A Couple of Days in Budapest

We had a great time with Karl and Dyrie Francis in Budapest early this week. Karl and Dyrie are US Open Bible pastors who were in Hungary to speak at Shalom Open Bible's 20th anniversary celebration in Debrecen. Nancy arrived from Ukraine by plane Monday evening and met Mike, Karl and Dyrie who drove in from Debrecen earlier that day. We ate good food and saw some of Budapest's beautiful places. The first picture is Dyrie in front of the Hungarian Parliament building.
We decided to take the tour of the inside of the building, but had to wait in line outside for quite some time. The temperature was cool. Can you tell from this picture which American is from Minnesota and which one is from Florida?

The tour was worth the wait, though. Hungary's Parliament building is the second largest in Europe and very beautiful. We were even able to see the crown jewels. Nancy was very happy to finally be able to go inside since she has seen the outside of the building several times and yet had not been able to go inside until Tuesday.

Besides Parliament, we saw St. Stephen's Basilica, the Chain Bridge, Castle Hill, and rode the city bus. We pretty much wore ourselves out. Karl and Dyrie could have gone sight seeing without us, but we are glad they allowed us to show them around. We had a great time together.

Pastor Gulyas had loaned Mike his car to be able to take the Francis' to the airport on Wednesday morning, so Mike got to experience driving for the first time in Hungary. Budapest traffic was very heavy and finding parking was difficult, but Mike experienced no trouble. On the way back to Debrecen, however, we stopped at a truck stop for gas. Just as we were leaving the parking lot, a patrolman and his partner flagged us down. But, before we stopped, they waved us on through. It looked like they were checking license plates. We thank the Lord for his protection and for not having to explain in Hungarian why Americans were driving a car belonging to Hungarians! Thank you for praying for us!