Fall 2011

Fall is a funny time of year; there's just no way around it. Spring and summer? Long gone. Change happens across the board; over here in Europe, change rules the roost. Fall gives way to air slightly more brisk than you'd like it to be. Trees, though, are filled with color like the ocean is filled with life. With daylight savings time, "daylight" is in short supply. Generally speaking, everyone is getting ready to hunker down for the rapidly approaching winter. Autumn really just feels like an unwanted prelude to winter. Here at the school, fall means student life is in full swing.

If you have ever driven on the Autobahn in Germany, you've probably experienced the jolt of an unrecognizable sports car as it flew past you. The flash of lights in the left lane telling you to "slide over," and then this sudden whoooosh as it raced by. When you look up, you realize that what was presumably a car must have been going 110+mph. September and October 2011 pretty much flew past us just like that. Exciting? To be sure. Full? Most definitely. Boring? Yeah right. All in all, these two months have been great.

This semester has seen an upswing in student numbers that we simply have not seen in several years. That's a positive, but the really glorious part about it is seeing many students with a great love for our Lord, and for His living Word. On top of that, one of the real treats around here for me is found at meal times. I often look up and find at one table a few Americans, and perhaps a Pakistani or two. At another table, a Cuban is sitting with a Columbian, an Austrian, a Hungarian or three, a young lady whose family serves the Lord in Holland, and perhaps our student from Kenya. Across the room, I see our student from Ghana sitting with a family from South Africa. Scatter in some random missionaries, a Romanian student or two, and you've got a pretty good idea of what CCBCE looks like on a daily basis.

The Gospel of Luke and Biblical Theology are the two classes that I am teaching this semester, and I am loving them both. Spring semester I'll be teaching the Gospel of John along with New Testament Synopsis. I DO NOT want to get ahead of myself, but I'm looking forward to those as well.

Some highlights from the semester so far have included an amazing Inductive Bible Study week-long class with Pastor Dan Finfrock of Intensive Care Ministries. Our 10-day outreaches brought back great reports of the gospel going forth into many, many parts of the world. This week is our Biblical Missions class week with two pastors that serve Jesus in Kyrgyzstan.

And there you go. Lots going on. Throw in a trip to Slovenia to share the Bible, some other teaching/preaching opportunities for both myself as well as Christi, various challenges here and there, a few conferences, conversations to be had, and prayers to be prayed, and we're half-way through this semester of Fall 2011.

Blessings to you all! Thanks for praying!!!

Lots of love,

Jeremy, Christi, Ian, Leah, Kara, Mikayla, Lola, and Buddy the Bird

Summer 2011

And here we are: Fall semester 2011 at Calvary Chapel Bible College Europe is officially upon us. But we'll come back to that in a minute. Right now, we're talking about the summer. So here we go.

Foster Summer Reading Program

Obviously the big news is that our little Leah Rose - our Leah Pumpkin - turned 10. Double digits. The big one-zero. Ten. Crazy. Am I really old enough to have two kids aged in double digits? Before you answer that, ask this: is Christi old enough? And the answer comes back with a resounding: "I guess so."

To commemorate this occasion, a new family member was added. Buddy. Buddy the bird. This is Lola meeting her new brother. And don't forget that Lola, by nature, is a bird dog of all things (on both sides of her family). This should make for some good family bonding in the future.

We were able to spend a couple of days in Austria at the Calvary Chapel Missions Conference there. Christi's pop was speaking at the conference, so we were able to spend some quality time with him.

You might remember from our last update that we were going to take a family vacation. It was great. 20+ hours in the car, and a couple of days enjoying Legoland, Germany.

That was one long car ride (two, actually).

Brotherly and Sisterly Love in Action

This summer brought us a nice surprise visit from our dear friends, Argaw & Mekdes. They needed to come to Hungary for a few days to renew some travel documents, so we were able to catch up with them a bit. Christi was delighted to spend some time with her old boxing trainer.

This summer was also a bit of a season of good-byes. You might remember from the last update that we said good-bye to the Beller family. You'll all be happy to know that mommy and baby are doing well. God knew what He was doing when He moved them along. Kim's pregnancy was of the high-risk nature, and it was "higher" in risk than they had originally known. We also said good-bye to the Lange family; they moved back to the States in July. This semester will mark the first semester that the Lange's haven't been with CCBCE since...(wait for it)...1997.

Sierra and the rest of the Lange clan will be missed.

Our summer discipleship school, A Vision For Life, was a smash once again. 25 young people that really had a chance to meet with Jesus. And meet with Jesus they did. We finished off the program with a baptism; a bunch of them decided that they wanted to obey the Lord in this area. And, of course, we picked the coldest day of the summer for this event.

