Budapest Outreach Week 6 Update!

I can't believe how quickly the last few weeks have flown by. It feels like we just got to Budapest, but we're actually already finishing up this outreach! Just 8 days left in this beautiful city... Crazy! 

Central Europe Staff Gathering Family Picture!
We're in there somewhere!

Last time I sent an update we were just about to head to Vajta for the YWAM Central Europe Staff Gathering. We had an amazing and exhausting week at the conference. It was such a privilege to be able to hear from YWAM's founder, Loren Cunningham, but I think even more of a privilege to get to spend the whole week with the teens of YWAM! They are such a special group of people who also give so much as missionary kids along with their missionary parents! We had an amazing time worshipping with them through music and creative arts, sharing devotionals, hearing about their lives and all of the adventures they've already been on, and just hanging out being goofy with them! We played lots of games, went swimming, and enjoyed meals together too. We were all sad when our team had to head back to Budapest! 



It's been pretty crazy since we've been back in the city. Rachel (our DTS school leader) and Dani (another staff member) came from Seamill last Monday for a pastoral visit and were with us until Friday! It was so great to have them here in Budapest and it was a huge blessing to our team. 

Testimonies!

I just want to share a few highlights from the last couple of weeks:

The first happened yesterday during our street evangelism time... Anna got to lead a man to Jesus!! She was so excited!! She was just sharing with him about what Jesus had done in her life, and he decided he wanted to have that in his own life! She is hoping to reconnect with him next week. Please pray they'll be able to talk again and that he will continue to seek and encounter Jesus in these coming days!

Celena giving her testimony while Gabor translated

Another cool thing has been seeing how relationships we've built are growing, and we're seeing fruit from them! Celena met a guy in the first or second week we were here named Gabor. He had just come to Jesus a couple weeks before we came. He's actually homeless and living on the streets, and before meeting Jesus, he was addicted to drugs. Jesus immediately set him free from his addiction, and he has been experiencing so much more joy and freedom since then! Over the weeks, Gabor has been coming to the Friday night cafe, and Celena and the others have really been pouring into him. This last Friday at the cafe, he told Celena that he wants to become a pastor and tell everyone about Jesus. That night they got to pray for another guy at the cafe whose knee was completely healed, and Gabor was the one who prayed! He is so on fire for Jesus! And he actually joined us yesterday for our street evangelism time. He translated the gospel and shared his testimony through the microphone, and was hard to keep up with in his enthusiasm to just walk up to people on the street and tell them about Jesus' love! And all of this was his first time doing any sort of evangelism... Jesus is so good!

I also want to share about God's faithfulness to what He spoke before we left Seamill. He had spoken a lot about friendship/relationships and also encouraging the local church, and He's been faithful to bring opportunities to us for both! This Sunday we got to share at the International Baptist Church of Budapest. They gave us twenty minutes to share testimonies and some music. Celena and Kevin shared testimonies about what they've seen Jesus do in this city, and I got to share a word of encouragement from the things we'd gotten in prayer for their church. Sharing in churches is one of my favourite things, and we all got really positive feedback from the people there. I think it was also a really good experience for the trainees to share in a church before heading back to their own churches this summer! 



A personal highlight for me was getting to spend time with Dan and Katy Beth Searls a couple weeks ago. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I remember looking at the bulletin board at Labish Church and seeing the Searls' prayer card. I thought to my 8 year old self, "It would be so cool to go visit the Searls in Hungary someday!" Fast forward around 14 years... It happened! Jesus is SO ridiculous. I randomly ran into Dan and Katy Beth a few weeks ago in Budapest, and then two weeks ago my team and I got to enjoy a beautiful Sunday with them. We were so blessed by their hospitality and joy, and I'm slightly overwhelmed by how much Jesus loves to answer even the most passing, seemingly unrealistic, thoughts and desires of our hearts.

Some ways to pray! 

- Good health for everyone! Celena has had a pretty bad cold for a few days now, but she's pressed on like a champ! A couple others have had sore throats/stuffy noses too, so please pray for a healthy last 8 days!

- Continued passion and energy for the ministries we're involved with 

- More salvations and people encountering Jesus!!!

- A good finish: that we can leave Budapest without feeling like there are loose ends or things left incomplete 

- Breakthrough in a couple of relationships, especially with Bryce's buddy Laszlo. He is so close to giving his life to Jesus, and we are all praying that he will make that decision while we are still here! 

- That we would become even closer as a team, in ministry and at home; that we would know how to encourage and build one another up and how to really pursue Jesus together! We've really been asking Jesus how we can end this outreach well and strong individually and as a team. It's so easy to just coast through the last couple weeks of an outreach, but none of us want to do that! 

Thank you for supporting us in prayer! It has been such a privilege to serve Jesus with this team in Budapest! 

Cheers!
Katy

Budapest Outreach Update!

