Dear Friends of Eastern Europe Renewal:

The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

I'm just back since last night from Hungary, England and Norway and will leave this evening for Italy. An American couple with whom I have worked several times in Bratislava will go with me for 8 days to Florence and Assisi. They have never been there and I look forward to the roll of tour guide.

This letter will be short, but I wanted to let you know how the travel and teaching have gone over the last 3 weeks, especially you who have been praying. 

The Hungary visit was to a Baptist Church of Veszprem, whose pastor I met at the European Leadership Forum in Sopron, Hungary a couple of years ago. We began with a lecture on Spirituality on Friday evening, followed by an all-day conference on Christians relating to the Arts on Saturday. On Sunday I could preach in the Church and then go with the pastor and his wife and brother to Budapest for a rally of the pro-family and Christian values political party. There were 1.5 million people in the square and it was pretty exciting. On Monday evening the church sponsored a lecture on comparative worldviews in the University. About 80 people came and 60 of them were not from the Church. The pastor had never seen most of them. The lecture began at 6:00 in the evening and the discussion ended at 10:30. Then we drove over 2 hours to Budapest to sleep at the pastor's parents' house and get an early flight to England. I won't mention the burst water pipe in the pastor's kitchen and some other special events of the visit. I would love to go back.

In England I was driven from the airport to the Word Alive conference in a seaside resort. There were 7000 people including 2000 young people. This was the first time L'Abri had been invited to the conference and it was an exciting privilege to be on the team. We gave 5 lectures and had lots of group and one-on-one discussions, including an amazing talk with 2 mainline Chinese students with no Christian background. One of their first questions was "If you are a religious person, can you actually change your religion". Please pray for Ling and Yarming. After the conference, we drove 5 or 6 hours down to L'Abri, where I did not teach, but rested and had great fellowship with Marsh and Tuula Moyle from SEN in Bratislava, who are there on Sabbatical. Their son and parents were also there. Jim and Merran Paul, who work at L'Abri hosted me in a very loving and restoring way. 

From England I flew to Trondheim in Norway and was driven to the YWAM base in Eintroa. The School of Biblical Christian Worldviews was in its second week and I could be the teacher for the week. Although it was a very international group of students and staff they all could understand English, which was a great help. The Lordship of Christ is over all of life, rather than only over private experience and religious activity is a central issue for these students and for a great many Christians. The scope of teaching on this issue is very broad and there is a great need for people to apply themselves to it in a variety of areas.

After 3 flights homeward, I met Dean and Arlene Johnson in the Zurich airport and we took the train together to Basel. Mary is enjoying their visit very much.  Tonight we will take the sleeper train south, looking for Spring, which is very late in coming. 

Thank you very much for your prayers, which sustained me in this recent busy time, for your friendship and your financial support. May the Lord bless and keep you and restore the joy of Easter for you daily. 

Yours in Christ,

Ellis

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Copyright © 2006 Ellis Potter.