Stories from

Hungary
Kiskoros Budapest Elek EurOPE

Hungary

attila Jako Beatrix Klinger Erika Szido

Grace Publications
6025 Moravia Park Drive BaLTiMore, MD 21206

Printed in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.a. Copyright 2011

Grace Publications is a ministry of Greater Grace World outreach, inc. www.ggwo.org

InTrODuCTIOn
These pages contain what we consider to be good news from afar. The words are written to take your imagination to nations, to places, and to homes so that you would understand more about the reality of what God is doing in His world. Think about the people as they tell you about the days of their youth. We believe their stories will stir you to pray and that the maps and sketches will give you a sense of where they are from and of what their countries are like. The stories you are about to read are true stories. They are from people like you who grew up in towns and neighborhoods like yours and did some of the things that you do. at some point in their lives, each of these people became believers in Jesus Christ. each of them recognized their need for His saving grace and entered into real spiritual relationship with Him. also, each of these people came to be a part of the ministry of Greater Grace World outreach, a church devoted to preaching the Gospel and to the mission of making disciples of Christ in every nation.

our prayer is that these series of books on these amazing people will help you to see the wonderful work of God. Through the reading of these stories, you may find yourself wanting to meet people like these people and to go to new places and be part of the great adventures of missionary life. Special thanks to those involved in producing this publication: Melissa Quickel, for her interviews and transcriptions; Daniel Dunbar, for putting these into story form; karen Janssen, for the drawings of the people and the places; Sue May, for the layout and design; and for Bruce May, for the printing and production. Steve andrulonis Editor in Chief Grace Publications

Hungary

Budapest

HUNGARY
Kiskoros

Elek

Kiskoros attila Jako Budapest Beatrix Klinger Elek Erika Szido

attilas Home Town

Kiskoros, Hungary

HUNGARY
Kiskoros

Kiskoros, Hungary

attila Jako

to school and he had fun playing soccer and riding bicycles with his many friends. He took some guitar lessons, liked being a little lazy, and got into trouble at school every once in a while. He was like other 7-year-old boys, but teachers and other adults treated him differently. in daycare, teachers slapped him, and in school, teachers ridiculed and hurt him. Why? He did not know. He was not the bestbehaved boy, but not so bad that he deserved what these people did to him. What attila did not understand was that he was 7

rowing up in kiskoros, Hungary, attila Jako was an ordinary Hungarian boy. He went

mistreated because of his mothers job. attilas mother worked for the Communist Party, which ruled the country of Hungary. Many of the Hungarian people did not like the Communist government and so did not like the people who worked for it. Because attilas mother worked for the Communists, he celebrated the Communist holidays, and his teachers did not accept him or treat him like the other students. even though his family did not go to any church, 11-year-old attila chose to not use Gods name as 8

a swear word and began praying the Lords prayer every night before he went to sleep. He knew very little about God, but he decided that, even though it was acceptable and cool to use Gods name as a curse word, he would not. He knew this was strange, but he did it anyway. When he was older, attila spent some time in the military. one day he overheard a Christian soldier speaking to another soldier about the Gospel. although the other soldier was not interested in hearing about Jesus, attila was, so he asked the Christian soldier, Can you tell me? The Christian soldier said that Jesus loved attila so much that he died for him so that attila could have eternal life. No one else loves me like that, thought attila, so if this is true, i really want it. He became a believer. Do you remember how attila took guitar lessons when he was a boy? Well, attila and a friend started playing rock and roll music when he was 14, and now he was a rock musician with long hair and earrings and a nicknameThe Dope Manbecause of his drug problem. attila believed that God truly loved him, but when he went to churches, the people did not accept him as he was. Fortunately, he met a friend who told him about a church in Budapest and she gave him a taped message preached by a pastor 9