Thank you for praying for us!

Our first week in Budapest was amazing. The weather is great, the city is beautiful, the people don't really speak English, and the team has been doing really well! It was mostly spent getting to know the city and how YWAM works here, but also getting right to work. There is a team from YWAM Lausanne in Switzerland that is also doing their longterm outreach here. They will be in Budapest until the 26th of May, so we've been joining them in what they are doing in the city. It's been really good to have another team here so we can see how ministry works best in this city! They are a team of 11, so it's also been really fun to have other people to hangout with since we are such a small group! 

We do specific street evangelism twice a week on Monday and Thursday afternoons. It's really different from what we normally do at Seamill, but so far it's been really fun and lots of good conversations and opportunities to pray for people have come of it! We set up a couple of speakers and microphones in the metro stations and then just go for it - singing, banjo playing, testimonies, gospel presentations, and the other team does a couple of skits. And of course, you can't forget the Cupid Shuffle dance to draw a crowd! Our four trainees are so bold - they will literally talk to anyone about anything and end up sharing Jesus with whoever is in front of them. They are incredibly self-motivated and willing to do anything!

We have been working with homeless people on the streets on Tuesday afternoons, giving them sandwiches, chatting with them, and praying for them. I think this will be one of our group's favourite ministry times!

We work with refugees on Wednesday mornings who are staying at a homeless shelter in the city. They are mostly from Northern Africa and Afghanistan. It's a great opportunity to just talk with them (most speak at least a little English). We will hopefully get the chance to go to a refugee camp outside the city a few times while we are here. 

We also got to hangout with a bunch of Roma gypsy kids for several hours for two Sunday mornings. It was complete chaos but a lot of fun with dancing, Bible stories, and Anna's face painting! 

We spend quite a bit of time with the YWAM staff team here in Budapest as well. We are joining them several times a week at the YWAM coffeehouse for base worship, intercession, cleaning, and their Friday night cafe ministry. I think we have all felt incredibly welcomed and immediately included in their lives and work here. It has been an amazing first few weeks, and I am so impressed with Kevin, Bryce, Anna, and Celena's willingness and boldness. We are all doing well and are so excited for what Jesus will do in the coming weeks and thankful for what He has already done in the short time we've been here! 

The last two weeks, we continued on with what we were doing the first week  It has been really good to have consistency in the ministries so we're able to build friendships and relationships with people!

Testimonies! 

From Katy:

Two weeks ago we also had the opportunity to partner with a small international church as they organized a "crusade"-like evangelistic event that took place last Friday and Saturday night. We helped them pass out over 1,000 flyers on Monday morning, and then the 5 of us joined their prayer ministry team for the Saturday night meeting. Jesus showed up in some amazing ways! Over the weekend at least 8 people gave their lives to Jesus, at least that many were healed physically in some way, and about 70 people heard the gospel! The turn out wasn't quite what was hoped for, but as the pastor said when we first met with him a couple weeks ago - if even one came to Jesus, it would be totally worth it! 

A Hungarian girl and I got to lead a man to Jesus on the sidewalk outside the venue. We talked with him for about 30 minutes, sharing God's heart with him, praying for him, leading him in a salvation prayer, and then got to pray for him to be filled with Holy Spirit! When we first were talking with him, he said he was so angry and wanted to kill everyone. He was not in a great place... But as we talked with him, he was filled with peace and left completely changed! 

Inside, the four trainees were having a party. They were praying and prophesying over people, seeing people getting healed and coming to Jesus. 

That Saturday night, our team was part of four people coming into relationship with Jesus! Thankfully there were enough Hungarians for us all to partnered with someone who could translate. It was so fun to be able to do ministry with people who are so committed to seeing the gospel spread in their own nation! 

From Bryce about cafe ministry on Friday nights: 

Outreach has definitely been a challenge for me, but also very rewarding. I'm sure I could tell you stories for hours, but one in particular is very special to me. During cafe ministry our first week, I met a guy named Laszlo. He's Hungarian. I saw him outside the cafe peering in, and I hoped that he would come into the building, thankfully he did. He looked lost so I thought I would introduce myself. We got to talking, and long story short, he's not a Christian, but he's whats called a straight edge (they don't do drugs or drink or anything like that). He is now a good friend, and has continued to come to the cafe on Fridays and we have been able to hangout outside of those nights. He had never heard the gospel before, and I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to share it with him. When I did, it was outside the huge basilica in Budapest, at night, with all the lights shining on it. I also shared some scripture with him and he responded to it well. He went home and read the parable of the lost son in Hungarian and said " these stories are true, thank you man". He hasn't accepted Jesus YET but there's still more time. Pray that he will choose Jesus!

