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Dear Partners in Ministry,
The big news is that Jeannie and I are back in Hungary!
After being grounded 16 months in the United States because of the COVID pandemic, we flew back to Budapest on April 23. The trip was surprisingly uneventful, with only about 100 people on our trans-Atlantic flight. Thanks to good friends in Hungary, we had all of our official documents in order to get back into the country. This included two COVID PCR tests for each of us, in spite of the fact that we both have had our two vaccinations.
Laci and Eszter Daróczi-Csuhai met us at the airport and delivered us to our new living quarters at the MEK team office/apartment. We are spending our jet-lag time unpacking our boxes that the team packed and moved for us from our old apartment during our absence.
MEK Hungary Team News
Hungary is just beginning to open up after a month-long COVID lockdown, but it will take quite awhile to return to normal. The MEK team has not been able to visit in Boldog or Apc because of COVID, quarantining, and the lock-down but has been communicating with the people there via Facebook. Since the children have been doing school online, Eszter and Sandi have been home with their children. Schools started reopening this week. Feri and Judit Oláh have had a month-long quarantine.
The UK strain of the COVID virus has hit the Roma/Gypsy communities especially hard. Many Roma over 30 years of age have pre-existing health conditions, such as asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, making them vulnerable to severe cases of COVID. We are sad to report that our Roma team members, Feri and Judit, have lost five close and extended family members to the disease, including Judit’s brother and Feri’s stepmother in April. Feri himself has had a rather serious COVID illness and is slowly recovering. Please keep Feri and Judit in your prayers. Roma grieve heavily the loss of family members.
Because of the sudden ups and downs of the pandemic, the MEK team has not scheduled summer camps or training conferences for 2021, preferring to focus on 2022 when planning can hopefully be more certain. The once-a-year CHE EuroNet Gathering of all CHE teams from Central Europe and the Balkans is scheduled to be held September 30 to October 4 in Hungary this year. That is still on the schedule, and we are praying that travel restrictions between countries will be lifted by then.
What are Jeannie and my plans?
HUNGARY—We will be in Hungary enjoying the opportunity to work again with the MEK team and hopefully in the villages of Boldog and Apc. On May 5, we have our appointment to renew our Hungarian residency permit that expired while we were in the US.
NORTH MACEDONIA—Soon after that, we will head south to North Macedonia, arriving around May 10. There we will meet with Pastor Jimmy Simon and his CHE team workers to prepare to do a water provision, protection, preservation, and purification project in two Roma communities on the outskirts of the city of Prilep.
On May 14, a four-person NAB Gateway team will arrive to lead the two-week project in the villages of Meksiko and Three-Three. A well will be drilled for each village, two pump houses will be built, and pipe will be laid to two large water storage tanks. Pipe will then be run to two public, pre-cast water fountains with multiple, filtered water faucets.
The CHE team is now busy with the Meksiko and Three-Three leadership committees organizing their workers to do the projects. We are so excited to be God’s instruments to bring life-giving water to these two M*sl*m villages, who have endured many broken promises from politicians about supplying water. But we get to share with them as well about God’s greater provision of the Water of Life, Christ Jesus.
You can see many items for prayer here, so please join us in prayer for God to provide physical and spiritual water to the people of Meksiko and Three-Three. For those on our prayer list, watch for up-to-the-minute prayer updates.
Before our next quarterly newsletter, we also have ministry trips to Serbia, Albania, and Slovakia planned, provided we are able to travel to these countries.
Finally, we would like to thank the wonderful people of Calvary Baptist Church in Easton, Pennsylvania, who generously and unexpectedly provided the money through their Easter offering to make this North Macedonia water project possible and who continue to keep us in their prayers.
Yours for His Kingdom Come,
Ron and Jeannie Seck