Lawsuit

In my last prayer letter I wrote about a lawsuit that we won but there was not a lot of context for many of you. Let me explain!

Six years ago the church in Budapest was sued by a man who had been renting a small room in the church for his business. After several months of not paying his rent they kicked him out. Sadly our lawyer at the time did not give sound legal advice- meaning the timing of kicking him out was illegal. So the guy sued and nobody thought anything of it- oops!

Six years later and in my first week of becoming the pastor of the church our case came before the court and we lost. We didn't just lose we got creamed and without a doubt there was some funky demonic things going on.

The guy sued for damages over the last 6 years which we believed would work in our favor because he had lost money for 5 years in a row. He was so "in debt" that we did him a favor by cutting him loose. So in the courtroom we had hoped that the judge would look over the tax records but to our surprise the judge did not even glance at them. Instead the judge awarded an arbitrary amount of money to this man equaling over 600,000 USD!

We were in complete shock and it was at this point that we woke up from our stupor. We began more vigilant prayer meetings and the Lord began bringing the right people to help us with this situation.

One of the men, newly in the church, came to me to offer his services in any way that he could. He is a lawyer and his support has been immense. His name is Ed Keller. Since Ed got involved we've seen the tables turn.

Our last court hearing was at the appeals level which for all purposes is as far as we can go here in Hungary. We had been praying non stop for the Lord to work this thing out. As well we tried to negotiate with the guy for a settlement but he wouldn't bite. So we went to court and Praise the Lord we won.

What does this mean? Now our case goes back to the lower courts where they have been instructed as to depth of their rulings. There will be no more arbitrary setting of amounts- instead tax records will be used. This is very good news for us. Basically we are back in the driver's seat and we hope to see this now resolved in settlement soon.

The elders and I give thanks to the Lord for His faithfulness. It has really stretched us and caused us to draw closer to Him and for that we are grateful. Thank you all for your prayers and if you have any questions feel free to post a comment and I'll get back to you!