And here's a testimony from Anna and Celena from street outreach (they're an evangelism power team!!): 

Our testimony is about how God's presence really surrounds us, that he works in us and gives us the energy to do what's needed when needed. He really showed us that you don't have to have the strongest faith, or be feeling your best to be used, but he will even use people who don't even know him yet!

On one of the street Evangelism days, we went up to this random guy (we'll call him Joe), found out he spoke English and probably talked with him for about 2 hours. He didn't know or believe in God, but by the end of our time with him he had no reason not too. We were able to speak life over him, pray for him, tell him the gospel, tell him our testimonies, answer his questions, and tell him how Jesus is sooo worth it! It was really amazing because as we were talking to him we were both filled with so much joy talking about our Father and our tiredness or sickness went away as we spoke. You could see the light in his eyes and how his expressions and attitude changed the more we talked. Joe said he wanted the joy and boldness we had, so we got to pray for him and tell him how... (Jesus! ) and he was saying how no one ever comes up to him (a stranger) and just talks to him, especially about Jesus. 

As Joe was talking about that 5 different Hungarians randomly came up and talked to us, and since we don't know Hungarian, he ended being used by God as a translator. And every person talked about Jesus! Joe heard so much about Jesus and was speaking it out, practically preaching without even realizing it! He probably heard the gospel three times and each time he spoke it out! 

The presence of God was just getting stronger and stronger, and at one point a drunk guy got super angry once he entered the atmosphere of God's presence. He was yelling and being really rude, and ended up pouring his beer on our friend Lorrie's head.. Yet Lorrie responded in love and just said that Jesus loves him... And then the man just walked away! Then this lady came up and told Joe that she had been praying for the drunk man to just walk away. So Joe realized how the man had left even though he was so ready to fight. But Joe witnessed Lorrie's love and faith, and we got to explain all of this to him. You could tell that he was amazed, a little confused but really thinking. Sadly he was leaving for London so we couldn't stay in touch, but I think Joe left with God working so deeply within him that he was already a a changed man. He took a Bible and as he walked away, another lady walked up and stopped next to us for a second. They were playing the song "Oceans", so I turned to her to talk and looked her in the eyes. She immediately started sobbing. And she wept in mine and Anna's arms as we prayed for her. There were others who were nearby who randomly broke into tears as well. The place we were in was just so filled with the presence of God that you could see him working visibly not just in us and the people we talked to, but in random people walking by too. ~ Celena + Anna

Thank you for praying for us! Continue to pray for boldness, ease of communication even with different languages, for us as a team to go into deeper intimacy with Jesus, and for people to encounter Him through us! 

We love you all! 

April Update - Budapest Outreach and Glasgow Midterm Outreach!

Hello friends! 

This last month has been full of trial and error, growing and learning, being stretched and changed, and finding breakthrough and freedom in Jesus! I'm falling more and more in love with Him everyday and finding that He really does want to make His home in me as I learn to make my home in Him. This has looked like letting go of a lot of old lies and twisted mindsets that I've believed for most of my life and giving them to Jesus so He can give me His mind, His heart, and the identity He won for me on the cross. He really does want to redeem our pasts and make them into something beautiful. I pray you see Him do the same in your life too! 

Budapest Outreach (April 30th - June 18th)

         
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I can hardly believe it, but I and four DTS trainees (Bryce, Anna, Kevin, and Celena) leave for Budapest, Hungary, in less than 2 weeks!! 13 days! 

So, what does outreach in Budapest look like? 

We will be doing a lot of creative street evangelism (skits, dances, art, music, etc followed by a translated presenting of the gospel by one of us) and helping YWAM Budapest run an outreach through a coffee shop on Friday nights. Hungarian culture is very centred on the arts so skits and art are very effective forms of reaching out. We will also be doing a lot with the local Hungarian church in various ways. As I was praying about outreach earlier this year, God really highlighted the importance of encouraging the local church which is actually a huge part of YWAM Budapest's vision for ministry. It's been really cool - nearly everything I felt God speaking in prayer about this outreach are things YWAM Budapest is focused on, even down to the coffee shop ministry and working with the local church! It's a beautiful city and I can't wait for our team to be there bringing the love of Jesus to its streets! 

While we are there, we also have the incredible privilege of being at the Central Europe Staff Gather (CESG) which is being held in Hungary this May. We will be helping with providing youth ministry for the YWAM kids in the mornings and afternoons. It is going to be such an amazing week! The dates for the CESG are May 23rd - 27th. YWAM gatherings are pretty much my favorite events ever because you get to connect with some incredible people who have the craziest stories of what Jesus is doing through them in the nations. And to top it all off, Loren and Darlene Cunningham, the founders of YWAM, will be the main speakers in the evenings!! I've wanted to hear them speak since before I even did my DTS, so this will definitely be a highlight of the outreach for me! 

There is a lot of prepping that still needs to happen before we head out. Since I've never been to Hungary, there are a lot of unknowns about this outreach and a lot of stuff that I'm going to have to figure out as we go, but it's going to be good! 

