INSTE Groups in Romania

Over the weekend we went with Tammy Swailes to Gherla, Romania. Tammy was excited to be able to train two new INSTE leaders in Gherla who will be starting groups soon. We also stopped in Oradia, Romania where Tammy met with the leaders of two Romanian INSTE groups and gave them this semester's books. God is doing good things!
While we were in Gherla, we were the guests of John and Nelly Pop who treated us royally with great food, warm beds and wonderful conversation. Mike was invited to speak Sunday morning at the Gherla Open Bible Church. It was a blessed service and both of us were able to pray for many people following the sermon.


Since this was Nancy's first trip to Gherla (Mike was there in 2000), the Pops took us into the Carpathian Mountains there in Transylvania. We visited two Orthodox monasteries on mountaintops. Monks and/or priests live at these monasteries and there are guest houses available for people who wish to spend time there. This is the outside of a church at the first monastery we visited.
We were able at this monastery to go inside the church building and take pictures. It is quite ornate including the murals painted on the inside of the tall tower. We talked about the hold this works-based religion has on the lives of the Romanian people. It is very difficult for new believers to leave behind the traditions and practices of the Orthodox church and fully trust in God's Word. How wonderful to be able to provide INSTE in their own language to help them grow!

The best part of visiting the monastaries was the mountain views. How glorious is God's handiwork!

INSTE Groups Started!

We are happy to report that two Level One INSTE groups in Hungarian have started. One group is in Debrecen and the other in Budapest. Please pray for these groups and their leaders that God will transform their lives into the likeness of Jesus as they study together.

Tourists in Budapest

Last weekend we went to Budapest. Mike preached in the Örömhir Misszió Church on Sunday morning. We were so happy to be able to take the books to them for their first INSTE group which begins on Tuesday. (The Shalom Open Bible Church in Debrecen is starting two groups on Tuesday also.)


Since we were going to be in Budapest anyway, we decided to take a vacation day and go early to visit some of the sights on our own. Soon people may come to visit us and we wanted to be able to show them around Budapest in additon to Debrecen. There are several bus tours available, so we chose to go on one of them. The weather was cool and a little rainy that morning, but since we were on a bus most of the time, it didn't bother us.

The best part of the tour was our guide. This little lady was a ball of energy and talked constantly the entire tour--for three hours! She gave commentary on every place we went in both English and German. And, she kept talking to the bus driver in Hungarian, telling him to slow down, turn here, stop there, etc. And she gave us interesting facts about many of the things we saw. (Did you know that the double cross the kings of Hungary carry represents the fact that they ruled over the country and the Catholic church?) We went to all the tourist stops including Hero's Square, Parliament, Castle Hill and the Citadel. Our only disappointment was that we could not take the tour of the Parliament building because of political demonstrations planned for later in the day.


For lunch we found a Subway sandwich shop. It sure tasted good. The only American fast food in Debrecen is McDonald's. We walked around the city for a while on our own and saw some extra things not on the tour including a lot of policemen in riot gear getting ready for the demonstrations. We walked away from Parliament and got to see a street performance in the theater district. The part we saw was singing and dancing including some Broadway hit songs. We also walked past the Chinese and Indonesian embassies.

By the time we got back to our hotel, we were exhausted. But we got back in time to be rested up for services the next day. We enjoyed our day off and God blessed in the services on Sunday. He is a good God!

Intercontinental Praise

Saturday evening Mike preached at the International Church in Debrecen. We have been attending there when we can since the worship is in both Hungarian and English. The congregation consists mainly of foreign students from the Debrecen University Medical School, missionaries and Hungarians. Mike not only preached, he played his guitar with the worship team. We noticed that there were four continents represented on the worship team--Africa, North America, Europe and Asia! That was great! The service was wonderful, too. The worship was uplifting and Mike gave a stirring message.

Sunday morning Mike preached at the Debrecen Open Bible Church. We are so blessed to be a part of the Church here in Debrecen with such wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ!

More Hungarian Lessons

This is Rita, our language tutor. Since our schedule this fall won't allow for us to take regular Hungarian classes, Rita has agreed to give us private lessons. We are so happy she is able to do this since she is one of our favorite teachers and has helped us tremendously. Thank you, Rita. Yes, we are working on our homework! Yes, it will be done before our next class!

What a label!

Shopping in Hungary is different than shopping in America. One reason is the labels on the packages. Most of the products in the stores are sold by companies doing business in many European countries. Each of those countries speaks a different language, so the labels have to be printed so that they can be understood in every country where that box or package is sold. Take this box of cereal for example. It has ingredient and nutritional information printed on the back in eight languages! Not one of them is English. Each section is marked by a letter in a circle that indicates the language of that section. We look for the "H" in a circle. We can sort of make out what that section says. There's no way we can read the Slovakian or Romanian section! On small packages, the print is so small, it's incredible.

And to think, God knows each one of the thousands of languages in the world and communicates to us in the language that's closest to our heart. Isn't He good?

The cutest grandson

Our son Mark and his wife and son went hiking over the weekend. Here is a picture they sent us of Mark showing Nate how to skip rocks. Mark said that the water was very cold there in the mountains, but Nate didn't mind. He wanted to learn how to skip rocks just like Daddy!

We are so proud of all of our sons, our daughters-in-law and our grandson! We even are proud of our grand-cats and grand-dogs!

How blessed we are that we can stay in such close contact with our family through email, Skype and phone. We love you guys!

What's Pacal?

Yesterday after church we decided to stop at a little restaurant near the church for lunch. They have daily specials at very good prices and we though we'd try those. Besides, it was a beautiful day and they had tables set up on the sidewalk. So, we sat down outside and ordered the daily specials. Mike ordered the "A" meal and Nancy ordered the "B" meal. We weren't exactly sure what they were, but it looked like the "A" meal was some sort of ribs and the"B" meal a kind of stew. The soup was served right away, an average-tasting vegetable beef soup. Next came our dinner plates. Mike's was ribs all right, but Nancy's was tripe! Mike ate his ribs and enjoyed them. Being a good sport, but feeling a little apprehensive, Nancy tried a bite of the stewed tripe. Well, let's just say that Nancy filled up on potatoes and dessert! When we got home, we wrote "pacal" on our word memory cards. Next time we'll know what that is before we order it!