Saying Goodbye

These past few weeks since we announced that we are leaving Hungary and moving to Colorado have been filled with a lot of emotional goodbyes. Even people we don't meet with that often, saying goodbye is hard, because we have memories with them, and we don't know when we will meet again.

The first big goodbyes were in Debrecen, where they had a going away party for us. We really love those people, and even though we left Debrecen 7 years ago, we have been able to keep in touch and visit pretty often.
The Calvary Chapel in Debrecen is a blessed ministry that is really characterized by good fruit. If you look at the fruit of that ministry you can see that truly the Spirit of God is at work there, drawing people to Jesus and building them up in their most holy faith. As I told the church there - I came to Debrecen as a kid, and left as a pastor :).

This past weekend we went to Baja to see our friends Csicsó and Detti. Csicsó pastors the Calvary Chapel in Baja and has a great heart for the people. It was good to see good fruit coming out of that fellowship as well. I got to preach there on Thursday night - which very well might be the last time for me preaching in Hungarian for some time... I really enjoy preaching in the rich Hungarian language, and it is something I will miss.

On Saturday, when we got back from Baja, we said goodbye to our dear friend Judit - the first person who got saved through our ministry in Eger. She was the first person in the church, and God used her gift of evangelism to bring many others as well. Her whole family has been in our church, and we are going to miss them a lot. Judit has been living in England for the last few years, but she came home in part to say goodbye to us.

Yesterday we went up to Budapest to say goodbye to some friends there. We said goodbye to our dear friend Ocean, whom we've known since our time in Debrecen. He used to live in the church building there and even supported us financially from his meager salary to travel up to Eger when we started the Bible studies here in 2004.
We then went to the Budapest Calvary Chapel, and Pastor Phil prayed for us at both services. It is great to be a part of the work that God is doing through Calvary Chapel in Hungary, and we hope to continue to be involved in it in some capacity even from the States.

We still have a few more goodbyes to say before we go. They are not easy, but we are thankful that God has given us so many close friendships and such deep fellowship with people here.