AVFL 2011 Baptism

And, the Calvary Chapel Scandinavia Conference in July was wonderful. I got to meet some truly amazing brothers and sisters in Jesus. It was a blessed time in God's Word, and a great time with some old friends as well as new ones. If you're at all interested in listening to the teachings (1 & 2 Timothy), feel free to check them out here:

CC Scandinavia Conference Teachings

Sweden!

I was blessed in August with being able to share the Bible with the saints at Calvary Chapel Budapest. Feel free to check that out here if you're interested in listening to a Bible study (translated into Hungarian) from John chapter 6:

Calvary Chapel Budapest, Hungary - August 14, 2011

And so, with September literally only hours away, we are in the midst of regrouping and transitioning back from conference center mode, to Bible college mode.

Allergies and wasps have been the "bummer" part of the story for the summer. We're getting past it (read that, "prescriptions and wasp spray").

Feel free to pray for us as we enter this new season at the school. God has some great things in store for all of us we're certain. It will be fun to see what exactly He has in mind.

Thanks for reading this all the way through!

SPRING 2011

The kids hanging with our good friend, Judah

First things first: this is the longest I have taken in between the writing of two newsletters since we moved back to Europe in June of 2004. My sincerest apologies. Hopefully this update will help to fill in some of the blanks.

Happy Birthday Kara! We miss you, Charis!

Happy Birthday Mikayla Ann!

CCBCE

The last time I wrote, there were definitely some prayer requests. Good news in this update: God is good (I know: "surprise, surprise" right?). The semester definitely finished well; thank you so much for the prayers. Seems like everyone over here is excited about what God has in store for the ministry here at the Bible College.

WHEELS

Speaking of answered prayers, we have a van. I repeat, we have a van. More on this in a second, but for now: thank you for praying. It is actually the same type (and a little nicer!) as the one we had last year. It is very nice to be able to get around at a whim again (but at +/- $8 a gallon... "at a whim" isn't all that often). We're making some payments on it, but it should be all taken care of by next fall.

Lola, taking a break from her rigorous Frisbee workout session

SUMMER

Summer is officially upon us here at the Bible College. We've gone from school mode to conference center mode and we're ready to rumble. Tomorrow is day #1 of our annual Foundations Conference for pastors, missionaries, and national leaders from all over Eastern Europe. We'll have around 350 guests descending upon the premises for the conference. Along with conference season, we're also gearing up for our six week summer school of discipleship: A Vision for Life. We have around 25 students starting up in about a week and a half. Feel more than free to pray for: Foundations Conference, AVFL, the rest of the summer conferences, as well as our serving crew. I'll most likely be slightly busier than expected this summer; more on that in a second as well.

SCANDINAVIA

Feel free to pray for me come August (well, you can pray for me before then, too). I will be traveling to Sweden for the Calvary Chapel Scandinavian Conference. I was invited to teach at the conference, and I will be joining an awesome team of pastors that will be sharing God's Word with His people. The conference is 3-7 August. "Nervousness" and "excitement" generally sum up my thoughts on the subject.

BIRTHDAYS

Mikayla is now officially six years old. This week I celebrated my "spiritual birthday" - the anniversary of when I gave my life to Jesus Christ back in 1993. I have now been a Christian for half of my life. What a wild ride it has been! For those people that think that following Jesus seems boring, you literally haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about! My "regular" birthday was the other day and so I'm now one year older. Kara's 8th birthday was on Saturday (June 18). What did I want for my birthday, you ask? Nothing special. Just an iPad 2. (Insert token laughter here.) As my good friend Arpi likes to say, "It isn't your birthday that makes you older, it is the other 364 days."

VACATION - REALLY?

For whatever reason, it always sounds odd to hear about missionaries taking a "holiday." "Time off" traditionally translates to "furlough" in mission-speak, but tradition aside, we're going to try to take four or five days and go to Germany in early July. One of the perks of actually owning a car.

SMALL DROPLETS OF SLIGHTLY SALINATED MOISTURE FROM THE EYES

Good news / bad news about the van. The reason we were able to get this van is because one of our team families needed to head back to the States. We said goodbye to the Beller family last week. Kim is pregnant and it is a high-risk pregnancy. They have a heart for another spot on planet earth as well, so part of their decision was based on the pregnancy, but part of it was based on their hope to launch to the next stop in their ministry. Pray for them for sure, and also pray for us as we fill in the blanks for the college and conference center. Caleb was our pastor in charge of conferences and his wisdom with that will certainly be missed this summer!

