Home

I've made it home, safe and sound! One of the greatest things I've heard in a really long time was the first thing over the PA system in Dulles airport, "Dear US citizens, welcome home to the United States of America". It was so great and refreshing to hear, especially after my super long and painful airplane ride.

But I'm currently at my dad's house and loving the freedom. I've finished my school assignments and all of my school stuff, so my brain is shutting down for the next two weeks. I got to decorate everything for Christmas today and it's brought so much happiness for me. Nothing gets me excited more than a winterwonderland of christmas decorations. (And it's pretty gorgeous, if I do say so myself).

I'm looking forward to all of my time in America: relaxing, spending time with family and friends, and the occasional bad-for-me snack (I'm trying to be good with my diet). If I get to see you, I'm excited.. if I can't, then it'll happen in the summer, I hope!

Merry Christmas!! (if I don't get to write again before then)

Desire and Patience

God has been teaching me a lot about desire lately, but mostly about the patience that comes with those desires. There are so many things that I want out of life, so many things that I want to know that I just haven't figured out yet. Yet, God still tells me to be patient and wait. I was in a particular state of craziness yesterday about all these desires. They all hit at once and I kept asking God, "When will I know X?" or "When will I figure out Y?" It was frustrating. BUT, God was faithful like always. Literally at the half way mark of my run, my ipod died. Coincidence? I think not. I used that time that I had running home to lay it all out on the table for God and just say "God, I have no idea- you do this".

The best part about this run (and I love when God does this in general) is that He really slapped me in the face with some Scripture. I had been reading and attempting to memorize four verses on waiting and patience over the past week or so and God finally just hit me with them and was like, "You've been reading and reading these...now here...embrace them." It was the encouragement I need. Not to say that I'm not still struggling with relinquishing control and I'm still a rather impatient person, but I'm working hard at keeping these Scriptures close to mind.

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry" -Psalm 40:1
"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are those who wait for him!" -Isaiah 30:18
"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope" -Psalm 130:5
"Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord" -Psalm 27:14 (My favorite out of all of them)


ALSO- I go home for Christmas in FOUR days!!!!

Less Drug Induced This Time...

So Thanksgiving was last week and I wanted to recap for you, but with less over the counter medication blazing through my veins. Thanksgiving was awesome. I got to spend it with a bunch of Americans who brought a traditional American dish. They went all out too and even used stuff they brought from the States. We even got to stream the Macy's Day Parade and the football game. It was quite the epic and delicious day, I must say.

2 WEEKS UNTIL I'M HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!!!

I can't convey how excited I am. It's going to be busy and crazy and I'll probably be tired as all get out, but I am so so so so so excited to see family and friends and just be refreshed from time in American... as short as that time is. I hope that I get to talk and see everyone while I'm home. If not, please forgive me ahead of time.

Mostly, this post is just for me to tell you guys how good God is. I've been going through a REALLY rough time the past few months, but I have to say that I have never grown so much spiritually in my entire life. God has been there through every single step of the way and I am so thankful. Even those days when the last thing I want to be is thankful for the trials in my life. But, I've also been learning what it means to be joyful. Sure, I've been happy for the majority of my life, but I'm really exploring and discovering what it means to have the joy of Christ in my heart even on the crappiest days. Knowing that no matter what is thrown at me, I have the God of all creation on my side and defending me, loving me, and protecting me through it all. It actually brings tears to my eyes thinking about.

Our God is so big and so good and I think that I forget that most of the time. Sure, when people ask me about God I can say, "He's awesome" or "He's the best ever" but I never really sit to reflect on the depth of that. God really IS awesome and he really IS the best ever. Yet, I take it for granted so much. It's no wonder that I'm going through such times. God has been patiently waiting for me to make these discoveries for the past 23 years and I never really grasped the depth of it. Only now, in the most difficult times of my life, are my eyes really open to my amazing, loving, everlasting God. God is teaching me what it means to love, to be loved, to be broken, and a new definition of grace. He's done this by completely wiping away everything I thought I knew and teaching me from scratch. It's hard, yes, but this is something that I believe every Christian should pray for in their life. I've never been so intimate with God and I wouldn't change it for the world... literally.

