House Blessing Party

Sunday afternoon we invited many of our new friends to our apartment for American coffee and Hungarian cake. We wanted to thank our friends for helping us get started in our new country and to ask them to join us in praying a blessing over our new home. We had a great time together. Hungarians are used to much stronger coffee than Americans drink, but that is what we know how to make, so we served American coffee and our guests were kind enough to drink it. We all really enjoyed the Hungarian cake. There is a "cukrazda" (a kind of pastry/coffee shop) just two blocks from our new apartment. We are told this is the best cukrazda in Debrecen and from the delicious cakes we ate on Sunday, I can believe it. One was a yummy moist black forest cake and the other was a yellow cake with a fabulous fruit and cream filling (see top picture). I (Nancy) was so proud of myself for successfully ordering the cakes earlier in the week. No one spoke English in the cukrazda, so I wrote out in my best, very basic Hungarian that I wanted two cakes for Saturday. Then I pointed to the ones I wanted. It worked! The cakes disappeared in no time.
The pictures of the flowers are just a sample of the gifts our guests brought to our party. It is traditional to take flowers to a party and we received some beautiful, frangrant ones. The best part, though, was when the entire group joined in prayer over our new home including the INSTE office. Michael Gulyas prayed the blood of Jesus to cover our home and Ed Courtney (pastor of the International Church) prayed God's blessing over all of us. What a happy day!

Be kind to strangers

"And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Lev. 19:33-34)

We have been privileged to have many believers here in Hungary act out this command toward us. Misi Gulyas has helped us in countless ways. Yesterday, for example, he not only wrote for us the necessary papers for immigration, he went with us to the immigration office, waiting for over an hour and then sitting with us while we submitted our papers, just so he could explain if any questions came up.

Levente has helped us by getting us both our cell phones and our internet service, even searching around for the best prices for us. He is also the one who did most of the work to find us our wonderful apartment.

Zoli and Misa have been of invaluable help to us by translating things we get in the mail, taking us to the store for items too heavy to bring home on the bus, and translating for us in other situations. And many other people have been so kind and helpful to us.

God has blessed us with the best of circumstances here, but we have still relied heavily on the help of others. We understand so much more clearly now what our brothers and sisters who are immigrants in the US have to go through. We know how laws, rules and customs can be so very confusing, especially when you don't speak the language or don't speak it well. Next time we are in the States, we will be sure to be kind to the strangers among us. Please do us a favor and be kind to a stranger near you today.

School starts tomorrow

Here are our Hungarian language books. We start classes tomorrow! Yeah! Living here we have learned a few new words and phrases, but we have learned especially how much we want to know Hungarian!

We had our orientation to school yesterday and were placed in the second semester class. Studying on our own has paid off and saved us some class time, but we will have to fill in the gaps between what we have learned in our studies and what this class learned in their first semester. For this first semester, our class meets for two hours, three days a week. We hope to be able to take an intensive course in May that will jam an entire semester into two weeks. But for now we are looking forward to the regular semester class. There are about six other students in our class, one of which is a man about our age from the US.

More good news--we turned our stack of necessary papers in to the immigration office today. So far it looks good. Please pray that the people who evaluate our papers will show favor toward us and grant us permission to live in Hungary.

Welcome to our home

This is our new apartment building. We are living on the ground floor near the back of the building. Security is very tight in most places. Most homes and apartment buildings have a fence. We have to unlock the gate when we come or go. Unlock the front door of the building and then unlock the two locks on our apartment door.












Above is a picture of our bedroom. Hungarian beds are quite different than American, but still comfortable. Notice the wardrobe to the right of the bed. There are no closets so this is how they store their clothes. There are two in this room. To the right is a picture of our bathroom. You will notice that most everything here is smaller. The box on the wall is the water heater. Right below that (the box on the floor in front of the toilet) is our washing machine. Not much leg room when you sit down either. There is no dryer, so clothes are dried on a rack that hangs above the tub. It is lifted up out of the way now.













This is our kitchen. Again, you will notice how small it is. There is barely enough room for Nancy and I to sit at the table let alone have anyone over for a meal. Entertainment will have to take place in the living room.

This is a typical Hungarian living room. Notice again the wardrobe and cupboards for storing. This apartment came furnished, which is a common practice here.

To the right (behind the chairs) is a large window and a door to our balcony. We noticed that there are grapevines just outside our window. In fact, several homes have grapevines in their yards. We cannot wait for spring and summer to get here so we can see what the grapes will look like.
















Finally, here we see Nancy working in the INSTE office. We are so glad God gave us such a nice place to live and work in. I'm sure that it won't be long before this room will be filled with books as we get groups started this fall.

Well, that's our home. Thanks for the visit and we sure do appreciate your prayers and support.

Blessings,
Mike & Nancy

Prayer for Revival

We have been so happy this week to be able to participate in the city wide prayer meetings held in Debrecen. Seven churches participated in four evenings of prayer together and a 24 hour praise and worship session Friday night. We thank the Lord for the spirit of unity and the heart desire of Hungarian Christians to see their cities and their nation won for the Lord. We are in Hungary at a very exciting time.

We couldn't understand everything that was said, but who needs to know the language in order to pray?

Csókolom!

Greetings from Nancy! This is a picture of the kitchen of the apartment we are staying in here in Hungary. God bless Sandor and Eszter for allowing us to stay in her mother's vacant apartment while we were looking for our own place to live. We are in the process this week of getting the papers signed to move into an apartment. It is in a good part of town with room for an office for INSTE in it. I am especially glad to be moving into a place a little more permanent than any we have lived in during the past year. Praise the Lord! Please pray our move is successful.

Anyway, back to our present apartment, this is a picture of a typical older woman's kitchen. There is beautiful lace and needlework throughout the apartment. Thought you'd like to see it.

Speaking of older women, there is a practice here in Hungary that we are learning about. It is customary for men to greet women, particulary older women with "Csókolom" which literally means, "I kiss your hand." It is a greeting of respect that dates back to the days of royal courts where men actually kissed the hands of their rulers and ladies out of respect. Mostly now, though, we hear men say "csókolom" to women quite a bit older than themselves. Well, guess who is hearing a lot of "csókolom" these days?