And there you have it. As my dad likes to say, "It's all part of the adventure." There are certainly very few dull moments around here.

Thanks again for all the prayers - we need them.

Continue to pray for the Bible College - we're excited to see what God has in store for us over here.

Pray for us this summer as the conference season is a very busy part of CCBCE's calendar year.

Allergies is another one to pray for (er... to pray against). They tend to hit pretty hard for most of the Foster family this time of year here in Hungary.

Thanks again for everyone's patience in between newsletters. Hopefully things will begin to settle down a bit over here and I will be able to get back to a normal monthly routine with writing again.

God bless you all!

Thanks so much for all that you do for us to enable us to do what we do here!

Jeremy, Christi, Ian, Leah, Kara, and Mikayla

2011. March 2011.

Flowers and Lollipops

A week or two ago, my favorite basketball player went down with an ankle injury. When asked what he was thinking about the injury to his player, his coach said this: "It's not flowers and lollipops." I like that (not the injury, mind you, just the assessment). I bring this up not because I have an ankle injury, but because things are not always flowers and lollipops here.

A Tough Month

There are always challenges and difficulties that come up in life, and life here at the Bible college is no exception. March saw us give some time off to a couple of our students that lost loved ones and needed to travel for funerals. One lost a grandfather, and the other, her father. Literally, as I write this, I just found out that another student lost her grandmother this weekend and needs to decide if she should take some time off for the funeral, etc. We've seen one of our students need to go home for personal reasons, another make the decision that she won't finish the semester, and another also decide for different reasons to go home and finish out the semester via correspondence. Not sure exactly what to make of all of it, but throw in another student having an extra tough time as well, and you can be sure the pastors here have dedicated some extra time to praying for our students.

Pride and Discouragement

I often explain to my students that, while Satan has many different ways to attack, he mainly only needs one of two means to slow us down. Pride and discouragement. If he can get us prideful - get us to think we've got it all figured out and that "we're really something special" - he's caused us to isolate ourselves a bit. Isolate ourselves - mainly - from God. "After all," we so often think, "I know what I'm doing; I don't need help." This is obviously never a great place to be. Discouragement, on the other hand, works just as effectively. If the enemy of our souls can get us down, he'll try to keep us down. "After all," we so often think, "I don't know what I'm doing; no one seems to be able to help." And what happens? We isolate ourselves - mainly (once again) - from God. And, this is never a great place to be.

In 2 Corinthians 2, the apostle Paul says that we are not "ignorant of" the enemy's devices. Unfortunately, I don't know if this is always still the case with many believers. Pride and discouragement, which seem so at odds with one another are actually a lot more similar than most realize. Someone once said that the rich and poor have something in common: they're both always thinking about money. Pride and discouragement have this in common: they're both always thinking about self.

I bring this all up to ask you to pray for the staff here at CCBCE as we seek to minister to our students, and obviously also to ask you to pray for our students. Particularly I ask for your prayers on their behalf as they prepare to go on their "10-Day Outreaches" in just a couple of weeks. The enemy of our souls is never happy with us (to put it mildly), and he's especially unhappy with Christians when we decide to venture further out with the gospel. The devil will use any means necessary to try to hinder our work of sharing the love of Jesus and His finished work on the cross of Calvary.

Etc, etc: Mobiles, Mobility, and the Minds of Children

In other news, thankfully, Christi and I were able to get a pair of mobile phones to better keep us in connection with everyone over here. Next on the list: a car. More specifically, a van of some variety. I would love to have an eight or nine-seater, but those tend to be a bit "drága" (that's Hungarian for "expensive"). We'll see what our great Provider brings us - feel free to join us in prayer there! Also feel free to join us in prayer for wisdom for our beautiful children as well. The topic for this set of prayers: school. They have amazing minds and we want to see them used to the fullest. We're not entirely sure what their education will look like come September, but we need to start making some decisions. Feel free to join us in prayer in this arena as we just plain need God's wisdom for Ian, Leah, Kara, and Mikayla.

Speaking of Which...

Mikayla will be six (6... SIX!!!) on the 8th of April. What a wild ride these past six years have been. Six. How does that happen? Kara's birthday is next (June), and she'll be 8. Two months after that: a second double-digit-aged kid. Leah will be 10 come August. I just don't feel old enough to have kids this old.

And there you have it. April is well underway and we're excited about what it will bring. Thanks as always for praying for us!

