Thursday, July 10

This may be the last installment of our trip. Thursday and Friday were the mountain top experiences.

Oh, Tuesday night as Tracy was in her introduction at the Ladies' meeting Barb's phone began to ring. The one missing bag had arrived and the delivery man was trying to get in at the front door of the church. The bag had our materials for class on Wednesday as well as the rest of the New Testaments.

Thursday's teaching theme for the children was "I am the Light of the World." In my class I was still finishing Tuesday and Wednesday lessons. I had advanced beginner so we were spending more time ensuring that grammar/sentence structures were more accurate. They already had a lot of vocabulary (nouns and verbs) but needed more help with sentence structure. Our structure and their structures are completely different so this is quite difficult. All of the children in my group attended camp last year except for two, Sandra and Kristof. Gergo and Attila were both in my group last year and had remembered many of the lessons from last summer.

Thursday afternoon we had decided to take the youth helping with sport night that evening to lunch over near Barb's house. It is a little over a mile from Barb's house to the church, so round trip is close to 3 miles. We made this trip everyday and some days we made it more than once. By Thursday I had a huge blister on my foot, so when they went to lunch I stayed and took a nap. It felt so good to lay still for an hour. Did I tell you it really HOT in Hungary? Thursday - Saturday had temperatures in the 90's with the same kind of humidity as Georgia...only no air conditioning. Everyone leaves the insides of the buildings - houses, flats, churches, etc - to sit outside under the shade trees to stay cool, or sit near the fountain in the square, have an ice cream, etc. Naps are usually done outside too. It got quite toasty upstairs in the heat, but I was too tired to care.

Brett and the Youth managed to get everything semi-planned, rehearsed and ready to go so we walked across the street around 5:45pm to have the Sport Night. Ideally it was meant for teens but the children from camp began arriving. Barb and Brett went around the school play areas inviting others inside. Some of the younger kids stayed but the older boys went back outside when they say how young the children were. About 25 participated in the game time, not counting the youth and adult volunteers. There may have been about 35 of us all together. So every team ended up "winning" some event and getting Red, White, and Blue winner medallions that we brought with us.

Then we sat down for a skit and a message. Abby and the youth had prepared another non-verbal skit depicting a girl being created by God and choosing to pursue things like greed, alcohol, drugs, popularity and attempt at suicide - all the while Christ was off to the side trying to call to her and pull her to Him. Finally He breaks through and conquerors all of these things to rescue the girl and they walk off together. It was powerful. I forgot what Christian song they had playing in the background, but the music was loud and it brought in the older kids from outside. They sat down and stayed for Brett's message about the Good Life: We think all of these things are the "good life" but God is waiting and calling to us trying to give us His "Good Life." The youth sat completely still. They were hooked. The children, however, were another story. Later as we were sharing at the end of the day, every one of us not speaking were praying that God would either settle the children in front or blind the eyes of the others from the distractions. It was obvious that they were blind from the distractions. Later we found out that one of the older "boys" that came in was actually a new recruit for the Hungarian professional basketball team. They called it the first team.

Every night we were there, the basketball courts and soccer courts were full of children. You could see and hear them every evening from the apartment above the church. There is a whole mission field right across the street from the church. They could literally hold an event each night and have plenty of children and teens attend the meeting. Perhaps this is an area God could use some of our people in next year? Pray for the youth at Békevar Baptist Church. They also see the opportunity. They appear to have a strong core group of about 10-15 kids. On their own, they saw the need to convert the garage/basement area of the church into a youth meeting place like we have upstairs at our church. While we were there this week, they were finishing painting one room and gutting and painting another room. One side will be for games and things, the other for meetings and movies. Pray for the youth as they attempt to reach their community as well. If the church has nothing to offer, the youth in the area "hang out" in a parking lot near McDonalds or end up in the dance club in town. These teens have a burden to reach other teens in Kaposvar. Brett has the remaining "team money" from our trip. He was staying on another week and is going to see what he can help purchase for their room that will help with this ministry. I'm excited to find out what they decided upon.

After camp, we were invited to a cook out at church member's home in Kaposvar. Anoka and Elizabeth were the ladies, but I can't remember Anoka’s husband's name. This was literally a mountain top experience since their house was on a small hillside outside the city. When we walked into the backyard, we had a beautiful view of the city. The sun was just starting to go down and by the time dinner was done, the half moon and the stars were out. You just couldn't help but sing. Again, we sang in English and they in Hungarian. It was beautiful. I think we sang How Great Thou Art. When we finished, it was silent as each person reflected on how great God is. I sat there wondering again, will we all speak one language in heaven, perhaps a special language? Or will we all speak our own language but understand each other anyway? Between Abby and I, we were able to communicate quite well with the Hungarians. I knew enough nouns and she knew enough verbs that we could put them together and make simple sentences. I almost hope we keep all the languages God created. They are so beautiful. Hungarian is difficult but it is so beautiful to listen to.

We finally had to say good-bye and get home. They had work in the morning and we had camp, yet it was 11:00pm before we left, and no one wanted to say good-bye. All the way down the mountain we sang songs. Our favorite on the drive was It is Well. Tina, Tracy and I had learned the chorus in Hungarian before we left. What a joy to sing with Imre and Babi!

Well, this email is too long already so I guess you will get Friday's installment later...this is the best one!