Thankssssssssss

So, I realize that I'm jumping the gun on the Thanksgiving thing, but tomorrow is going to be nut-so, so I wanted to make sure it got done. (I mean... I've been jumping the gun on holiday stuff in general, anyway. I can't list all the Christmas cds that I've already listened to)

1. My family. As crazy as they may be, they always support me and are always there for me.
2. My friends that love me even though I whine and complain and completely embarrass them on a pretty regular basis: namely, Janie (woo, Janet!), Joanna (would NOT survive Hungary without her), and Tiffany (I love our dailies. We should keep that up)
3. My church family. They are amazingggggg. Seriously.
4. Medicine. Which I'm currently loaded on. I'm sick and have been consuming medicine like it's candy. Probably not healthy.
5. Nsync.
6. Christmas.
7. Puppies.
8. Being able to live in Europe.
9. America
10. American troops. Even though I will never get to thank even 1% of them personally, I will never be able to express my gratitude
11. Food
12. Shoes
13. Chocolate
14. Cars
15. The fact that I am blessed every single day no matter how difficult my life seems to be.

I'm so thankful for a God that cares for me and loves me more than I will ever be able to fathom.

I'm really sorry about this post. Like previously mentioned, I'm very out of it with all the medication in my system, but for whatever reason I had to post right NOW. I'll probably read this later with a bit of embarrassment.

CEOOGPFME/New door

CEOOGPFME- CEO Occassional Gathering of Partners and Friends for Mutual Edification.

This weekend we had a retreat with all of the partners of CEO. We got together for a weekend of prayer, worship, edification, and LOTS of fellowship. It was amazing and SO needed. I can't begin to tell you about how many amazing people we have in our company and just how fantastic it is to just hang out, gain wisdom, and be covered in prayer over and over again. It's equally amazing to be able to share wisdom, what God is doing in your life, as well as cover others in prayer. Corporate worship in English was AMAZING and something that I had truly missed. To be in a room with other believers and sing as loud (or because I lost my voice...whisper) as I want was so refreshing. I was so encouraged from this weekend.

As we speak, I have two men literally shattering my old doorframe to make room for my new door. After I was robbed, it nearly happened again, so I put extra pressure on my school to get me a new door and to get one quickly. So, I'm pleased to say that it it actually happening...as loudly as can be, I might add. My new door has a steal core and rumor has it that robbers just look at this door and walk away because they know there is no chance. I pray that this is one rumor that holds true. I'm very, very, very excited. Prayers have been answered! I'll try to get a picture of it up when it's all said and done.

I'm back!

Oh, gosh. Guys, I'm so sorry that I haven't been posting. I was robbed (as most of you know already) and then I couldn't remember any of my information to log in for my blog, but I finally figured it out! Woo! So, this post is going to be a brief and super rough recap of my life for the past few months.

1. I was robbed. $5,000 of stuff taken. They broke into my flat while I was at school and I came home to my flat torn apart with my laptop, SLR camera, over 100 DVDs, external hard drive, ipod, and all of my jewelry gone. :( Nothing's been recovered and it's hard to still come home some days and feel safe. BUT I know that God has me here for a purpose.

2. Speaking of being here for a purpose...I got to witness to one of my classes for oer 20 minutes at the end of last week. Oh gosh, it was so amazing. And scary. When there are 12 teenagers staring at you and hanging on your every word, it's a little unnerving. They were asking hard questions too. "Why do people suffer?" "If you say that God love everyone, why does bad stuff happen?" I tried to answer to the best of my ability, but I let them know that I wasn't a scholar and that some of my answers were possibly wrong, but it was just what I felt. When the bell rang, none of them moved. They were all so interested. Some even stayed after class to ask questions and keep talking. Definitely an answer to my question that has been running through my mind for a week or two, "God, why AM i here?"