named Tom Schaller. What he heard on the tape touched him so much that he went to a conference and met Pastor Schaller. Pastor Schaller asked attila, Would you like to go to Bible college? attila thought, if i go there i will have to take out my earrings, dress normally, and cut my hair, so he asked, Can i come as i am? Pastor Schaller said, of course! God loves you just the way you are, and attila knew right then and there that he had found his place. God transformed attilas life. His nickname changed from The Dope Man to The Bishop. He stopped singing songs like Highway to Hell and began to sing songs about heaven. He went from the boy that the teachers rejected to become a teacher at Greater Grace international School, because God and some Greater Grace believers accepted him just as he was. Therefore, accept each other the same way that Christ accepted you, (romans 15:7).

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Beatrixs Home Town

Budapest, Hungary

Budapest

HUNGARY

Budapest

Beatrix Klinger

Have you ever had to sit and watch everyone else play because you got hurt? if so, you were probably disappointed and maybe a little angry too, but you eventually got better and you could go somewhere or play another time. But what would it be like if you never felt better or your injury never healed? How would that feel? imagine that you could see, but then you couldnt any more. Thats what happened to Beatrix kilnger. When she was just a baby in Budapest, Hungary, the doctors found tumors on both of her eyes, and when she was 31/2 years old, 13

ave you ever missed out on going somewhere fun because you got sick?

she lost her sight. Blindness did not stop Beatrix from doing the things she enjoyed. She made handcrafts. She got a special drawing board that allowed her to feel the lines she was drawing. She played with her friends and went to camp for holidays where there was a lake to swim in and a nearby town to visit. Beatrixs mother hired a tutor to teach her how to read and write in both english and Hungarian. at school she heard about the Bible, even though Hungary was a Communist country and teachers were not supposed to speak about religious things. in secret, some of the teachers told students about the Bible and taught them a few verses and rhymes. 14

Beatrixs family moved to vienna, austria. She went to the Catholic church with her family, but they did not like it much, so they decided instead to stay home and pray and read the Bible on their own. Beatrix believed that God existed, but she could not understand how he could create the entire world in just three days. She was being taught about evolution in school and that did not agree with what the Bible said. She decided that she needed to know more about God. one summer when Beatrix was 14, she went with her family to Budapest. She met some american missionaries who were teaching people english from the Bible, and so she took lessons and learned more english and more about the Bible. She wanted to find a church where people spoke english, but she couldnt, and she began to lose interest in church. in her teenage years, she drifted away from God into trouble. Trouble helped Beatrix realize that she needed to turn back to God and the faith the american missionaries had shown her. Back in vienna, Beatrix found work with a company that dealt with visually impaired and blind people. The company participated in many exhibitions and conferences, and one time Beatrix was asked if she would be willing to have a 15

Hungarian lady who was attending the conference stay with her in her apartment. Beatrix said yes and spent a day with the lady at the conference, going from exhibit to exhibit, translating from German into Hungarian so the lady could understand. By the end of the day, Beatrix was exhausted. When the lady went home with Beatrix, she asked Beatrix if she would like to talk for about five minutes or so. They ended up talking until 3 oclock in the morning about God, the Bible, and the ladys Greater Grace church in Budapest and Beatrix promised the lady she would come to her church whenever she next went to Budapest. When Beatrix heard that the Greater Grace church in Budapest was having a conference, she wanted to go, but she did not have the money to pay to register. Her friend, the lady who had stayed with her in vienna, told Beatrix that she would pay her conference fee if Beatrix would come. Beatrix promised to pay her back, and went to Budapest and found the english-speaking church that she had looked for back when she was a teenager. She heard beautiful messages from the Bible from Pastor Schaller and Pastor Boyce, and she was baptized at the conference. Since then, Beatrix has traveled to Baltimore 16

and asia. God has given her the desires of her heart. Blindness has not stopped her from ministering the Gospel throughout the world. What the devil meant for evil, God has meant for good, and although being sightless is a challenge, Beatrix counts it as part of the great adventure of her faith.

