January 2018

Happy New Year from Budapest!

I have been on Christmas vacation for two weeks now and am kind of over it at this point. Vacations are nice but being with students and teaching is where I should be.

During our break I spent time with some families here, helped a couple move, and I built a desk for a former student. On Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve I was with the Korean church. New Year’s day we got together for a service in the morning and had a lunch together. This is a bowl of soup that we ate. I couldn’t finish it it was so filling. The white stuff is like giant rice noodles. 

I was talking to another teacher and she was saying how she has realized over the break how important Body life is and how without it you kind of just drift off into your own little world. It’s so true. I like to think about the verse, “Without a vision, the people perish” from Proverbs 29:18. It’s not just a corporate vision, but also a personal one; however, the two are inseparable. Without the Body, I won’t be able to have a personal vision and without a personal vision, I can’t operate in a corporate vision. God truly designed us to be together. I find that when I am alone my viewpoint can become twisted. I start to think only about myself and I can even start to have a negative outlook about people or things happening in God’s work. I start to look inward and forget who I am in relationship to God and His people. When I am where I am supposed to be, in the Body, in my call, that’s the place where I find that my view point becomes outward and my personal vision extends to and connects with the corporate vision. In fact, doesn’t Psalm 73 say just that? Before the Psalmist went to church he was jealous of the wicked, he saw that they had everything his flesh wanted, and they didn’t have any problem using other people to obtain all they could from life. He lost the corporate vision he had because his personal vision was inward. Once he went to church, however, that personal vision became rightly related to God and his corporate vision was restored because he could see the end result. That didn’t come from looking inward but outward.

I have been thinking about this more and more recently and it’s really remarkable. Please don’t stop being around God’s people. Get to a place where there is a corporate vision and where your personal vision is encouraged and cultivated. That’s where we see the result of our walk of faith and that’s what encourages us to keep going.

Please pray for the second half of this school year that will quickly come and go. Pray for my students to have an outward vision, and pray that we encourage each other to keep going to that place where the corporate vision is manifested.

December 2017

As I write this, it’s snowing. That statement is completely irrelevant but it’s ok. I think this newsletter will jump around a bit.

GGIS normally has a chaplain but since our last one moved we haven’t had anyone to fill that role. I decided (secretly) that I would take on the job of speaking to every student in the high school. So far I have spoken to about ten percent of the high school students. It’s been incredible. Two of those students have accepted Christ and another one I have to follow up with this week. He is a Chinese boy in 11th grade who has really been questioning his family’s religion of Buddhism since he entered GGIS. When we spoke on Friday we talked about karma and how God doesn’t see us in terms of good and bad. It’s actually really good that I am speaking to him now because he is in my Bible class and we were talking about how God views our self-righteousness. I said that in Buddhism every one is kind of neutral, but then can choose to be good or bad. In Christianity, without Christ, we are just bad and the only way to produce good is to first accept Christ. It’s a heart change. I think a lot of Chinese people can feel stuck, I know you and I can, and think that everything good that we try to do always just turns out bad. In fact, isn’t that what Paul said in Romans 7? The things I want to do I can’t but the things I hate doing I find myself doing over and over and over? We don’t need to chase after perfection, just accept that God sees us as perfect in Him. After this time together, he thanked me and said that it was the most convincing thing he has heard yet as to why he should become a Christian. Please be praying for him.

Last week I spent Thanksgiving with my friends, Tim and Myriah who also invited about 20 other Americans over. We had two turkeys and a ton of other food. It was a wonderful time of fellowship. God is really doing things here in the life of the GGIS team. I think there are ebbs and flows in team life where people can go into hibernation and then come out again. It seems we are coming out again. I am so thankful for Tim and Myriah and all that they do here. On Friday nights they faithfully open their home to all of the GGIS staff who want to come over. We eat and play games and talk about the things God is doing. It’s so necessary.

I recently preached a message about negativity with our teen group. Studying for that message was amazing. The more I studied, the more I realized what an impact negativity and positivity can have on our lives. God never called us to be pessimistic and negative. He called us to declare His works. Is that what I am doing? I hope so. I need to focus on Him and His life and then that negativity fades away. The other thing I was thinking about was that negativity is just a manifestation of me not getting my way. Think about Jonah. He saw the works of God but instead of realizing how awesome what happened in Nineveh was, he simply pouted because he didn’t get what he wanted. Hebrews 12:15 says “see to it that no one fails the grace of God and by it a root of bitterness springs up in your soul.” If you recall, Jonah sat under his root of bitterness because in his eyes, the people of Nineveh, and God for that matter, had failed him. When my expectation for people isn’t met, I can become negative, but when I have God’s mind, people don’t need to meet my expectation. I can actually “see to it” that people aren’t put in a place in my brain to fail the grace of God. This allows me to live in positivity about things, rather than negativity.

I am so stirred up about this. God is doing mighty things. I am so proud to be a part of this.

