Thanks to all of you!
Dear friends, family, brothers & sisters, prayer partners and supporters,I wrote this on August 14, 2000, as I waited in the airport in Amsterdam for my flight to Memphis and then on to Little Rock. As I've been extremely busy since I've gotten home, I thought I'd better "capture" my report then concerning the mission activities the Lord has allowed me to participate in during the past few months. Sorry I'm just not getting it to you.
Last fall when one of my students at Harding U. told me about a student Spring Break Campaign to Toluca, Mexico, I immediately invited myself along on it. Actually, I didn't work directly with the students, who were doing some repairs to a campground in an Indian village and working with the youth group from the Toluca church the rest of the time. I saw the group only the first Sunday after we arrived, when we, in groups of four, taught the children's Sunday School classes and sang before the worship service. (We had had training sessions in my home for several months beforehand.) Then from Monday through Saturday, I gave lessons for the ladies--three days from my book Entre Hermanas (Between Sisters) and 3 days on other subjects. My classes were well-received, and I made wonderful new lifelong friends among the ladies. A special couple were Elodia and Liberato Ovalle, with whom I stayed (and was treated like a queen) the entire week. The Lord willing, they will be accompanying me to Cuba in November over my Thanksgiving break from Harding (where I am again teaching one Elementary Spanish class).
The Debrecen, Hungary, campaign group also met mostly in my home, all the school year, training to teach the book of Matthew in English Bible classes for the 10th summer. This year the school was only 2 weeks long; so some went 2 weeks early for private studies with former students and other contacts, and three of us stayed on one week longer to do follow-up studies. One dear lady, a single mom, was baptized into the Lord the Saturday after the school ended on Friday. She's been attending our school for 3 summers and seems to have been well taught. I also had 3 private studies with her during the follow-up week.
Although I had only 2 classes (both at the Beginners level of English provicienty, and therefore harder to teach), by the time I pulled my one hour of "desk duty" in the foyer each day, we had our daily teachers' meeting, I had my private study with a long-time prospect, and we had either our Ladies' class or a video in Hungarian on the life of Christ according to Matthew (the book we were teaching), there was hardly time to eat and get in any lesson preparation or, for that matter, much rest. We had five nights with the ladies, in which we took turns teaching about Biblical women (From Hobbs' book, Daughters of Eve). I taught 2 of them.
I was quite exhausted by the end of the 2-week school, which is always climaxed by a Closing Ceremony the last Friday evening. In addition to the usual presentation of teachers with their students, some of which sang songs for the assembled people (including family members of the students), we 9 teachers and a few students put on a play about Esther, written by Jo Huddleston, one of out teachers. It took a lot of rehearsal time, but it paid off because it was a big hit. We may be forced to do another one next year!
Then I left Debrecen on Friday, Aug. 11, for Miskolc, where old friends Robert and Cendy Wells are missionaries. Cendy had put together a lovely "Ladies' Day" in which I was able to give four 45-minute presentations from my book Between Sisters (now published in Hungarian). I was working with 2 translators, one in the a.m. and one in the p.m. The morning one, Anita Mester, is a lovely young lady, now about 23, who first attended our English Bible classes in 1992 in Miskolc, later became a Christian, and has since grown into a "pillar" among the ladies (young and older) in Miskolc. (An aside here: I know of at least 4 or 5 of the young ladies there who attended our earlier schools, who, after becoming Christians themselves, taught, or at least influenced, their mothers to be taught, and now their mothers make up a strong part of the church there--a rather unusucal sequence of events. My lessons were well-received; and, as usual, I learned more than anyone else present at the Ladies' Day.
Later that day we witnessed the baptism of a man whose son and twin daughters were already members. That makes almost the entire family in Christ now. (The wife/mother came to Bible Study and worship the next day and seems to be very happy about her family's being Christians. So maybe she'll soon follow suit.
That Saturday night I attended in the Wellses' home a "Youth" devotional in which I (a 71-year-old lady!) was accepted as one of them; and we all had a marvelous evening together. Anita Nagy (my "daughter in Christ" from last year, who had accompanied me to Miskolc) and I got up at 4 a.m. the 14th, caught a taxi to the train and then went on to Budapest, where another taxi took us to the airport with time to spare before my plane. I have done such as that alone before, but "Ani" insisted on going with me and we had a nice visit before time for me to leave.
Thanks to all of you for your love and concern for me and your help through encouragement, prayers and financial support for these trips. God bless you one and all.
In Him,
Anita Hamilton
Anita Hamilton
Harding University
Internet: AHAMILTON@HARDING.EDU
900 E. Center, Box 12263
Phone: (501) 279-4645
Searcy, AR 72149-0001
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By Anita Hamilton | EUROPE | Hungary
