Bridge Holidays

Hungary has what are called "bridge holidays."  That is, if a public holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, the corresponding Monday or Friday is also a public holiday so that people can have long weekends for those holidays.  But, the missed work and school days are compensated for with working Saturdays.  For example, Tuesday, October 23 was Republic Day.  Monday, October 22 was also declared a holiday and was made up for on Saturday, October 27.  It can get confusing, though when the holiday cannot easily be compensated for on the following Saturday.  Since Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday this year, the 24th is also a holiday.  However, the holiday will be made up for on Saturday, December 15.  In 2012, of the ten official holidays, five of them fall on Tuesday or Thursday!  

This has caused a lot of confusion, not only for us, but for some Hungarians, too. Some time ago, a youth conference was planned for the Open Bible Churches here in Hungary.  The dates were set for this Friday through Sunday, November 30-December 2.  Just last week it was discovered that Saturday will be a work day!  Some schools and workplaces (but not all) will be open to make up for December 31 being a holiday (New Year's Day falls on a Tuesday.)  After prayer, it was decided to go ahead with the conference.  Some of the teenagers will just miss a day of school with their parents' consent.  Others will have to miss the conference on Saturday. 

Please pray for God's blessing on the youth conference.  Mike will be speaking for the closing service on Sunday.

American Celebration in Hungary

I succumbed to the temptation to try something I saw on the internet--a vegetable turkey.  Can you make it out?

Yesterday we enjoyed what has become sort of a tradition for us here in Hungary--an American Thanksgiving with our Hungarian neighbors.  We ate turkey breast (my oven is too small for a whole turkey), dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes (sent from America by our daughter-in-law Nadine), cranberries (brought from America by Karl and Dyrie Francis) two American-style salads, apple pie and pumpkin dessert.  (The pumpkin was also sent from America.) Our neighbors brought stuffed cabbage, a chicken and wild mushroom dish, Hungarian mini bread sticks, and cake.  We were well-fed!  The Hungarians liked the cranberries.  One neighbor said she was wondering how the "beets" (the canned cranberries cut into slices) were cut into such uniform shapes, but when she tasted the cranberries, she really liked them.  Another neighbor asked what was in the dressing.  When I listed sage as one of the ingredients, he said that he pulled sage out of his garden like other weeds, but it tasted good in the dressing!
The best part of the evening was when everyone shared three big things and three small things for which they were thankful.  We found it difficult limiting it to just six items apiece.  God is good to us and has blessed us all abundantly.
Now that the rush of the Christmas season has begun, the challenge for all of us is to maintain our attitude of gratefulness for all that God has given to us.

Joining us this year were Éva, István, Obed, Mike, Misi, Márika and Anna

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few things we are thankful for this year:

Our beautiful granddaughter Mychael was born in January.  Finally, a girl born into the family!  We are thankful for her and for our three grandsons, three sons and three daughters-in-law.

We thank the Lord for his presence and comfort when Mike's dad passed away in February.  There is nothing better than knowing that this life is not all there is and that the God who loves us is with us every moment, now and forever.

We thank God for healing Mike of shingles.  The two months he dealt with them were not easy, but God is faithful and our health is good.

We thank God for the 14 people who graduated from First Level INSTE in the spring.  And we thank him for the 50 students who are currently studying.  We are grateful to the Lord for the translation team who have finished translating five Level Two books and are working on three more.  God is good.

Thank God for all the generous people and churches who give so that we can help expand the Kingdom of God here in Hungary.  Don't forget, you are all partners with us and will share in the rewards!

We thank the Lord for the many people who pray consistently for us.  It is through your prayers that God has enabled us to accomplish what has been done.  And, God is constantly answering your prayers for wisdom, protection and provision.

We thank God for an effective Leadership Conference in September.  We thank Karl and Dyrie Francis for coming and thank God for their powerful ministry.

