February 17, 2015

So hey!

Another week's gone by now.... this is insane how fast the time is here. One month in Hungary is coming up super soon!!

Unfortunately, there never seems to be time here to write letters or emails, so this will probably be another short one. But that's okay! Bottom line is, everything's still pretty great here and we're loving life, and we're hoping all of ya'll are doing the same. :)

So we met a Nazi this week. Yep, he was great. He approached us in English and said that Hitler was his father, he loved him very much, and he would always love his home in West Germany more than he would love Hungary (which he called a "little _______[insert word] country". Then he heiled at us and walked away. Yuppppp Europe.

Last night, there were rallies in our city of the socialist party members in Hungary. Because we are so close to the Ukrainian border (only 20km or so), there's a lot of support for bringing Soviets back. The rallies were peaceful, but we still were told to keep our distance from them so that nothing would happen. Europe.

A drunk man from Israel was running around the square in Nyiregyhaza and asked us where he could find Jesus, so we told him that he was always there with him and invited him to church. He didn't end up coming, but we just assumed it was because he couldn't remember to.

Ambulances at night here do laps of the city picking up overly-intoxicated people at all the city's bars and pubs. There's a lot of ambulances. That's kind of sad, but very European.

Went to use the bathroom on the train to Miskolc this week, and the train was an older Soviet-era train that was definitely a little bit scarier than some of the nicer trains closer to Budapest. The bathroom was a hole in the floor of the train in a closet. Very eastern-European.

Anyways, lots of great stories to tell here, but there's one in particular that would be good to share!

The language is pretty hard to learn here, and if you're not careful, it can be very easy to get down on yourself and think that you're not smart enough to do it. Every day is an experience of striving to understand a few words and phrases, and it can get discouraging at times.On the way to the train station in Budapest yesterday, we noticed a little boy and his mom practicing riding a two-wheeler in the middle of a square in Pest. The boy looked to be about four or five, and his mom looked very tired--like maybe she had had enough of practicing for one day and wanted to go home. The boy, however, was having the best time of his life, but he couldn't seem to stop crashing on his bike. He'd coast a few feet and just teeter over, faceplanting in the bricks of the sidewalk. What was so surprising to me, though, was how happy he was to fall off the bike! He was laughing more genuinely and smiling more intensely than anyone else I'd seen yet in Hungary, moments after face-planting to the ground. Then, he'd get back up, still laughing, and try again.

Sometimes, we feel like we fall down and can't get back on the bike because we're just not adequate or skilled enough for the task at hand. We might feel that our strengths are insufficient for the learning we have ahead. It gave me such courage yesterday, however, to see this little boy falling over and getting back up again (this must have happened six or seven times while we were watching). If he can have a good day and fall down on his bike, and not be afraid of getting back up, then we really can't complain or be sad when someone slams a door in our face or lets us know how terrible we are at speaking Hungarian. We should be happy! Just the fact that we have a "bike" to fall off of (the opportunity to learn Hungarian, the struggle that it is to work, balancing home, friends, and responsibilities, etc.) is a tremendous blessing. We just need to be more like this little kid that was so excited to fall off his bike and try again. If it hurts when the concrete hits you, smile back at the concrete and then stand back up again. It's like that quote from Rocky... something about "standing back up" or something like that? I dunno, I never saw the movie haha. Anywayssss, that's my little inspirational moment for the day!:)

Have another great week, look forward to writing more next week! Nagyon szeretlek titeket!

The Hungarians really want to have the Olympics here.

Beautiful Roman Catholic church in Nyiregyhaza where we

found a new investigator... the Catholic priest there.

He was way nice and gave us a tour around their church.

In front of the parliament building

This is a picture of that little kid in the story.

In front of the church!

Beautiful interior... the priest invited us back to come 

see mass if he would also come to one of our 

church meetings. He agreed! We saw a Catholic

wedding here on Valentine's Day evening.

In front of Heroes Square in Pest

The train station at Miskolc was way cool

This is the big Greek Catholic church in Nyiregyhaza