3. Went to Spain for a week! I got some super cheap tickets and headed there for a week with two American friends for our fall break. It was fantastic. It was sort of a whirlwind tour, but I loved it. We got to see both Barcelona and Madrid. I think I'm a fan of Barcelona a bit more, but Madrid was super awesome too. La Sagrada Familia is so awesome. If you don't know what it is...look it up- it's well worth it.

4. God is working in my life- big time. I've NEVER been so spiritually stretched or challenged in my entire life. Honestly. I'm learning something new everyday. God is breaking me everyday. I've been broken before, but never in such a big way and so often. It's really humbling. But even through this, God is carrying me and giving me the strength to sustain me day by day. He's even molding and changing my concept of what being broken means. What grace means. What loves means. It's honestly the most awesome thing ever, but honestly and truly SO hard. There are days when I just want to cry. There are days when all I do is cry. But if this is what it takes to be more godly and for God to bring me closer to him- bring it on.

I love you all. For all of the people that support me and pray for me- thank you. You are a bigbigbigbig part of this journey and I'm pretty sure that your prayers are the only reasons I make it through some days.

I'm back in the blogging game! I promise that I'll be more on top of it now (and save my log in information!)

Countdown

So in 3 weeks and 2 days I'll be home!!! I can't wait.

Right now, though, there are a few things that I need everyone to be praying for me in the meantime.

1. I REALLY need a car for the summer. I've been looking up rental prices for a vehicle for the summer and it's near $2,000!!! And that's not even including gas!!! I know that some people can't give necessarily give money, but pray that there is someone that might be willing to support a missionary by lending their car for the summer.
2. That I would be able to get everything done over here in time. Time is coming to a close...fast. And I have a LOT to do. In the next 3 weeks (in which I'm traveling every weekend) I have to finish up with school and the exams, move into my new apartment, introduce and interact with the high school missions team that's coming over, and say goodbye to everyone.
3. That I would be able to balance my life at home well and not stress too much. I already have come to the realization that I'm not going to be able to see everyone that I want to see, but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. There's so much to do in such little time and I tend to be an overachiever. So, please pray that God will give me the ability to prioritize and to not stress over it all.

Those are the most important ones for right now- so please keep those in your prayers for the next 3 weeks!!

Class Trip

Yikes. Over a month since I blogged.

Well, this past weekend I went on a trip to a city in the north of Hungary with the class that I'm assistant form teacher to. It was fun, but anything except for restful. We stayed in a cabin and just hung out around the campsite and visited the zoo and stuff during the day. It was pretty low key. There was quite a bit of drama and a few hiccups, but that's to be expected when you have 21 high schoolers in a contained area.

It was a great time for me to get to relax and connect with all of my students outside of the classroom. I do that quite a bit with certain students, but there are a few that I'd really like to get to know more. I'm also super thankful for the time that I got to spend with one of my colleagues, Erika. She's an incredible woman who has helped me through so much this past year... I probably wouldn't have survived without her.

All-in-all it was a great trip, but it's definitely going to take me a while to recover from it. There are 3 weeks and 1 day left of school and I have to say that I'm rather pumped about my up and coming trip back to the States!

Parental Unit Visitation

This past week my dad and his wife, Pam came to visit and they leave tomorrow. It's been a blast so far and I'm going to be very sad to see them leave. Two days before they got here I was hit (HARD) with some sort of flu thing and had a temperature hovering around 100-101 for 2 days (the highest was 101.9). So, I was really scared that I was going to be stuck in bed for most of their visit which would have been a huge bummer all around. Through a lot of prayer, though, I recovered and was only lagging the first full day they were here.

We got to spend time seeing the sites (we spent 5 days sight-seeing and still didn't get even close to all of it) and just had a lot of fun hanging out. Tonight I cooked dinner for everyone and 3 of my students came over to join. My dad had a lot of fun interrogating them, essentially. It was so nice to be able to catch up with people from back home and just spend some quality time with them. I also loved being able to show people from America my new home and showing them what I get to experience everyday.