And we thank the Father for food, clothes, a nice home, a car, electricity, internet and gas. Nothing makes a person appreciate something like going without it for a while.  Thank you, Lord, for gas!  Without it, the house would be cold and there would be no wonderful aroma of Thanksgiving pies wafting from the kitchen.

But we especially thank God for loving us so much that he sent his own son Jesus to take the penalty of death for our rebellion.  Without God's love and power, we would be hopeless and helpless in this world.  Thank you, Father!

Still Keeping Warm!

There are a few small items we would like to give updates on:

We thank God that we still have hot water and heat in our apartment!  It really makes us thankful for what we have, since we had to do without for a while!

We are traveling to Gherla, Romania tomorrow to minister in the Open Bible Church there.  Please pray with us for safe travel, powerful ministry, and blessing on our Romanian friends.

The work of getting association papers for INSTE continues.  This week was spent getting documents updated, corrected and signed.  There is still one paper waiting for a signature, but we are making progress!

It seems to us that our language skills are not progressing much, but it is really good to hear others say we are speaking Hungarian better than we used to.  That is encouraging!

We really enjoy hearing from our INSTE students.  Many times we hear that INSTE is making a big impact in their spiritual lives.  One student told us last night that he gets up at 3:30 in the morning to be able to spend time with the Lord before he leaves for work at 5!  God is working in his life and in the lives of so many INSTE students.  That is why we're here!

We have heat and hot water!

Finally!  After 8 weeks, the gas in our apartment has been reconnected and we have central heat, hot tap water and are cooking with gas!  Early this afternoon the gas company turned on the gas and then late afternoon the serviceman came and started our boiler/water heater.  The heat feels so nice!

We are celebrating with long, hot baths and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

The cookies have been waiting 8 weeks to be made.  When Vince McCarty visited in September, he brought some chocolate chips as a gift.  We used half of them to make a small batch of cookies while Vince was here.  Then the gas was shut off and the second batch had to wait.  My, how good they taste now!

Thanks, everyone, for your prayers and concern. 

Still No Gas

I've been waiting to update the blog.  I was hoping to be able to report that our gas service has been restored to our apartment, but still no gas.  There were two men here today who looked at the furnace/water heater and stove, talked with the landlady and signed some papers.  Then they said the gas meter will be installed either Friday (tomorrow) or Monday.  We were hoping it would be today, but what's another few days after eight weeks?

We are very thankful, though, that doing without gas service has not been a hardship.  It's been more of an inconvenience than anything.  We do have a space heater that keeps the living room between 66 and 68 degrees, and when the sun shines through the window, it can get up to 70 degrees.  We have an electric hot plate with two burners on which we can heat water for what my mother used to call "spit baths," that is bathing in a "spit" of water.  We can cook on the hot plate, in the crock pot or the microwave.  So, we are not suffering, just not enjoying some luxuries we usually take for granted.

We are looking forward to regular heat and hot water, though.  We'll keep you posted. 

Many advisers make victory sure.

Wow, are we blessed!  God has given us some wonderful Hungarian believers to work with.  Last night eight of them gathered at the INSTE office to work on the official papers for INSTE in Hungary.  Thanks to their insight and advice, many details were worked out and wise direction was given to the future of INSTE.  May God bless you Éva, Misha, Ferenc, Géza, Jozsef, Róbi, Misi and Berci!  We appreciate you!

Oh, and sorry, we were working so hard, we forgot to take a picture!

Translation Team Members Meet

Yesterday the INSTE translation team and their families came to our home for lunch.  It was the first time Klári had met the other members of the team.  The kids were able to come, too, since it was a school break for them this week.  Klári and her family had traveled to Debrecen from their home in Győr in western Hungary.  Their oldest daughter will graduate from high school this year and was visiting the university here.  We had a great time together eating pizza, talking and getting to know one another better.

Thank you Andi, Klári, Sandor and Eszter for your work with INSTE!