So, what are you doing?

So I thought that I would take some time and write a little about what I plan on doing in Hungary. Because it seems like everyone is always asking me "What are you planning on doing when you get over there?" Which seems to me to be a pretty legit question, because I'm not just going to Hungary to sit around, drink coffee, and discuss the latest developments in the world of made for PC online gaming. I'm going there to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And basically, that's what I'm going to be doing. But something like 'sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ' can be pretty abstract. And, it's something that all Christians everywhere should be doing and we all do it in different ways, we have different forms and methods. So I think that the question that I'm going to aim to answer, "What methods are you going to use, to share Jesus with Hungarians?"

It's hard to know exactly what I'm going to be doing too, because in order to know that I'm going to have to be there for a while and get to know what people already are doing, what's needed, what's culturally appropriate, and where I can best fit in. But I certainly can tell you what I'd like to be doing. :)

I want to work with homeless people, poor people, random street musicians, and other people who need love and are sometimes hard to love. Which is going to take a whole lot of Holy Spirit power, for sure.

I want to work with College students, and other young people. which is totally going to take boatloads of grace.

I want to work with Christians, among other things, I want to get a group of people together, and pick a book of the Bible and just get as much out of it as we possibly can. Digging deep into the word of God, and trusting Him to speak. I want to be used by Jesus to bring His bride closer to Him in Hungary.

I want to pray. Because just as much as God can use us when we preach, God can use us when we pray. He listens and He acts when we pray. I want to pray with Christians, I want to pray for unbelievers, I want to pray for the Jewish population in Budapest and in Hungary. I want to pray with Christians in Hungary for the world.

And I want to do this in a way as to say, I couldn't have done any of this without God working though me. Because it's all about Jesus.

If you think about it, pray for me, I still have a long way to go on this grace-of-God journey called 'Support Raising'. But pray that God would be working in Hungary now to prepare a place for me to work in my giftings and desires to serve Him in a way that would bring the most Glory to Him.

Thanks! (And thanks for reading this whole note!)

Psalm 67:2

So, I don't know what anyone else thinks... But I really like this snow a lot.

It seems to me that our biggest 'spiritual breakthroughs' in life happen over extended periods of time. It's like the love of Christ is slowly but surely being built up in our hearts so that at the time that temptation comes we are increasingly more and more likely to fall, not into the sin that's tempting us, but back into His arms. We are ever becoming more and more satisfied with Him.

Man, I'm really starting to love cornflakes. Just the plain ones. It's like a little bit of sunshine or something.

Zachary needs Jesus to help him

Just something that I wrote in my newsletter that I thought I would share here too...

Lately I've really been learning to really value spending my time with God in prayer. In Mathew 7:7-8 Jesus says, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." I don't think that this passage means that God will just give us whatever we want just because we asked Him for it, but that when it comes to our relationship with Him, that we need to constantly be asking God to bring us closer to Him, and that requires that we ask Him for His help, and that we seek Him, which requires that we spend time with Him. It is such a comforting thing to know that God hears my prayers and that He loves to spend time with me... and that I love to spend time with Him.

Relationships

I'm sure that most of us have heard the cheesy church mantra "it's not a religion, it's a relationship."

Well no matter how horribly gaudy it sounds to us because of how churchy it is, it's true. I have a relationship with Jesus. And, as young and inexperienced as I am I know a few things, one of which being that relationships are messy. Especially between human beings. Honestly it's an interesting relationship that I'm in with Jesus though as he's perfect and all, it seems like I'm always doing dumb stuff that he's really not ok with, but he just keeps forgiving me and helping me to do better in the future. Seriously, I did like eight dumb things today, and just forgave me and told me not to get stuck up in it but to trust that he's already taken care of it and to move on...

He's really the awesomest person I've ever known... and I love Him so much. And He loves me. And I want to come back and I want to spend all my time with Him and just, you know, look at Him...

I know... that sounds weird. But that's ok.

Because it's the most authentic thing that I've written in a long while.

Jesus

In relationship with Jesus is the better way to live



I'll write more when I have time

-Z .