Now that my dad has spent almost a week here, he's also told me that he's much more comfortable with me being here. Budapest is a lot nicer than what he thought it would be, I suppose. I head off to Amsterdam tomorrow as they head back to America. I'm spending the rest of my break with my friend Esther (the Dutch girl who used to live here) and I'm beyond excited to see her again! I'll make sure to try to post a few pictures of Dad and Pam's visit when I finally get the pictures uploaded.

Child-like Faith

I love the little reminders that God gives us throughout our lives through the simplest things.

I was sitting on the tram today watching this little girl with her grandparents (who absolutely adored her, of course). This little girl was sitting on her grandmother's lap looking out of the window with so much amusement and awe. It was like she was discovering the world for the first time. She couldn't really talk, so she was squealing with delight at every new sight that came into view.

It reminded me how Jesus called us to have the faith of a child. To sit there in awe of his creation and of Him. That child had no cares in the world other than what was happening right at that moment and she was relishing in the love of her grandparents. She had no worries about what tomorrow holds or even if she was going to be safe. She completely and utterly trusted nanny and papa to protect her.

I pray for that sort of faith. That I would have no cares or concerns and that I would just be able to sit in awe and complete trust every single day.

PS: My dad comes in less than 2 weeks!!!

typeTAP video

Check out what Tiff did!!!

typeTAP

My ah-mazing friend, Tiffany, has guided me to this project that is going on called typeTAP that is trying to bring clean water to people around the world. Tiffany and 3 other people created this ridiculously ambitious goal to raise $10,000 in one day in order to help others. On March 22 (3 days) an organization called The Adventure Project is using the blogs of 100 different people in order to make this goal know. I'm blogging about it a little bit early because I know that people don't read my blog that often. So- I'm doing my part and asking four of my readers to go to the adventure project site and donate at least $20 in order to help those in need.

In my Bible study recently, I've been learning about loving to those who you don't even know. Paul was a great example of this. Paul was constantly praying for and acting on the behalf of those who he never met and probably never would. My friend Tiffany is a great picture of this. I ask you to truly consider donating to this amazing goal on March 22nd. We're all very excited about it. :)


PLEASE DONATE AT:

www.theadventureproject.causevox.com

(I'm sorry if the link is not working, I'm having some trouble with it in my blog, but you can just copy and paste if nothing else)

The Motherland!

This past week on the 15th was a national holiday for Hungary to celebrate their '56 revolution. So- lucky for me I got a 4 day weekend!!! Where did I go? Sweden!!! I say it's the Motherland because my friend Nicki's (who I travelled with) great-grandparents came from. It was absolutely fantastic and so relaxing. The best part of all was the fact that there were no plans- it was a "wing-it" type of trip which was exactly what I needed. We walked around the city, shopped, visited second-hand stores and the like. (The picture is one of the streets that we got to go shopping on- a pretty popular tourist area, I believe)

We even took a day trip to Norway which I will never do again- it was the most expensive place I've ever been. It was approximately $5 just for a Sprite!!!! The trip to and from was quite beautiful though. Nicki high-jacked my camera and proceeded to take about 100 pictures of the same place. BUT I was superrrr excited because on the way back on the bus I saw a legitimate Norwegian moose on the side of the road! I know most wouldn't find that exciting, but I was quite enthralled. (This is NOT one of the pictures that Nicki took- all of hers were at sunset and therefore slightly blurry. This was on the way in to Norway- the city looked like it was floating because of all of the frozen water)

We met some AMAZING people too. We were both very sad to part at the end of our journey, but I know that we'll see them again soon. :) (These are two of the most amazing people in Sweden; Ivar on the left and Jonas on the right. Ivar is studying to be a clown and Jonas is studying magic... it's pretty awesome. They gave us a magic show before we left just so we'd leave laughing- it was great!)

