History of YWAM Budapest
YWAM outreach teams were coming to Hungary while it was under communism to pray and secretly meet with Christians to encourage them. When the government changed in 1989, more teams were able to come and minister openly. YWAM Amsterdam had already targeted Budapest as a strategic city and started sending teams here regularly.
During that same season of time God began speaking to Hal Young about Budapest. Hal had made his first missions trip there in 1987 to smuggle Bibles to Pastors. As he looked for a mission’s agency to connect with God led him to YWAM Amsterdam to do his DTS and to join their DTS Staff as a strategy to establish YWAM Budapest through DTS outreaches.
After leading the September 1990 and March 1991 DTS outreach teams here, Hal moved to Budapest permanently. In January 1992 YWAM Budapest became official. Those two outreach teams accomplished a great deal including planting a number of churches, setting up a number of conferences including the 1991 U of N conference held in Budapest, and sending outreach teams to Moscow, Prague, Bucharest, Sofia, and Istanbul.
There are so many stories to tell, but here are some important highlights from the past 10 years:-
BUDAPEST
In this beautiful city are many young people with no hope and no knowledge of God. From the start, God’s called us to reach out to the youth. A bible study started by Steve and Barbara Johnson’s DTS outreach team became a church plant. For 3 years we worked with Christian English teachers in Hungarian schools and ran “Power Night,” a youth group for high school students. Our Summers of Services have always attracted many Hungarian youth wanting to put their faith in action. We have taken them on outreaches to Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. For the past 10 years we’ve had street outreaches and the band Lelkes Allatok’s “Street Parties” specifically targeted the youth of Budapest. Our 2 coffee bars (RÈzkigyÛ 1 & 2) have been a big hit with Christians and non-Christians. The team of Hungarians who helped run it came from many churches (including the Catholic Church) which is unusual in this part of the world. We’ve run English conversation classes for the past 7 years attracting university students and young professionals. From those English classes, a seeker’s Bible study started called “The Lantern”.
We
also started a soup kitchen which served food to the poor at Keleti Train
Station. We did street evangelism, music and it was a good way to feed
people’s bodies and souls. We love having outreach Teams and Summer of
Service Teams come to Budapest as music is so key to reaching this city.
We’ve also spent time working with Hungarian churches in the city to help with church planting and evangelism. We’ve worked extensively with Golgata (Calvary Chapel) and the Pentecostal church along with others to reach Budapest for Christ. We partnered with Golgata to do a number of outreach concerts which resulted in the birth of Calvary Chapel in Budapest. They started their church in our office and met there for several months until they outgrew the facility. We love to do evangelism with churches.
MUSIC
Phil
Ulrich came to Budapest on his DTS outreach in ‘92 and returned to start a
band. They played wherever they could get a gig; usually high schools and
parks around the city. He often worked with churches or Christian English
teachers who helped with follow-up after the concerts. Phil’s band was
“Threshing Floor” that later became “Salt” that later became “5:20” (you’ll
have to ask him about that name from 2 Cor. 5:20), but the only thing
consistent about these bands was Phil himself. If you lined up all the
people who have played and toured with Phil’s bands the past 8 years, they
would stretch all the way up the escalator at Moszkva Ter! Phil recorded 6
albums over the years that have been distributed all over this region.
Someone showed up at a DTS in Sweden who got saved reading the lyrics from
one of 5:20’s tapes he had picked up in Belgrade. We had a Turkish band come
to one of our festivals that had gotten saved through listening to a 5:20
tape. They played in Sarajevo one week after the fighting stopped. During an
outdoor concert at a university a young women came running up to Phil
shouting “please tell me. Is there a God and if there is does He love me”?
The years 1996-99 saw the unleashing of the Hungarian band “Lelkes Allatok” (which means “living creatures” in old Hungarian and “Enthusiastic Animals” in modern Hungarian). They sang in Hungarian and produced 2 albums. They did concerts all over Hungary and are missed by many young Hungarian Christians.
When Lelkes disbanded, Matt, lead singer of Lelkes, started a new music group called “Rengeteg.” They played a creative blend we called “tribal—funk” and had great success reaching people on the streets and at concerts when they played.
We’ve also helped pioneer several Christian music festivals in this region including “Sozo” (known originally as “Rock For Life”). The first RFL was in Szeged, Hungary where we transformed a HOT farmer’s field into a festival site. Since then it has moved just west to Baja and is now it’s own foundation with Randy Morgan as the director.