November 2017

Have you ever been angry? Like really angry? You feel your blood pressure rise, your head starts pounding, your scalp starts to burn. It happens to everyone once in a while. It happened to me this past month. I was mad about a situation that I had no way to fix. I tried to calm down, I went for a walk, I thought my situation over and over and over with different scenarios, but there was nothing that I could do about it. Honestly, I simmered like this for a couple days before I realized that God had a plan in it. I don’t think this is a great epiphany or anything. We know that God works all things together for good, that He has a plan for every situation, but still, in that moment, in my anger, God comforted me. My perspective changed. I readjusted to God’s mindset and my outlook in the face of this problem changed.

I have been thinking more and more recently about God’s plan and the way He directs and shapes circumstances in life to draw us to Himself. We always have a choice to accept His leading or reject it, but God wants to use everything that happens to me as a way to get to know Him in different ways. My situation that angered me so much was one of those ways.

Also, this past month I celebrated my birthday. My students all know my birthday (I tell them weeks in advance… I’m an only child), and I had lots of cards and classes sang to me, but I also had one very special surprise. At lunch time, I had a feeling that people were trying to get me out of my classroom. I usually work through lunch because I teach before and after and those thirty minutes are a nice time to prepare. Anyway, the middle school science teacher came into my room and asked if I would go downstairs with him. Ok, I see what’s going on. My 8th grade girls are all standing in the lobby, not in the cafeteria where they should be, whispering and suddenly becoming quiet as I walk by. Ya, something is up.

We sat awkwardly in the teacher’s lounge for a few minutes before I asked if I could go back up to my room. We both figured that enough time had passed that it wouldn’t appear like I knew what was going on.

The bell rang and as I walked down the hall toward my room I could see that the lights were off and there were banners and balloons hanging from the walls. I could see the tops of a dozen heads behind the desks. As I walked in they all popped up and yelled surprise. It was the best surprise party I have ever had. 

I don’t know how to describe what I feel for my students. I feel like their parent, their sibling, and their friend all at the same time. I didn’t get a picture of it, but on one of my white boards the wrote, “We Love You, Mr. Cook”. I love them too.

This is why I need my perspective to line up with God’s mind. God loves these kids more than I do and He is using me to help them get to know Him.

October 2017

Last week a student from my Bible class walked into my classroom during a break and just stood there smiling at me. It's not uncommon for this to happen, but this time it was a little strange. This student is new to GGIS this year so I don't have such a strong relationship with him yet. I smiled back. We stood like that for a few seconds. It was kind of awkward. He then said "I became a believer yesterday" and walked out.

Ummmmm.

That's amazing! I caught up with him later during my break and talked to him for a minute. He said that he had been praying and thinking about becoming a Christian and decided to the day before he spoke to me.

If you've read my newsletters before, at the end of every school year we have a survey that we give to all of the high school students asking them some spiritual questions, "do you understand what it means to be a Christian, are you a Christian, would you like to be" etc. Once we receive these back we can pretty easily gauge where our students are after all of the teaching we have given them through the year. I have never had a student come to me and tell me that they accepted Christ five weeks into the school year, though! Incredible!

I think that often times, if I am not actively aware of spiritual things, I can miss what God is doing.

I lead a Bible study on Friday nights for our High School students and our theme in September was "How to Keep the Fire Burning". Often times during our High School Retreat we have this amazing anointing and kids are fully aware of the presence of God. I have seen (and experienced) though, that just like the Parable of the Sower, there can be circumstances waiting to snatch away the seeds that have been planted. In our Bible Study we talked about how I can continue to live in that life, that spiritual awareness that I had in those anointed times. I don't know if the kids got anything out of it, but I sure did!

Another big part of my ministry here is working with a Korean youth group. Last weekend I was able to go to the Korean Sport Day which brings together the Korean community here in Budapest. I was shocked to realize how many of these awesome people I have met in the past year working with the youth group. It’s amazing to me that I get to do this!

September 2017

I just got back from spending three days in the woods with 85 high school students. It was awesome. Every year at GGIS we take the students on a retreat so that they can all get to know each other and the teachers better. This year our theme was “Bearing Fruit”. We do a lot of fun things, play sports, have games, do a barn dance, but most importantly we have our sessions. Last night, sitting around a campfire, we passed the microphone around and a few students spoke about their time in the school and what it has meant to them. As a staff member, there is no better way to see the fruit of what God is doing here than those moments. We are bearing fruit. We may not realize it, but it’s happening. Isaiah 37:31 says that you bear fruit upward as your roots grow downward. To bear fruit is an awesome thing but the more important thing is to have roots. I hope that some students this weekend were able to grow some more roots.

Last weekend, I was able to be with the Korean youth group that I help out with for their retreat. We didn’t travel anywhere, but we did have a few services and then took the teens to play laser tag.

I love being with teenagers. They are the most real people you will ever find. They are honest, they are passionate, and they are growing up. I don’t think there is any better profession than to work in the ministry. No one knows what God will produce as fruit in the lives of the people we minister to but we do know that it will be at the perfect time and in the perfect place for His use.

