Kagran Church: Project Pagro

Some of you may know that our church the Free Evangelical Church of Kagran is looking for a place to relocate. For the past year they have been talking with an owner for purchasing a building. We have send information through our sail mal Newsletter last year.

In the past month there has been a lot of movement and steps taken…but not in the direction we were thinking. A few things happened within a short span of time. Pooling our resources we realized that we would need to pay less than the seller was asking for. We tried to negotiate to a lower price but the seller is not in a hurry to sell and thinks he can get what he is asking. So after a year of talking the church building committee decided not to pursue this any further.

Within 2 days the church was informed that there was an empty store, named Pagro, available at a highly populated and trafficked intersection. Purchasing out right was out of our range but a Christian business man, who had been helping us with the previous building, thinks this is a good investment for the Kingdom and is willing to buy the building and land and work out a good rental agreement with us. For this to work there are a few factors that need to be in place.

• He is not able to come up with all of the money up front so the church is loaning money for the purchase to be made by min month.
• We are looking for 2 other partners to rent the building as well. We have found one already, a woman in our church is starting a private kindergarten, this was in our original concept as we want to be a positive influence and witness in the community. The third partner, right now, seems to be an English speaking church that is also looking for a new location.
• All this needs to take place now because for the kindergarten option to work they need to start renovations in May so it can open in the Fall in order to make money.

The last two Sundays at church there has been a spark in the people, an excitement that I haven’t seen in a while. It seems that the whole church is getting behind this and ready to see what the Lord will do.

During this whole building search I can’t see the future nor know how God will work in this situation. I keep thinking of Jonathan or Schadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Old Testament when each were faced with an unpredictable and seemingly impossible situation, Jonathan and his servant when the two of them attacked a philistine garrison killing 20 men by themselves. Jonathan said “It may be that the Lord will work for us” (I Sam. 14). Also, the 3 Hebrews that were faced with the fiery furnace when faced with recanting their faith and bowing to the king’s image or facing certain death. They answered,”…our God is able to deliver us…..but if not,…we will not serve your gods nor worship the golden image.” (Daniel 3).

In both circumstances they did not know what the Lord was going to do but went onward if even in apprehension because they were doing what they believed to be God honoring and the right thing to do.

We will keep you updated on this project as it unfolds.

Eric

International Travel isn’t what its cracked up to be.

Last week I attended a Language Coaching Workshop in Budapest Hungary. Hungary is a neighboring country due East.  I took a 3 hour train ride from Vienna to Budapest.  There are some of you out there who are thinking,“Oh how nice.  A European train ride. Wouldn’t THAT be fun.”  I can here my mom saying that and I am guessing there are plenty of people who would enjoy that.  Unfortunately, I am not one of them.  I find international travel to be nothing less than stressful.

I took the train after Church last week and was to pull in around 7:00pm in Budapest.  I had looked up my connections online and knew where to go exactly from the downtown train station to my hotel.  Everything was going fine.  It even looked like we were pulling in a bit early.  Most everyone in the train got off and so did I.  To my horror I realized that I had gotten off one stop too early! Stranded, alone, just outside of Budapest.  Remember Budapest is in Hungary and it is there they speak Hungarian, not German or English.  It only dawned on me then that I should have picked up a phrase book or something.  But I hadn’t.

There I was on an empty platform, not able to read anything nor understand a single word of the announcements.  I did the only thing I could. I picked up my bags and pretended to know what I was doing and where I was going.  Fortunately, there was one other train station that I had seen as I had mapped out my travels from the train station to my hotel.  I waited patiently for that train to come and hoped that I could take that one. It was 20 min late and I was getting nervous.

There was one other person waiting.  A lady who started talking to me in Hungarian.  I smiled widely and said, “Sprechen Sie Deutch oder English?” She smiled big and said that she was Austrian.  She had been living in Hungary for the past 5 years.  She helped me get on the train, buy public transportation tickets and brought me to the bus I needed that would drop me off at the front door of my Hotel.

Okay, I hear you.  You say, “Eric what a wonderful story.  How that nice lady helped you.  You made it all right what an adventure.”  I say I could do with out the drama and it is eaiser to say than be the one stranded in a foreign country not knowing anything.  Unfortunately, this was not the first time something like this has happened nor will it be the last.

Tags: InternationalTravel