End of the beginning for the PACS portion of Romania mission team

This was not the end of the trip for the Prince Avenue Christian School portion of the team, it was just the end of the beginning. For God has begun in each of them His next step in transforming them into the image of his Son.

Our tour of Budapest was interesting, educational, relaxing, and fun. We started by going to view the paintings of Vago Pal, the great-great grandfather of one of the students. He is a famous Hungarian painter of military scenes. The paintings we viewed were more than 100 years old. One was in a restricted area, so only the student and one other team member were allowed to view it and take pictures. The other was in the art gallery housed in the former palace of Buda. All of us saw it and we had a team picture with it.

We toured monument square, the palace hill, ate lunch at a below ground restaurant, visited a village outside the city, and viewed the train station designed and built by Gustav Eiffel (Statute of Liberty, Eiffel Tower). It was a full day.

The team just left for the airport, and I am still in Budapest with Pastor Teo and his wife Camelia (pastor of Jibou Bpatist Church). I will get them to the airport later this morning for their first trip to the USA. Pastor Teo and Cami will be with us in Athens, Georgia from 28 March to 11 April, after visiting church's in Kentucky. I look forward to introducing he and Cami to as many of our WorldReach family and friends as possible.

This afternoon I will fly back to Romania. Tomorrow morning I will go by train to Tirgu Jiu, a town in the southern Romania region of Oltenia, with another Romanian pastor, to join Ricky McRorie and Benjamin Stanescu who are already ministering in the area. There will be more blog updates about that portion of the Romania March 2008 team in the days to come.

Please pray for the team members returning to the US today. It will be easy to fall back into the entanglements of the world and not experience God's continued transformation in their life. Pray that all of the details of their trip will go smoothly, and that they will have opportunities to share the gospel as they travel. Last, please pray for our Oltenia ministry. This is an area that is overwhelmed by witchcraft and occultism...it is a great spiritual battleground.

From Budapest...