Dear Praying, Helping Friends:
Let me begin with a note of
rejoicing in the way the Lord has provided through you to make it possible for
our work in the Hungarian lands to move forward financially.
Our expenses are of two types. The
first is operational and includes all we need to maintain our 15 men who are
developing the 22 congregations we have in
Hungary
,
Ukraine
, and
Romania
. It also includes all we need to
run our school (Karolyi Gaspar Institute), develop new publications, support
home schooling efforts (especially
Romania
), and maintain vigorous camp and conference ministries throughout the year.
Our second kind of expense is capital in-vestment (land and buildings),
improvements, equipment for our men (cars and computers), and printing our
publications. As for operating
costs, our congregations in
Hungary
are nearing full support of their pastors and their own needs (85 to 100%).
Our congregations in
Romania
are at 50%. Our congregations in
Ukraine
are at 10 to 15%. Overall we are HALF way toward self-support in our
operating costs. It has taken us ten years to come this far.
Barring the unforeseen, we can go the rest of the way in another five
years. So, of the $160,000/year
needed to maintain our 15 men and these other ministries, the congrega-tions now
give $80,000/year. For the present,
we need to be faithful in keeping up our half.
The other part of our program is capital spending.
We have come about two-thirds of the way in this.
We have not had anyone on the field who could help us in this.
But any time we erect a building, we get a lot of volunteer help from our
members. This means, e.g., we can
put up a $110,000 building for $70,000. It
is inspiring to see our members helping this way. Looking
at the next few months, our most urgent need is for $16,000 to finish buying a
$50,000 property in
Zapszony
,
Ukraine
(to locate there, one must buy a pre-existing building.)
We were able to negotiate the price from $70,000 down to $50,000, mainly
because of the financial crisis in
Ukraine
where people’s savings are frozen in banks.
But, to do this, the owner wants all the money at one time – and
quickly. So, by faith, we have
agreed to pay him everything on April 18. In
God’s providence, we have a buyer (in dollars) for the property we are
leaving. This gives us $16,000 (he
has gathered these funds from relatives who did not have their savings in
banks). We have another $18,000 in hand. So,
between now and April 18, we need $16,000 more.
PRAY about this. This should,
then, be the last real estate purchase we ever need to make in
Ukraine
.
In
Romania
, we need $14,000 to buy land in Erdoszentgyorgy where Lehel Laszlo has a
congregation (he also has a small Gypsy congregation in Rava).
The owner of the land is almost finished with the legal work needed to
clear the deed. And, as in
Ukraine
, when he is ready to sell, he will sell to the first person who has money to
pay him. But we have an oral
agreement with him that he will sell to us if we have it when he is ready.
That could come at any time. So
PRAY with us about this, for, indeed, we have been asking the Lord for several
years for land like this. It is good
that, once we get this land, we don’t need to hurry to build.
But when we are ready, we can put up a $110,000 structure for Lehel and
his family with a meeting hall for the congregation.
And, because of its location (near some of our members who are very
skilled workers) we can do this for about $60,000.
We also need, after that, $15,000 to $17,000 to increase the size of our
meeting hall in
Szekelyudvarhely
,
Romania
. We presently have 22 to 26 people
meeting in a tiny space (only 20 square meters).
Gabor’s congregation is growing nicely.
So we need to enlarge the meeting hall to 60 square meters.
This should be the last investment we need to make there.
Finally, our church planter in
Budapest
,
Hungary
(Mihaly Siko) needs to move out of the downtown area in the near future.
Smog is a problem. His
congregation has also outgrown our large room there (we have more than 30 people
coming at times). “Misi” has
some funds (inheritance), so we could jointly buy something using his funds,
funds from our current property, and another $25,000 to $50,000 to buy a large
house in a nice district not far from the center of town. But
the property in
Ukraine
is urgent, after that land in
Romania
, then funds to enlarge our meeting hall in
Szekelyudvarhely
,
Romania
. These three needs come to $46,000.
Please PRAY earnestly.
