Old Updates: The One Where Daniel Shares his New Role
Fall 2021
Thank you all for your kind and encouraging responses after our last update from Amanda, and all your prayers and encouragement leading up to and after surgery! Since Amanda shared about her new role here in Hungary recently, we had people asking what I am doing now. This update will cover that, as well as a quick update on Amanda and how her surgery went.
Our mission statement as a field here in Hungary with One Mission Society is “transforming lives in dynamic communities”. This focus on transformation initially started with our work outside of churches, with the goal of positively impacting the community and sharing the gospel through our service. We offered our skills and services primarily through English ministries (learning English is in high demand all throughout Hungary, and many Hungarians relish the opportunity just to get to practice in conversation with native English speakers) but also through various work projects. But we quickly learned that basing ministries on ourselves caused a struggle with the longevity of our work in Hungary. It just wasn’t sustainable and we found difficulty in bringing along volunteers.
This led us into some time of prayer and seeking God on what he had for us to join in on here in Hungary. Even doing English ministries, our team has always looked to partner with the local church and work to join in and strengthen what God is already doing here. Through prayer and a lot of meetings with pastors and people working in ministry here, we started to see a disconnect.
The pastors were all incredibly busy just trying to keep their churches running and preach meaningful sermons. Training to become a pastor taught them how to preach a sermon, but many of them had not been trained or given any guidance on how to shepherd their people and walk alongside them in a discipleship journey.
This is the area we have stepped into as a team over the last few years, and I have largely been heading up this effort for the past year and a half. I have found that I have a huge heart for pouring into those in ministry, encouraging them, and helping them find the resources and people they need in order to continue to minister to their community.
There is just no way that I can share the gospel on my own with all of Hungary (especially with my limited Hungarian!), but by helping pastors find resources to encourage their congregations to truly engage with scripture and allow it to change all of their lives, we are seeing the exciting byproduct of transformed lives and changed communities.
Primarily using a resource called Banding Together by Jon Wiest, we come alongside churches to help implement a discipleship process within their church and then continue to walk alongside, asking how else we may assist in what God is doing. Amazingly, the publishing house allowed us to translate this resource into Hungarian, and I have had the joy of sharing this with pastors throughout Hungary. From rural Szentmargitfalva to Székesfehérvár, even to our church here in Budapest.
Currently, I am focusing
on working with our team of Hungarian pastors as the process grows. We have groups of “bands” that have grown outside of themselves. I’m also working on republishing an updated version of the materials we use, building a new website (working with our new teammate from New Zealand), and planning two conferences next year. Finally, I am currently praying about the possibility of raising up a Hungarian to take on some of the workload and continue to grow the process in their native tongue.
In the past year, our team has also experienced some structural changes and I was asked to step into a leadership role along with two others on our field. Our Field Director, Jonathan Long, was promoted last year to be the Regional Director for our region, Europe and the Middle East. With that promotion and all the work that comes along with it, we needed someone to help keep the field running. This includes anything from visa logistics for team members to making sure the finances are sent on time to the right person to checking in on team members throughout the pandemic to see how they were doing both physically and emotionally.
Our team’s solution to this was a three-person committee and I am thankful to be one part of that committee. As we are looking forward to everything to come in the next few months, we are taking a few days the second week of November to gather as a committee along with Jonathan to spend time in prayer and planning for the new year. I would really appreciate your prayers as we enter that time — that we would have unity as a committee and region and that we would be open to hearing and seeing what God is planning.
If you have more questions, I would love to answer them!
Amanda Update: We are reaping the benefits of over-preparing for surgery (we have quite a bit of ramen!) and Amanda is recovering well. She isn’t quite back to “normal” yet, but the recovery process has been smooth and thankfully much easier than it was following her first surgery. She will have a follow-up appointment the first week of December, but initial signs look promising and the doctor said he was happy with how the surgery went. Thank you all so much again for covering us in your prayers. Each and every note, email, and text message made us smile and feel incredibly thankful to have such wonderful people in our lives. Thank you!
Thank you all again for your love and support. Knowing that we have so many people behind us, encouraging us in word and in just the way they live their lives faithfully is a blessing beyond what we can really describe. Thank you!