Women's Retreat

I know this post is...oh...two weeks late, but in my defense, my computer has been in the shop! But I can't express what a great time we all had together "shippin" as Petra called it. We just spent the entire weekend hanging out, spending time together, reading magazines, and laughing a ton. It was all of the women from CEO (plus Laura) for the weekend at our house. We were supposed to go to a little town call Pec, but that wasn't going to work out since my roomie's poor ankle wasn't healed yet.

It was so refreshing to spend the weekend with all of these godly women who are willing to share all of their experience and just have a good time with you. It's also fantastic to have so many women who are willing to play with your hair :) I'm at a different stage of life than most of them (most of them have been married for several years with kids), but I never once felt excluded because of that. We all had such a great sense of unity. This is a picture of all of us when we ventured out to a restaurant (which did NOT help Joanna and I'd diet...). From the left it goes: Petra, me, Laura, Joanna, Keri, Jo, Lea.

Biggest Loser Budapest

So my roommate, her fiance, and I have become recently addicted to the show the Biggest Loser. Joanna and I especially get really emotional every week when we watch it... Will makes fun of us, but we know he's getting chocked up too. Every time we'd watch this show we'd sit around and talk about how we need to eat better and lose more weight. So, one day I was doing dishes and I decided that we should have our own Biggest Loser challenge.

We do our "weigh in" once a week on Monday's to measure weight and check our measurements. We're doing it for 15 weeks, so we're doing a tally. We each put $50 in the pot and decided that for every pound that you gain you owe an extra dollar. That way we have an incentive to not gain the weight back. The first week was great, of course, because I lost 2 kilos (4.4 pounds) but then this week I gained 3 of those pound back. (I blame the women's retreat and all of the delicious temptations that they put in front of us!...which shall be my next post)

It's a great motivator for sure and I'm really excited to get into shape and lose the weight the right way. I just have to push myself really hard so I don't lose that $50. :(

WOW!!!

I don't have much time to blog right now considering it's way past my bedtime and I have my super long day tomorrow, but I just HAD to blog to let you know something amazing. God is good. I've known this all along, but sometimes God just does a sneak attack and drops this huge bomb on our lives to remind us. My bomb happened today.

I Skyped with some really good friends of mine that I haven't talked to in a while. They knew I had been praying about whether I should come back for another year or not, but never knew my final decision. So, they asked if I had my decision yet and I told them that I decided that God wanted me to stay here for another year and continue to ministry that I had built. She replied, "Good, because I'm not sure what else we'd do with the $7,000 that we decided to donate". Yes, you read right. There were 3 zeros after that 7. I was eating an apple slice as she said that and I literally chocked. I was speechless. I told her that I needed a minute to let that sink in. It's been over an hour now and it still hasn't, really.

They told me that they had been incredibly blessed recently and they wanted to share that blessing. They had also been convicted because recently they've heard so many stories about all these missionaries that have had to take a year off from the work that God has called them to in order to go home and raise money. They prayed and decided that they didn't want me to ever be in that position. God is so good. I can't stop saying it. God laid it on their heart to give that money to be me BEFORE they even knew I was coming back. I JUST started praying about my finances for the next year and God has already take care of half of it before this year is even out. WOW!!!!

I have tons more that i have to blog and catch up, but that will have to be later this week. I just HAD to write about this and share my story of reassurance of God's grace and provision.

Answered Prayers

It's amazing to me how fast God answers prayers sometimes. Just last night I was doing my bible study on Colossians and read the verse "Conduct yourselves with wisdom towards outsiders, making the most of the opportunities." (4:5) and that was my prayer. I had been struggling with my fear of witnessing lately and last night I focused the most on that. I wanted to be a witness for my students and not be scared to share.