I have one student who came to my classroom when I had a break this week and asked me a question about the Bible. She was a bit unsure about something she had heard from another church because it sounded funny compared to what she had grown up hearing in her church. We looked at a few verses together and in the end she decided that she was correct doctrinally and the other people were misrepresenting the truth of scripture. I was so surprised by how mature this girl had become just over the summer break. She had her daily reading Bible that she goes through and writes down her thoughts on that day’s portion. I was so impressed.

I was talking with my friend, Tim, this week about the evidence of doctrine in people’s lives. It’s incredible to see the results of a life that is allowing God to work in it.

Please pray for us here in Budapest. God is doing amazing things in a lot of lives. Next week we will kick off our after school Bible study. Pray that these times will really help establish the students and help their roots grow deep.

Thank you all for your continued prayer!

Summer 2017

I am back in Budapest after a great summer!

I was in the United States for about six weeks. I was able to attend the GGWO International Convention then headed up to New York to see my family. It was very relaxing and great to see everybody. I also had the opportunity to be in a dear friend’s wedding. This past weekend, my friends, Tim and Myriah, their baby, Agnes, and I took a drive to Slovenia, it’s about six hours away, but has some beautiful mountains and beaches.

I have been thinking this summer about finding and abiding in your calling. Some people may not know what I mean by that and that’s ok. It’s just knowing what God wants you to do and doing it. Jonah knew what God wanted him to do and refused to do it. He eventually came around and had great fruit but still didn’t want to do what God said. I wonder how many times I have know that God was telling me to do something but I refused. I think maybe a lot. However, when I actually do listen to God and start to walk in my calling, I find that it’s the greatest possible thing I could do. For now I am called to teach in a tiny school in Hungary and work with a Korean youth group. This summer, even though it was relaxing and it was nice to see everyone, I knew what my calling was and it isn’t to live in the US. I couldn’t wait to get back here to Budapest and continue to see what God will do. I pray that this year will be incredible. I don’t know what is in store, but I know that I am where I am supposed to be right now.

“Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.” I Corinthians 7:20

It’s a short newsletter this time but there is going to be a lot happening in the next month! Thank you for all of your continued prayer and support. Walk in your calling!

May 2017

What is truth? This is a question that Pilate asked Jesus and which has subsequently been asked throughout all of history since. In Bible class last week we asked this question. I think young people today are struggling with this question more than ever before because truth is being attacked more than ever before. Pilate was staring at the embodiment of Truth and failed to recognize it. In the same way, people all over the world today violently reject the very idea of God when in reality He is the truth for which they are searching.

Today (May 1st) is a national holiday in Hungary and I just got back from a long hike. There are a lot of beautiful parks in the mountains (hills) near where I live and I have been trying to make it a point to get more exercise recently. For a few weeks, I have been looking forward to climbing up to this certain peak with a huge tower on the top of it. Today was the day for it. I walked. And walked. And walked. I was sweating, legs aching, and I never made it. As I walked through the forest, ever clearing I came to I looked for the peak and kept catching glimpses of it. Finally, when I reached the pinnacle of the hill which I was climbing, I realized that I had overshot my target by about a mile. I couldn’t believe it. I looked all around and the tower I was trying to reach was actually behind me. I was on a completely different mountain!

I wonder how many people live their lives like this. They look for truth, they catch site of it, keep going, looking up and then realize, once they think they have finally achieved their purpose in life that it wasn’t God’s intended purpose for them at all. The truth that they thought was reality was actually a lie.

One of my Korean students asked a great question a couple weeks ago along the lines of this- what if all the work and study that we put in turns out to be pointless? We come to the end of our lives only to find that we achieved nothing lasting? My heart breaks thinking about this question.

I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of 8th graders, who I see six days a week normally between teaching and church, and they were so confused about the meaning of the Christian life.

The Christian life isn’t working or doing something for God. The Christian life isn’t being a nice, upright person. It’s simply knowing and operating in the truth. How do I know the truth? I get to know God who is the Truth. God doesn’t compromise on truth. He can’t. There is too much at stake. How will a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed to the Word. How will I be sanctified? By the Word, the Word is truth.

The problem is that the truth can hurt. My flesh doesn’t like the truth, it’s not nice to my flesh. My flesh has ideas for my own life and God may have a completely different plan.

The greatest thing that my students can do in their lives, the greatest thing that that Korean girl can do, is to recognize Truth and follow Him. That’s the greatest thing that you and I can do in our lives as well. Pilate missed it. Most of the world will miss it. I want to recognize Truth when He’s looking me in the face and I want to follow Him.

Sorry I didn’t really talk about what is happening in Budapest! This is more of what I’ve been thinking about in my heart for a couple weeks.

Please pray for GGIS as we begin to wrap up our school year. I’ll be back in Baltimore in about six weeks!