Margaret and Joe Tanner, along with Julia Tóth
lead two weekly
Recovery Groups,
based upon
the
Celebrate Recovery
materials developed
by John Baker.
These anonymous groups
are designed to help anyone
who is
dealing
with issues in their lives.
Out of Conrol
By Katie Winckles
Missionary in Hungary
"Their lives are out of control" I've called them, visited them, fed them and listened to them. They're lonely, angry, broken, trapped, sick, oppressed, disillusioned, driven, depressed, afraid, addicted, abused.
They are chasing solutions - politics, westernization, money, travel, education, alcohol, sex, - that ultimately only perpetuate the cycle of hopelessness. This is life for many in post-communist, post-Christian Europe. A spiritual wakening is needed to break out of the cycle.
Recovery depends on that realization. How can this happen? Where does help and hope begin?
For some it has begun by participating in a Celebrate Recovery* group that meets at the Budapest Ministry Center. This 12-step program starts by acknowledging our personal need to trust God. From there we learn how to be responsible for our lives with God's help. We turn over our hurts, hang-ups and habits to Him. We ask God to help us to make changes. We listen and encourage each other to work those changes into our lives one day at a time. Acceptance, forgiveness and healing begin.
We also learn to look beyond our own issues. At the close of each meeting we join hands and pray silently for those outside the circle who are hurting, whose lives are out of control. We ask God, whose heart breaks for them, to draw them to himself. We pray that they will get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and seek help.
Daily every one of us faces the reality that we can't change another's life. Only God, through Christ can make someone new from the inside out. Freedom is found only in him. But we can join hands and pray.
Hope begins in that circle of silent prayer.
Then God, the Lord of His harvest, sends us out from there to take another's hand and help them find that starting place for themselves.
*Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered recovery program by John Baker and based on principles from the Beatitudes. Copyright 1998 Zondervan.