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Erikas Home Town

Elek, Hungary

HUNGARY

Elek

Elek, Hungary

Erika Szido

was growing up in the little town of elek, Hungary, she liked to knit and create things with her hands. She and her older brother rode their bicycles to and from school each day while their parents went to work. erikas mother worked in a carpet factory and her father repaired televisions and other electronic equipment. one of her mothers friends had a daughter erikas age named Gaby. Because they lived in different cities, Gaby and erika often spent summer and winter vacations visiting each 19

re you a creative person? Do you like to design things? erika Szido does. When she

others homes. Gabys father was a strict Communist who would not allow any talk of God in his home, so when Gaby attended the Catholic church with erikas family in elek, she was fascinated by the beautiful pictures of Bible scenes she saw there. on one of Gabys summer visits, the girls were caught in a rainstorm and erika prayed that God would stop the rain, and He did. erika was astonished and thought, God is really there! as the two girls grew older, their visits became fewer, and by the time they were high school students, they had no connection, because their lives had taken them in different directions and different cities. erika did not go to church very much, but the religious training she received as a child stayed in her mind and kept her from getting involved in many of the sinful things other teenagers were doing. But erika lacked joy and she felt empty, unloved, and insecure. When she finished high school, she worked for a year in an elementary school and decided that she would never be a teacher. She wanted to go to college and study her favorite subject, art, so she moved to Budapest to prepare herself for the entrance exam. While she was working for an artist and preparing for the exam, she received news that her mother was in the hospital with a serious liver 20

problem, and it was like the ground had been pulled out from under erikas feet. She thought her mother was going to die and she began to wonder, Why i am here on this big ball of mud? What is the meaning of my life? Money? Drugs? Finding a husband and having a family? Having a career or a job? She realized that none of these things was lasting, that they all ended in death, and she felt depressed and wished she could just disappear. She tried reading her grandmothers picture Bible and tried going to different Catholic churches, but nothing helped and she grew angry and bitter, even though her mother was able to come home from the hospital. one day she decided to go home to visit her family in elek, and who should God design that she meet on the train, but her childhood friend, Gaby! Gaby was so peaceful and her eyes were so bright that erika thought, She must be drunk or 21

taking drugs. Gaby was not drunk or on drugs; she was filled with the Holy Spirit. She had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior and she wanted to share the Gospel with her old friend, erika. She told erika about God and His love and how His Holy Spirit could live in her heart. Gaby invited erika to a concert at her church, and erika agreed to go, but said she would not become part of that church. When erika attended the concert, she sensed the presence of God, and after the pastor preached, she responded to the invitation to receive Christ in tears, praying, Jesus, i want you. i am a big sinner. Just clean me. When she left the concert, she knew she was different, a new creation. She had great peace and joy in her heart and a tremendous hunger for Gods Word. She borrowed a Bible and read it to learn more about the new life she had inside her, and she started going to church every week. God opened the door for her to go to the art design college and study textile design, but she had to agree to also study to be a teacher before the college would accept her as a student. While erika was in college, her mother got brain cancer. Her mother received Christ as her personal savior before she died and went home to heaven. after her mother died, erika tried to speak to her father about God, because he 22

had begun making unhealthy decisions. He would not listen. God led erika to the Greater Grace church in Budapest where she learned about grace, eternal security, unconditional love, and forgiveness things she had not been taught in her other church. it was this teaching that gave her grace to creatively love her father and bring forgiveness into their relationship and, just before he died, he became a believer. after she graduated from college, God called erika to be a wife, a Bible college student, and a missionary to Baku, ajerbaijan. Here she was able to teach in an international school, weaving the life of Christ into her art lessons as she serves children and their parents. Looking back on her life, erika can see the hand of God, the master craftsman, at work, preparing her to serve Him as a wife, missionary, and teacher. Her advice to young people is to adventure with God to bring color into your life.

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