September 21, 2015

Hey!

Back to Monday again. Not much by way of big news from Budapest, just still here working in Kispest! We're still doing really good, having some pretty good success with meeting with a lot of the people here. We had a jam-packed week last week that was so busy that we were always on the move traveling from one program to another, which was fun! We've even had a few random people on the streets just come up to us and ask us to talk to them about who we are and what we're doing here in Hungary. Pretty cool stuff.

As far as the situation with the immigrants, it's still pretty touchy here. There's thousands of immigrants (like, tens of thousands) waiting outside the southeastern border of Hungary trying to break into the country. The government hastily built up a wall on the border to try to keep them out, but they're trying to push it down in places to get into the nation. The tough thing is that a lot of them actually aren't refugees, but want to take advantage of the opportunity to sneak into Europe by posing as one. They often don't accept food or water that is given to them by humanitarian efforts, and there's been scattered reports about violence between them and the predominantly Christian demographic of Europe. Most don't want to complete the necessary paperwork to become legal citizens, and just want to do what they want to do, which pretty much just means making a mess. I have heard several people say that people are mad at the Hungarian government because of the way they treat them, but it looks like the media isn't telling the whole story... Sounds like when the cameras are out, the refugees and immigrants pose to look starving and abused, and the reporters film only when the Hungarian police try to keep back crowds of immigrants swarming the wall with things like water cannons or rubber bullets. It's a problem...

But other than that, everything else is going well here in Kispest. We spent some time this week cutting wood for one of the old ladies that we know here, which is fun because I've never really had to do that before and it's good to know that she'll have heat for the winter. Fun service projects are the best way to help people, for sure.

Hope that everything is alright back at home! The Hungarians tell us they're a bit scared to see who'll become the next US president, because it might have a big impact on how this immigrant crisis is handled here. Hopefully, everything will work out okay. :)


Love you all lots! Have a great week and be happy. :)

My buddy, Ricky, from Nyíregyháza, works in Budapest on the 

weekends as a Rickshaw driver for tourists in the downtown 

area of the city, and we were able to meet up with him and 

have an awesome time as he drove us around the city on his

rickshaw and even let us try it out, too! It's a lot harder than 

you would think, it's a heavy bike that's pretty long and 

double wide, but it was for sure the coolest way to see the city.

Picture taken with Katolin and the other elders

in front of the Kispest branch house