped into the position that God planned for him to be that he learned the most about God.

He talked about the church as a family a lot too. While speaking at a church in South America, he got on the topic of missionaries. He was teaching about the gifts that God has given us, and how some people have a gift for missions. He said, "Would I be mistaken if I were to say that God has called at least 1% of real, God fearing Christians to be missionaries, and that He has gifted them in that area and they don't even know it?" They church said that they believed 1% sounded too low, that more people were probably gifted in the area of evangelism and missions. He asked them how many people lived in El Salvador. They said 6 million. He asked them how many of those people were true Christians, who walked with Christ, and prayed and went to church and were serious about their relationship with God. They said a little over 30% of the people. So about 2 million. So 1% of 2 million is 20k people. Of a nation of 6 million people, 20k would be a reasonable (or low) number of people that God has gifted in missions. He asked them how many missionaries they actually had. They discussed it, and said they had about 125 missionaries that they send out to save the lost. So is it possible that the other 19,875 people just don't know that they have a gifting in that area?

He asked them if they could support that many missionaries, and they said that they actually couldn't. How many churches have this same problem? How many of us don't know the calling God has on our life, and just live life doing things with no eternal value?

This stirred something in me.... Is there something that we can do to show people the calling on their life? Help people get a vision of something? I don't know, but God is moving my heart in this direction, I just cant see clearly what He wants me to do just yet.

This is getting pretty long, so I'll hop off for now. I'll write again soon. I am praying for you guys back home.