Hungarians LOVE music and it’s an international language. Our bands have reached out in every Balkan country and helped plant a number of churches. We’re always open to God sending us more musicians and new music groups starting up to help preach the Gospel.
SCHOOLS
In
1994, Steve & Barbara Johnson moved here and started the first DTS in 1995.
Steve led another school in ’96. After that Ron and Bonny Thiesen and Mirjam
Bos ran our DTS’s. Kim and Cindy Hunt have also given over sight to training
and leading our DTS ministry. So far we’ve had 14 DTS’s with over 160
students. We’ve met in old communist schools, a youth hostel, a panzio,
several big houses and apartments. Our DTS outreaches have focused on the
Balkans, Central Asia, and India. As a base, we’ve adopted the Turkish
World (Turkey and Central Asia) as our adopted people group, and it’s been
great to send teams there to preach the good news!
In 1996 we hosted a YWAM Leadership Training School which brought 120 leaders from all over the world to Budapest for a 3 month school. There is talk of another LTS to be held here in the future.
We normally have 1 DTS a year and have also had the privilege of pioneering the 1st School of Worship in Central Eastern Europe, here in Budapest and being involved in pioneering the first SOW in the Arab World, Egypt. We will also be hosting a School of Biblical Studies in 2008 and have plans to host a School of Frontier Missions.
OUTREACHES
Over
the years God has placed the Balkans on our hearts and we’ve had many
opportunities to take outreaches to these countries (Romania, Serbia,
Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey). After the Bosnian war
and before the NATO bombing (1996-99) DTS teams and 5:20 spent a lot of time
in Yugoslavia and Bosnia. We’ll never forget the ’96 concert in Nis,
Serbia. Several DTS outreach teams were with 5:20 in Nis to do a big
evangelical concert outside during Easter. But 2 days before the concert it
snowed over 30 cm (a foot!). Unable to do the concert outside, we searched
the town for a good indoor venue. The only place available was a movie
theater that showed porno films at night. Is that REALLY you, God??
After MUCH prayer, the concerts went on & as a result a church was started,
a Christian university group was started, and a month later the theater
stopped showing porno films. Several of those students have done a DTS as
well as staffed schools. Go God!!!
We’ve
also sent teams into Central Asia and Turkey. Steve led a Summer Of Service
to Turkey to put on the first Christian music festival there (“Rock For
Life”, Izmir), but while there, a devastating earthquake hit the Istanbul
region. The team of Hungarians put their efforts into doing benefit
concerts to raise money for the victims.
Another area of outreach that’s emerged in the last few years is India. This country has been on the hearts of many of our Romanian students and we’ve sent 5 DTS outreaches there in recent years.
Budapest is an Antioch city of influence for this entire region and many young people who were reached through our outreaches have come here for training and releasing.
BUILDINGS
YWAM Budapest has wanted a building to hold youth meetings and concerts in from 1992, and if we’ve learned anything, it’s perseverance! Hal and Phil located an old movie theater in the Jozsef Attilla lakotelep and we spent years praying for the building. We were even given some money to buy it, but the building was so entangled in local red tape, it was impossible to buy.
As the team grew we rented an old flat near Nyugati to use as an office. That was YWAM Budapest’s headquarters for 7 years. A lot of people came through and slept on the floor of that flat and many dreams and visions were launched from that living room.
Then in 1997, Steve found a large building near Nepstadion and had a supporter willing to pay for most of it! We were just waiting on some paperwork to be finished before we purchased it. To our disappointment, another buyer came along and offered to pay without having all the correct papers and we lost the building. We felt like a dream had died and it took a long time for us to be motivated to look again.
In 1999 we rented the basement of Picaso Point Cafe, renovated it, and opened The RÈzkigyÛ. But after a year, the restaurant had obtained a new permit and wanted to open a club in the basement, so we went looking again. We wanted a place that was OURS in a central location, so we could gather all the young people God was sending us through our outreaches.
Adam
found our building in 2000 located at the city center and we began the
negotiations. The most difficult part wasn’t getting the money; it was
convincing the residents to let us change the zoning to “Christian
Educational Facility”. They finally agreed to the change, God sent the
money, and we bought the building with cash. We’re renovating as the money
comes and running a coffee bar ministry in the basement. We have great
vision for how this ministry center can be used to reach the emerging
generation and build the Kingdom of God in Budapest. Now we’re looking for a
training facility for DTS’s, SBS’s, and other courses to equip people for
ministry. The drama continues!
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