January 7 Sale of our Budapest household . . . God was so good! We sold about $4000 worth of our stuff.

January 16 Actual travel day to relocate to the US. Our originating flight was cancelled, but we still made it back, though 2 hours later than originally planned. Here’s a picture of our farewell dinner with our closest friends in Budapest . . .

January 30 Second interview with the Maclellan Foundation of Chattanooga, Tennessee. This was the opportunity many of you had been praying about without knowing the details.

February 4 We purchase a 2002 Honda minivan, officially accepting our plight as an American family . . .

February 6 Maclellan’s job offer extended and accepted! I will begin my new role (to help the Foundation continue to develop its international strategy) on June 1. Brooke, Mckenna, Baby Boy and I will move to Chattanooga (probably) in May.

February 11 After experiencing several days of regular contractions (some as frequent as 5 minutes apart), Brooke is assigned to best rest. She stays in bed (except for bathroom and shower) for about 10 days. I’m full-time Mr. Mom for 4 of those days.

February 17 Even though I don’t start with Maclellan officially until June 1, I agree to travel with the Foundation’s Vice President to South Africa for one week. My first training trip is a success!

February 27 Brooke measures 37-and-a-half weeks (even though she’s only 36 weeks technically) at her weekly OB appointment. Baby Boy should be arriving soon!

So that’s the quick and dirty on the Behars. Sorry you haven’t had an update in so long, but please have a look at our Prayer Wish List at right, and let us know how we can pray for you!

I know what you're thinking . . . that's got to be a pretty big cookie sheet . . .

"In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song.
This Cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All, here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, who took on flesh; Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness; Scorned by the ones He came to save.
'Till on that cross as Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied.
For every sin on Him was laid; here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious Day, up from the grave He rose again.
And as He stands in victory sin's curse has lost it's grip on me.
For I am His and He is mine bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death. This is the power of Christ in me.
From life's first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand
'Till He returns or calls me home. Here in the power of Christ I'll stand."

Excellent! Merry Christmas . . .

For a year-and-a-half I have been consulting with Gavi regularly about how to approach the "saturation church planting" strategy for Romania. He and his team have been working on a "20-year plan" to see their vision fulfilled. Here's a picture of Steve, Gavi and I talking over lunch . . .

We spent our hours together interacting about many aspects of Gavi's plan, but particularly we focused on the most strategic way to partner with other organizations . . . Biblical Education by Extension, Youth with a Mission, etc. Now I'm eagerly waiting for the first draft of their complete plan.

Euro-Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving Brooke, Mckenna and I traveled to Belgium to celebrate with my parents. My folks are missionaries with the Free Methodist denomination, planting churches in the Flemish speaking part of the country, largely among immigrants.

About 30 minutes from my parents home is Brugge, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. In this photo Dena Friderich (Budapest teammate), Brooke and I are standing in front of a really cool building on the town's main square . . .

Your comments are welcome. Please check out our Prayer Wish List too. And of course, have a Merry Christmas!

So, instead of blogging about meetings, I want to share with you my interest in two books that have been released this fall. They are Revolution by George Barna and Neil Cole's Organic Church.

Being in Budapest unfortunately means that I haven't read either of them, but I'm familiar with the concepts. It's no coincidence, in my opinion, that these books have been published at essentially the same time.

Barna's book describes a phenomenon that most Evangelicals in the US haven't yet noticed . . . Christians are leaving the 'conventional church' in significant numbers. Barna estimates that in 20 years only 30% of Evangelicals will attend the 'Sunday-go-to-meeting' kind of church we typically think of.

Cole's work describes what they could be leaving for . . . church that happens where community happens. What are the advantages of 'Organic Church'? Lots. For one, these kinds of churches look a lot more like the churches of the first century when faith in Christ exploded through the known world. Next, they don't require the huge amount of resources that the conventional church requires because facilities, programs and professional clergy are not emphasized. But most importantly these bodies of believers form where real life takes place. Accordingly they are much more attractive to those who don't know Christ.

I encourage you to check these out . . . and incidentally they're on my Amazon wish list too ;o)

Here's a photo of me interacting with some of our church planting facilitators on the opening night of the conference last Thursday . . .

And on Friday evening at our ministry "Celebration" banquet, I'm giving a gift to our Hungarian office manager, Julia Toth, who has served with our ministry for 10 years . . .

Prior to the conference, my colleague David Toth and I traveled to Norway to meet with two leaders of the Dawn European Network. These leaders think regularly about how to facilitate church planting movements throughout Europe. Here's a photo of David, Reinhold Scharnowski and Øivind Augland discussing a map of Europe . . .

We held our meetings over two days at a cabin in the beautiful Norwegian countryside.

Interacting with church planting leaders from across Europe (North American missionaries and nationals) is one of the highlights of our ministry. I've learned enough in the past three-and-a-half years from these colleagues to fill a 1000 blog entries. Lord willing I will be able to apply much of this knowledge in the next calling He has for us!

We don't have air conditioning in our flat, so three fans work overtime to keep the air moving at least.

The picture below is with Gavi Moldovan. Gavi is the leader of the saturation church planting effort in Romania that is associated with our ministry. Over the past two years Gavi has become a wonderful friend and colleague. Doesn't he look happy that we're together?

Behind Gavi and me in this photo (taken in his office in Cluj, Romania) is a white board with a few hours worth of scribblings. Gavi is an excellent church planting strategist. In recent months, I and our team have added value to Gavi's efforts by providing a useful sounding board for his ideas.