''We share a sense of excitement and freedom. Not a rebel freedom, rather, a deadline-free sort of peace. - Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

Oh how He loves us. :)

"Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides."
-Chambers

Adventure. I've been sitting here for like fifteen minutes trying to figure out some way to start this blog and I think that the word "adventure" is fitting. It's not a particularly fluid way to start a blog post, I know, but for what I wanted to talk about it fits.

I should probably give some context. I'm not going to Central Asia anymore. Sometimes it's hard to know how I feel about that. Here's what I know, I was walking towards working in Central Asia and God kind of pushed me off that path. And that's really all that I know how to say about that situation right now.

So, now I'm here wondering what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. And that's really where the word adventure comes in. The other day, I was sitting on the couch in the building that I live in praying "God, please, please reveal you will for what you want me to do next to me." I was trying to be obedient, I guess, to walk in the will of the Lord and stuff like that. And this was the thought that immediately popped into my mind, and I'm pretty sure it's from God.

"you know, really, I don't want to know what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. That would really take all the fun out of everything."

And it would.

Following Jesus can and should take us down paths that are unexpected. James 4:13-17 says ^"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."

The Bible doesn't promise us that we're going to know exactly what the Lord's will before we make every decision in our life, look at the life of Paul... that guy did a lot of traveling just to get where he was going and get turned around. What the Bible does tell us, though, is to do the good that we ought to do.

So yeah.

Me and a few of my friends are thinking and praying about going to Hungary... I have a passion for discipleship and church planting and have a desire to work with those who are generally not embraced by the church, or society at large. And a deep rooted love for Eastern Europe and the post-soviet world.

but even so... I'm waiting to be surprised

Praise Him. :)

Taking a step back to gain some perspective on where he was going, and where he had come from a rather profound thought crossed his mind, "this isn't about me, and this isn't about us, and this isn't about them. This is about Him"

Humbled and at the same time greatly inspired he continued on in his journey, thanking his God for the grace that had just been shown him.

And that's what changed everything, what took the mundane and made it into the greatest adventure that any human being could possibly embark on.

It was Him.

Which says a thing or two about how awesome He is.

More one the adventure soon. :)

-Z

"For You delight in showing of mercy, and You desire for me to draw near, and you have caused me to come and approach You, and I am blessed among men!"

My life ìs made so great by the fact that my God does NOT need me, He doesn't need my love, He doesn't need my worship, and He doesn't need me to make him look good. If He needed me, there would be no good news. But praise God, He wants me!

Vision Statement

From Bosnia This is is a vision statement that I've been working on over the past few weeks, after the vision statement I've added the ways that God has led me to to live it out. As always, this is a work in progress, a living vision that God is ever reforming in my heart. "To bring Christ into communities among least reached peoples in the post communist world to the glory of God." Through A holistic living out of the gospel Impassioned worship of the creator God Life lived in community with other followers of Christ Placing great value on Intentionality of perusing Godliness in relationships The Kingdom of God reigning, first in my own heart and then in the hearts of others A dedication to seeking the living God through prayer. I think that over my next few blog entries I'm going to be expounding on this and how it will play out into my life and ministry. Thanks for reading!

Espresso and brownies.... strangely enough I don't remember what happened the rest of that evening, but I'm sure it made for an interesting time. :)

Hey! this is a test to see what will happen!

From Thailand

From Bosnia

It snowed the other day... I like snow, it was the first time I'd seen snow since I was in Europe.

Beautiful. :)

From Hungary

So I was thinking today about what languages I eventually want to learn and I thought I'd make a list for everyone to see.

German

Spanish - Shhh, don't tell anyone!

Russian

Serbo-Croatian

French

Arabic

Dutch

Polish

Thai

Vietnamese

Azeri

Turkish

Greek

Tamil
Indonesian

Portuguese

Finnish

Swedish

Hebrew

Hindi

Hungarian

'Cause you never know when you're going to come across a declaration of love grafitied across a Hungarian bridge in Russian

-Zach

From Thailand

Feet Moving Forward is a little tagline that I thought up before my internship in Cambodia and something that I added to my blog back then. I've always liked feet, primarally because without them people would have a really, really, hard time getting around. Feet are our primary, and most natural, form of Transportation. Moving foward is about us moving our feet in the right direction, always growing, always learning. 

After my internship I can see God at work in my footsteps thus far and am excited about where He's going to take me from here. 

He is so good!