Monday & Tuesday, July 8-9

We are actually home now, but due to where we were staying, I was unable to email daily like I did last year, so I will have to reflect on some of the events that took place.

In the last email, I told you all where we would be standing at 1:30pm your time. We were able to call home and talk to our families while we waved to them from the square below. That was a time of tears and laughter as our families tried to pick out each of us from the camera. While talking to my sister, she was pointing out each of us from home and said someone had come up behind us that she didn't know. Apparently, we were having such a good time waving at the clock tower, that a Hungarian teenage wanted to join the fun. That made everyone in the square laugh.

Camp went well on Tuesday with "I am the Bread of Life" theme. The children really enjoy the lessons and activities we had planned. We found that we were actually over planned this year, but that was a great blessing for us. In the evenings we would decide which activities we didn't get to on one day could be moved to the next and which activities would not work with the different groups. I can't remember if I told you all this, but Patty (our Kindergarten teacher) made it possible to open a class for young beginners, ages 5-7. We didn't offer this last year. She had 7 students and was the perfect teacher for this group.

The big event for Tuesday was the Ladies' Meeting. Again, we were so well planned that it only took an hour to set up and decide upon which events to leave in our original ideas and which to change once we met with Barb and Abby. Abby started the program with a short, non-verbal skill about being busy and not taking time to remember who God is; Tracy followed with a message about the "stones of remembrance" that the children of Israel stacked on the shore after crossing the Red Sea. Remember that God is Great and He is Lord through all our circumstances past, present and future; Tina shared a few of her own personal stones of remembrance; I lead us in a song at the end, How Great Thou Art. We sang it in English and they sang in Hungarian. How sweet the sound! Afterwards we spent time getting to know some of the ladies. Noemi (a student from last year) and her mother, Csilla, came again this year. Neither of them go to church, but she has been coming to camp and the evening activities for 2 summers now. It was great to see them again and to try to communicate with them. Noemi continued her English studies and could understand and speak quite a bit of English.

We met Evette's mother. Evette was translating for Patty this week. Her mother looked so much like ours that Tracy and I got a little homesick. Just don't tell my mom! She let us call her mama the rest of the week. Later I found out that she is our music leader's mother. That is Jonas, the blind man that leads us. I know that Jimmy sent Jonas some CD's and someone else bought a couple of CD's that we used for gifts. These were great hits on Friday when we were thanking everyone for helping in camp. This is how Jonas learns new music.

Wednesday's theme was "I am the Resurrection." The children were fascinated with the story of Lazarus during the worship session. But everyone had some behavioral issues as they began to get comfortable with us, but nothing major. It was just odd that we each had an incident on the same day to share while we ate lunch that afternoon. Lunch has been provided from the lady who cooks meals for the Women's center. Babi and Imre have organized this for us. We have been tasting true Hungarian cuisine. It's been interesting to say the least.

Wednesday night was the family picnic. All the families of the students were invited for a time of food, games, and fellowship. They played "Hungarian kick ball" again this year. This time Tracy played. I was so afraid she was going to twist and ankle or break a bone, but she didn't. However, one of the older children, Ben, broke his arm. Pray for quick healing. I don't think I saw him the rest of camp. We had a few minutes of sharing also: Patty and Abby gave a quick 5 minute introduction. Then Brett gave his testimony. The teens and the men were most attentive to what he was sharing. When Éndre, the church leader, asked one of us to share a testimony he asked for someone who didn't grow up in church. Brett was the only one and what a great testimony he had to share. It was perfect for the audience he was sharing with: he has been involved with everything from drugs, to alcohol, to witchcraft. But God pulled him out of all that as a young man and now he is faithfully serving God.

Well, the time zone has caught up with me again so I think I will go take a little nap. After a 2 hour delay again at JFK, we finally arrived at the airport at 11:40pm last night and made it home around 1:45am this morning. For us, that was 24 hours of being awake.

I'll catch you up on more details later. The best 2 days are next. I can hardly wait to share it with you.