One way you can be involved with this outreach would be through finances! The cost for me for this outreach is about $1500. If you would like to give financially towards the trip, a simple way is through PayPal at https://www.paypal.me/katyflanigan, or for other ways of giving click here. 

The other area to be involved in is through prayer! 

Praying for Outreach: 

- Pray that we as a team would gain God's heart for Budapest as we prepare to go.

- Pray for wisdom and grace for me as I lead this team! 

- Pray that we will really grow together as a family before we go

- Pray that all the small details come together

- Pray for us as we prepare a program for the CESG youth ministry times - that we would have God's heart for these amazing YWAM teens!

Glasgow Midterm Outreach!

"In unity, we listen to God and without fear we choose to release His reality in Glasgow" - our vision statement for midterm outreach

Thank you for praying for the DTS as we headed into Glasgow for our mid-lecture phase two week outreach. One thing that I really loved about this outreach was that we got to minister to Scottish people every day for two solid weeks! I already love this nation, but my heart for Scotland and its people definitely grew while we were in Glasgow! 

                      

We spent most of our evenings at Glasgow City Mission serving the homeless and refugees of the city. It was such a great experience and the highlight ministry times for pretty much the whole DTS team. There are so many stories I could share from those evenings, but I think as a leader of the team, my favorite part of City Mission was seeing the trainees grow in courage and in their love for people of all different spheres of life. They would fearlessly pour into anyone there, whether they were homeless or a staff volunteer or didn't really speak English well. They were asked to share testimonies at the last minute, did really random jobs, and had interesting conversations, but they just went with it - even if they didn't really know what they were doing! It was amazing to watch them grow in confidence as the days progressed. ​

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We did a ton of street evangelism, and seeing the trainees step out in crazy boldness was incredible. They would seriously go up and talk to anyone about Jesus anytime, anywhere - praying for them, sharing prophetic words from Jesus, and speaking life into others. They made me want to be more courageous in evangelism! 

On our last night we did outreach with Light & Life in the city centre. It was an amazing night! 8 people gave their lives to Jesus and around 50 people came in from the streets for prayer, healing physically/emotionally/spiritually, and prophetic words and art from God's heart through us. The trainees did a little bit of everything that night and many of them got to pray and talk with the 8 people who came to Jesus!

All in all, it was a great outreach, and I learned a ton about leading a team. It was really good to have the opportunity to get the kinks out in leading - practicing putting together a schedule, contacting ministries and organizing things, keeping track of where the team is spiritually/emotionally/physically, making sure there was food, sorting out transportation... all of it! Definitely good to have that opportunity before heading out on long term outreach. 

Northern Ireland - breakthrough and personal retreat

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Last weekend I took a personal retreat to YWAM Rostrevor in Northern Ireland. The location was pretty spontaneous, but the entire retreat from location to the retreat itself and everything in the week after midterm outreach that lead up to the retreat were totally arranged and planned by Jesus! 

            

         
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The week before I left, the DTS lecture theme was spiritual authority. During that week, I got so much personal freedom and breakthrough from things I've lived with and fought against in myself since I was a kid. A lot of it was insecurities and lies I had believed for a long time. But, not anymore! I had a really intense prayer time with one of the guest speakers and friend from the base two days before I left for Ireland and they fought for my spiritual and emotional freedom. Jesus is so good and faithful! I am a completely different person than I was two weeks ago. I have so much peace and freedom and joy. And it was such a blessing from Papa to be able to leave for the retreat with all of that garbage dealt with and gone. I was able to just rest in Him and enjoy myself without the things that had haunted my thoughts and emotions for years. 

It was a beautiful weekend. I got to go hiking in the "mountains" (really, they were just tall hills...) where CS Lewis was inspired to write the Chronicles of Narnia! I was able to just spend time with Jesus on my own. I could sleep in, read books for fun, catch up on journaling and processing, and wander around in the woods whenever I wanted. It was the most refreshing weekend. Rest is a good thing!

Life until Budapest:

We have two full weeks of lecture phase left! The time has flown by. This week's theme is Missions and one of my good friends here in Scotland is teaching. It's going to be a really fun and crazy week. I'm excited to see the trainees catch God's heart for the world and the lost through Michael's teaching. 

The last full week is Evangelism. And then we're outta here! A good two weeks to kick off longterm outreach. 

Basically, life is going to be full of preparing for outreach, learning skits and dramas, making sure everything is organized, catching up with friends here I won't see for a couple months, and being fully engaged with what Jesus is doing in the lecture times! Yay! Bring it on. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. I couldn't be doing any of this without you! I would love to hear from you :) 

Be blessed! Cheers!

Katy

Snail mail:

Katy Flanigan

9 Glenbryde Road

West Kilbride

KA23 9NJ

Scotland