So today, I had TWO girls (in two different class periods) have emotional breakdowns and they came to me for comfort. I prayed the whole time I was with them and to be honest, I was silent most of the time and just let them do the talking. I gave one of the girls the option of staying out in the hallway for a few more minutes to get herself together and said she could sit by herself or I could say with her. Now, you have to understand that I thought this girl wasn't really a fan of me, so I was utterly shocked when she looked at me and said "I'd like you to stay with me, please". One of the other girls, I was able to give her the verse 1 Corinthians 10:13 which says:

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

It was absolutely awesome to be there for those girls today. I didn't exactly get to "witness" but I pray that my actions and my willingness to listen will open doors in the future. It also made me pretty sure about what I'd like to get my masters in now- school counseling. It was between that and school administration and I just feel that my heart is closer to the counseling side and will help me more in situations like this to come.

Busy Weekend

This weekend was super busy, but extremely fulfilling. On Saturday, I went bowling with 7 of my students and we had a blast. Some of them are really competitive, so it was great to get to watch them interact with one another. It was also a lot of fun to watch Marci (an EXTREMELY competitive guy in my class) get beat by Kristi (an extremely reserved girl) who has only been bowling one other time in her life.

I also got to go to dinner with some of my 12th grade girls all the way in Szendentre. One of the girls lives out there (it's about 30 minutes by railway) so we went to meet her and had drinks and shared a really good time. They asked me to go to coffeehouse with them this weekend, so I'm looking forward to spending more time with them then too. They really are a GREAT group of girls and I absolutely love spending time with them.

Sunday night was a birthday party for my roommate, Jo, and another girl from our Bible study, Hope. We went to an extremely popular restaurant and had a great time there too.

I'm so excited to be here for another year and grow these relationships, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think it has something to do with the full realization hitting me that I'm finally growing up and I have to support myself and be independent now. Yikes! But, that's just something that I'm going to have to work through for now and keep praying about it.

Decision

It's official, people: I have decided to stay in Budapest for another year. :-) YAY BUDAPEST!

I know that some people are not exactly enthralled with this decision (i.e. my father who misses me like whoa), but I'm definitely at peace with this choice. I will get to spend 2 months in the States this summer from mid-June to mid-August when I get to hang out with everyone and catch up with them before heading back. I'm really looking forward to making my rounds and visiting people though... not to mention loading up on a ton of American goodies to bring back with me. I'm already praying for all of my needs for next year; finances, more CEO partners, furnishings for my new flat, etc. So I'd ask that you'd start praying with me because there can never be too many prayers.

I miss everyone and can NOT wait until I get to see everyone's lovely faces in good ole' USofA. YAY AMERICA!

It's a Cold One

This winter has been brutal, I must say. The past three days have been a HUGE (and I really mean HUGE) blessing from God because we have had sunshine for 3 days now. I know this may not seem like a big deal, but we literally haven't had a weeks worth of sun since Thanksgiving time. It was also glorious because it was also the first time since December that I've been able to wear anything except a parka. The temperatures have gotten up to a steamy 40s and we're loving it.

Unfortunately, the temperatures are expected to drop again this week and at some point, the sunshine shall disappear again soon. Luckily, we only have a little over a month more to endure before spring finally rolls into Budapest. The reason for this post though is to call attention to the post that has been added to my company's website. Bills have been higher than ever due to heating and everything, making it a pretty expensive winter. A Hungarian pastor that is with our company here had a heating bill for his family of over $300!!! That's really tough on a pastor's budget.

So, this blog isn't really for us. Our budgets are a little tighter because of bills, but I really wanted to draw attention to this moreso for the other families and partners that are suffering. Please prayerfully consider this. I know that budgets are tight all around, so if you're not able to actually donate, please pray that God will provide the funds needed for these families/partners. Thank you!!!

http://www.ceokids.org/funding-needs-in-winter-of-2011/

Chocolate Fast = Death

So I've decided to go on a fast from chocolate for the entire month of February and it's only 5 days. Surprisingly, it's going better than I thought, but I'm still craving it still. I decided that it would be best for me for several reasons:

1. I need to practice some self- discipline
2. I need to lose some weight dang it... I'm not playing year-round sports like I used to
3. I think I may have a literal addiction to that stuff.

