Place of Birth: Budapest. (I grew up in Csepel, the south part of Budapest).

Job description: I am responsible for the maintenance and renovation projects in the church. So if something is loose or doesn’t move, needs to be fixed or painted, or if a faucet is dripping or a light bulb has gone out, it’s my responsibility.

Favorite food: I like all good food and deserts. Sometimes I get a craving for something, and either I have to buy it or prepare it, but even sometimes God Himself has treated me to it through another person.

Favorite Bible verse: Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. John 15:13

First job: At the age 13-14, I was mowing lawns regularly for pocket money. Later I worked with people who install heating systems, but my first official job was at a banknote press.

What do you find the most rewarding about serving in the church?
I think no matter where a person works – at a church or in the world – he needs to become a credible, living witness. We need to work as Ephesians 6:5-8 says: “Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”

To experience this at a church among brothers and sisters is a special blessing. Though it is easier to stand out in this manner in the world among sinners than at the church, where everybody endeavors to live up to this standard.

You also work with our church Homeless Ministry. What is that like?
I started taking part in this ministry in the spring of 2009. I wanted to see if God would put this work on my heart. 4 days of the week I leave the shelter at around 5 PM with sandwiches and bottles of tea and I go to Blaha square. I go to all the homeless and poor people that hang out or live in the underpass, on the stairs and in the square and I offer them tea and a sandwich. Sometimes there is an opportunity to have a conversation with some of them. Afterwards I head for the Nyugati train station for the second round.

You also take part in some other ministries …..?
Not long ago, Dombi Árpi and I started a home fellowship in Csepel. For now it is very small, but we wouldn’t want to have more than 10-15 people in it. I don’t want to run ahead with it, as this is not a quick project. It has been on my heart to have a home fellowship in Csepel since the mid-nighties, but I know it is not an easy area.

Of course the cleaning ministry was the first ministry the Lord put on my heart here at the church. They asked me to take on this responsibility while Greg was still the pastor. I said yes and since then the party starts at 6:30am on Sundays with a great team of enthusiastic brothers and sisters. They come almost every day of the week to serve. Without their work we would have a lot of problems. I am thankful to God for their ministry!

Not long ago I started ministering to Jews through a series of “co-incidences”. A Dutch organizsation asked me to volunteer to help them build their Hungarian branch. I see that God is opening doors. And small puzzle pieces are coming together to form part of a bigger picture.

As you’ve journeyed with God in your life, what have been some of the most valuable things you’ve learnt?
Humility, long-suffering, meekness. Treat others and relate to them the way you want them to treat you. Using the principle of the “speck in the eye”-syndrome: our environment is a huge mirror. It is what I see in myself that bothers me the most in other people’s behavior. My subconscious knows the “plank in my eye” very well, but my conscience notices even the smallest particle of this – the speck – in other people’s behavior or eye. And when this happens, the Holy Spirit moves me to self-examination: where can this be found in me? The speck of which plank is bothering my eye?

Then there is God’s never ending and daily renewed grace – it’s operation or the lack of it. God’s justice is not greater than His grace. We have to be careful not to allow our past to grow into a prejudice of our present: since we can start each day anew with the Lord, we have to give others the same chance. I cannot look at what the other one was like and what he did, but only at what he is like now. We have to learn to live in “today”, not in the past or in the future, but here and now.