Lots and lots of love,

Jeremy & Christi

February 2011

And just like that, it's time for another update. We're doing well; keeping busy for sure and trying to catch up with the ins and outs of the Bible college. While a lot of things really are much the same from last year, there are still plenty of new things to learn. And, adjusting to my new role here of overseeing the school has its fair share of challenges and learning curves as well. Feel free to pray for wisdom for me!!! Oh, and by the way, I'm also overseeing the internship here and teaching the book of Joshua every Wednesday afternoon as well.

It has been a bit of an adventure thus far. Various colds and coughs along with something dreadful... two of our girls got lice. (And now you're all scratching your heads and chasing shivers from your necks.) They're all clear now, but that definitely wasn't welcome news after just arriving back. On top of that, Christi hasn't been feeling very well, so we could definitely use your prayers for health as well.

At the risk of this sounding like an end-of-the-year Christmas card that tells you how perfect our family is (if you know us at all, you know that isn't true), I'll give you a quick run down on the kids, too.

Ian is loving having a basketball court in his own backyard and, despite the cold weather (read that: "snow flurries about every other day"), he gets out there every opportunity he can. He's really doing well and even gets to play with the "big kids" every so often (read that: "we've played probably three times in the last few weeks").

Leah is taking guitar lessons and seems to be doing well with that, too. I don't know if she'll be able to play piano and guitar simultaneously, but she sure loves her music. Her and a friend also put together a little gymnastics routine last week. I think Christi is going to try to post it to her facebook page so be on the lookout!

On campus the other day at lunch, Kara asked if she could go to the upstairs coffee shop after she finished eating. I asked her what she wanted to do there. "Go to the prayer corner and pray with [her friend] Charis." "Oh... yeah, that would uh... be... uh... fine sweetheart," was pretty much about all I could get out. Amazing. I love watching God work in the hearts of our little ones.

Mikayla. She'll be six in a month. SIX. Still has the blond, curly hair and the mischievous smile that certainly compliments her blue eyes. Six years old. I guess we can enjoy her last month of being five. Six...

Next week is "Guest Speakers Week" here at CCBCE. Christi's dad is one of the speakers, so we're looking forward to a great week in the Word and enjoying family.

And there you go. We're doing well. Adjusting and moving forward. Excited about the future, and staying busy in the here-and-now.

Thanks much for the prayers, and for the support. We greatly appreciate the love.

Until April, God bless!

Jeremy, Christi, and the kiddies

There and Back Again

As our flight into Budapest began its descent, I began thinking about how to do this. “This,” as in, “our newsletter/update/blog.” More specifically, the writing of our newsletter/update/blog. That was Sunday the 30th of January, and as I sit here on the 2nd of February and type away at our kitchen table, I’m still not sure how to do “this.” How do I condense our conclusion to move back home to Vajta and the ministry of CCBCE, a couple nights in the hospital with a pair of kidney stones, packing up a houseful of personal belongings into a big VW cargo van, saying good-bye to amazing people, various bits of this-that-and-the-other, and gearing up for a new semester? Hmmm... typing that just now didn’t help. But, here goes.

When we packed up, said good-bye, and moved to England last June, or intention was to be there for years to come. We knew that we would be helping out at CC Mansfield for a short time before moving on to another area. Little did we know that the “other area” would actually be a return to Calvary Chapel Bible College Europe. Suffice it to say, we loved our time in England, and the conclusion to leave was anything but easy. Please also allow it to be sufficient to say that we wouldn’t have repacked our stuff and got on another airplane with one-way tickets unless we knew that there was work to do here.

Something about kidney stones? Right... kidney stones. Note to self: drink more water.

This, that, and the other: Ian turned 11. ELEVEN. He’s well into double digits now.

A new semester. I will be teaching Joshua this semester and I’m excited about that. Great man, great life, great message, and a great book. What an honor. I trust that lessons of faith will be passed along through the book to the students, and that I’ll have lessons of faith passed along to my heart and mind as well.

As I said, we’re excited. Excited to see what God has in store for us, for the students this year, and for the great things to come for the Bible college. Having said that, it was really tough to have to say good-bye to England. We felt right at home there (as we do here!) and quickly developed some wonderful relationships with some wonderful people. I suppose this would be a good time to quote from the Psalms or the Proverbs, and I’d be right to suppose that. All I can think about right now is a quote from a non-biblical source: “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” And Forrest Gump was right. You never know what you’re gonna get. And when you follow the Lord, what you expect to happen isn’t always what ends up happening.

There and back again indeed. As much as we enjoyed the lessons learned in England, appreciated the love and support that was shown us there, and met some amazing folks, it is nonetheless good to be home.

Feel free to pray for us for all of the new challenges and possibilities that await us!

Blessings to you all,

Jeremy & Christi and the kids