Despite his expression in the photo, Gavi really finds our interactions challenging and helpful . . . so much so, he has invited us to move to Romania once our time in Budapest is finished. We'll see . . .

Please note our Prayer Wish List at right, and don't hesitate to leave a comment as well. Thanks!

Czech Republic is one of the most atheistic countries in the world. It's evangelical population is less than one quarter of one percent (<.25%), so when 10 locals (and at least as many children) come to a small rented room on Sundays for worship, it's something to be thankful for. Here's a picture of Zdenek, Pavla, Don Harris (our Czech team leader), Ventse and Martina . . .

Zdenek is a gifted and gracious pastor. He let me participate in Sunday's service by preaching and helping to distribute communion. Don and I also had some mentoring time with Zdenek. In this photo Don and Zdenek are discussing the challenges of being a bi-vocational church planter (Zdenek has a regular job to support his family while also planting a church).

Hopefully I will get to visit with Zdenek one more time this summer and in the fall as well. I'm trusting that my experience in ministry will be of help to Zdenek as his church plant continues to develop.

Please check out our Prayer Wish List to the right, and feel free to write a comment too.

But a comment made by a teammate recently about one of Paul's letters made me realize my current engagement with other sections of Scripture is lacking. So I've taken a break from the Gospels for now and have been reading through 1 Timothy for the last several days. These are great verses from chapter 1 . . .

"15This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--and I was the worst of them all. 16But that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. 17Glory and honor to God forever and ever. He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen."

Isn’t it interesting that the older Paul got, the more aware he was of sin in his life? But even more fascinating is his description of how others came to know Christ because of God’s mercy and forgiveness in his own life. I never thought that my struggle with sin and God's wonderful forgiveness might be attractive to others, but it makes sense!

Thanks Lord. I'm grateful for Your love. I worship You just like Paul did in these verses . . . You are the Eternal King.

Turns out that our teammates and consulting colleague Tom Clegg did just as well without me! Tom was a super help to the Romanian and Ukrainian church planting leaders that we are attempting to resource this year. When Tom consults with church leaders he always asks them a surprising but critical question . . . “Who cares for you?” He believes (and I agree) that people can’t multiply if no one is caring for their hearts!

Here’s a picture of Tom in discussions with Romanians Gavi Moldovan, Ioan and Ioana . . .

He was such a help to them, they’ve already invited him back. Here’s what Gavi wrote to Tom in an email . . .

“It was a blessed experience to be with you . . . for two days in Oradea (Romania). I want to thank God for the way Jay planned this meeting to be a help for us as a team, involved in saturation vision here in Romania. I really needed such a time to be challenged of my own values and vision. Thank you brother Tom for the time spent together.”

And here’s a photo of our teammates with Valeriy Alimov and his wife in Kiev, Ukraine (see my March 18 entry). Valeriy is the leader of a church planting initiative in Ukraine that hopes to plan at least 30 reproducing churches each year.

Pictured are Scott Friderich, Tom Sponsler, Valeriy and wife (whose name I don't know), Jay Weaver and David Toth.

Thanks for reading my blog! Please check out our Prayer Wish List at right. Oh, and if you’d like to read Tom Clegg's great book Lost in America, check out that link on the right as well.

One way that we believe we can encourage others to attempt to plant churches in a movemental way is to tell the story of what God is already doing in our region of the world. We're not sure whether Valeriy's work is technically a movement yet, but it's close, so we've attempted to share his story through an article called Army Officer dom Leader. Here's a picture of the title page that was designed by Brooke . . .

Later this month we hope to publish this article (and one other) to help folks understand how God is multiplying His church in Eastern Europe. Please pray with us that the sharing of Valeriy's life and the principles he follows will inspire others toward movement.

Let me know if you'd like a copy of the full article, and don't forget to check out our Prayer Wish List .

One of the highlights of our home assignment was our January visit to Colorado Springs and Vanguard Church. Vanguard was the church we attended and served while living in Colorado from 2000 to 2002. Here’s a very blurry photo of Kelly Williams, Vanguard’s senior pastor, interviewing us during the church’s missions weekend . . .

In the days leading up to that weekend, I had the opportunity to consult with Vanguard’s lay missions committee called the “Beyond Ourselves” team. They are considering an October journey to Far East Russia. This will be Vanguard’s first church-wide missions trip. In a subsequent email one of the team members wrote this . . .

“Thanks for your wisdom and input about going to the Russian
Far East. We hope to keep your points in mind as we pray and plan.”

In December and January I consulted with missions leaders from several churches . . . Perimeter Church (my home church in Duluth, GA), Grace Fellowship Church (Johnson City, TN), Bent Tree Bible Fellowship (Carrollton, TX), Midlothian Bible Church (Midlothian, TX) and of course, Vanguard.

This is all the result of God’s grace. He has allowed me to convert twelve years of experience in missions into principles that seem to connect with other thoughtful Kingdom-minded people. Glory to Him.

The morning following the conference it was a privilege to have coffee with a young and dynamic Polish church planter named Maciej. Here's a picture of Maciej and me having a latte at "Coffee Heaven" (the best coffee I've had in Europe . . . when do we move to Poland?????) . . .

Maciej and I became fast friends as we talked about his strategy to plant churches in villages near Poznan. Please pray for Maciej as he continues to formulate his plan. He's got lots of gifts and vision. Now he needs to prove himself for the long haul of the ministry. Currently he needs co-workers and sustainable resources. I hope he and I can develop a lasting friendship.