We also have good news about two of our men who are nearly ready for new
church planting. Sandor Tamas, who
has been helping Gabor, will marry Biborka Fodor October 10 and, since it seems
the Lord’s will, will go directly with Biborka to a new field,
Csikszereda
,
Romania
. We have long desired to send a
worker there. This is a very large
city with 80,000 Hungarians and no Reformed witness at all.
This is also Biborka’s home where she has many family members and
friends who can welcome them to start a new work.
This will mean more operational cost at the beginning, then a car, then
likely a capital invest-ment a few years later.
But God has been looking down on this city for some time, preparing the
way for the good news of His Son, our Savior, to be preached there in purity and
power. PRAY.
We also rejoice that Peter Szabo will soon be our 16th worker.
He will probably marry later this year, then do some work in
Budapest
(since it has two million people). But,
in the last six months, the Lord has sent us some good contacts from
Hungary
’s second largest city,
Debrecen
. An elderly couple with a large
network of friends heard about us less than a year ago.
They are now in our membership course.
It is marvelous to see how the Lord raises up workers to preach the
gospel, then people to lift up a Macedonian call, then help from here at home to
send a preacher of the gospel at the right time. KEEP
PRAYING. We must obediently “offer
up our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will…”
WSC #98
I recently did a study of our 22 congregations and found that five have 20 to 30
people at the worship service on the Lord’s Day.
Six have 10 to 20 people, and the other 11 have 5 to 10.
But this is only a tiny part of the story.
The big story is that most of our 160 members have come to Christ in the
last five to ten years. And their
level of dedication is extraordinary. And
most of them are people of learning and skill with many contacts.
Teachers, doctors, engineers, chemists, economists, government workers,
etc. We are loaded with talent and
zeal. And trends indicate that this
is only the beginning. I am so
encouraged with the evangelism going on in all our congregations, not just by
the pastor, but by our church members. There
is also a lot of good discipling going on. The
pastor must spearhead this, of course. It
is called “equipping the saints for the work of ministry so the body of Christ
may be built up.” (Eph. 4:12) The
lack of this in
Ukraine
, until recently, was a major reason for the slowness of the work there.
That is why, 18 months ago, I became more involved, eventually starting a
new program (not an academic program, rather hands-on discipling with weekly
reports coming to me) to help our three men there in the work of discipling
others. In the process, I’ve
learned a lot myself as their teacher. If
I was not so busy, I’d like to write a book on this.
In any case, the work in
Ukraine
is now showing some very promising signs.
Even when our church (RPCCEE) becomes totally self-supporting, there will likely
be many important things we can do to help it, even as it numbers, Lord willing,
into the thousands with tens of thousands under its influence as “the whole
body becomes mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”
(Eph. 4:13) After Elijah’s contest
with the prophets of Baal, he prayed for rain. It took a long time.
But eventually, he saw, far away on the horizon, a tiny cloud rising the size of
a man’s fist. That wisp of a cloud eventually reached
Mt.
Carmel
, at which point rain was coming down in buckets!
Let me summarize our prayer
needs: 1/ Pray for our school,
Karolyi Gaspar Institute of Theology and Missions in
Miskolc
,
Hungary
, that the Lord would bless it and our 11 students (including two new ones just
enrolled). 2/ Pray for our 15 church
planters (soon to be 16) in
Hungary
,
Romania
and
Ukraine
and their 22 congregations and four preaching points.
3/ Pray for our publications in these three countries, that the Lord
would use all 19 of them to show forth the glory of Christ.
4/ Pray for our spring and fall conferences and summer camp ministries in
these countries, that the Lord would use them to bring many to Christ and build
up our church. Pray for our Easter
conferences coming soon. 5/ Pray for
our efforts to develop Christian home school movements in
Hungary
and especially in
Romania
, where we are working to have home schooling legalized. 6/
Pray for Clara and me – for wisdom, health, and daily strength. 7/
Pray for funds for all the above financial needs.
Yours in
His glorious service,
Bob and
Clara Rapp