So because of all of this, I've decided that it might be the best idea to say goodbye to chocolate for a while. I'm saying at LEAST for February, but I'm going to see if I can hold out longer than that and break the addiction altogether. Wish me luck.

Goodbye my dear, sweet friends:

Eventful Weekend

Well my weekend went something like this:

Friday- Movie night with my students
Saturday- Babysit in replacement of my roommate who breaks ankle while babysitting
Sunday- Visit said roommate in hospital

It was an absolutely crazy and pretty much non-stop weekend. Friday night was fantastic. I had about 6 students over for a movie night. I baked them brownies and apple pie while we watched Date Night. They had never seen it before and they seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. It was a great time to have them over and bond with them even more. I'm even making some progress with some students that I though didn't like me too much at the beginning of the year. Turns out that they just take a while to warm up to someone new. :)

Saturday was crazy. My house was left looking like a fraternity had torn through here because there were plates and glasses as well as food remnants everywhere left over. Well, while I was eating breakfast and even before I had the chance to clean up, I got a call from my roommate who was laying in the snow at a park saying that she had broken her ankle. The ambulance and her fiance were both on the way, but she needed me to take a taxi over there ASAP in order to cover for her while she went to the hospital.

Turns out, she has a severely fractured ankle and they had to do surgery in order to repair it. They had to put a metal plate and some screws in there in order to strengthen it again. She's going to be in the hospital for a few more days in order to recover, but she'll be stuck at home for about 5-6 weeks. BUMMER! She was supposed to start teaching at the University again this week, but has to find some sort of replacement since she can't cancel that many classes. I visited her yesterday and gave her some company for a little less than 2 hours. She's in a lot of pain, but she's a tough gal. She said that God is already healing her ankle and it already felt astronomically better before they even did the surgery. So, we're all obviously still praying for a ridiculously quick recovery. I can't wait for her to get home since she's been gone to various places for almost 2 weeks. SO, please be praying that everything heals correctly and quickly, but also pray that something works out for her classes. It's a huge stress factor for her and we're all looking for some possible options in order to help her out.

Prom

My students had their version of Prom this past weekend and it was so much fun to attend. They don't have anything like in America, their dances are more like performances. They actually have choreographed waltzes that they do as a class, then a dance that they make up on their own for fun, then a dance with their parents. All of the girls wear wedding dresses and the boys wear tuxedos. The main point of the event is for the 13th graders to recieve a ribbon from the school that is a sign of their up-and-coming graduation. It's to encourage them to keep going and finish strong.

A lot of the Hungarian teachers felt indifferent to the event because they've been through so many of them and the think it's a little pointless, but I really enjoyed it. First, it really made me realize the differences in culture. This is a REALLY big deal to the students here and much more classy than prom. Second, even though it wasn't any of my students getting the ribbons, it still made me proud to be a part of that. If I stay next year, I will be the one up on stage pinning the ribbons on my class that I am the assistant head-teacher for.

Coming back is something that I am continuously praying about since it's such a big decision. I have to make my decision in March and that's only a short time away. There is so much to offer in both places and I know that there isn't any right or wrong answer, but I want to make sure that I'm in the place that God is going to use me the most. Keep praying for me!

Coffeehouse

I took two of my student girls to Coffeehouse last night and it was fantastic. It's in a basement of a church and it's open every Friday night for a few hours where you can just hang out while they play music (either live or from a playlist). It was supposed to be 4 of my students, but one got sick and the other one had a transportation conflict, so it ended up just being 3 of us, but it was so much fun. We just sat around and talked for about 3 hours and hung out together.

I'm really excited that I get these chances to keep bonding with these girls. They said that they'd like to come back more often, so I'm looking forward to those times too :)

Connections Galore

I know it's been a while, but I've been busy running all over the place here in the big city. BUT it's been so beneficial because I've been making so many connections and really building my relationships.

First, I'm going to attend an exercise class with a few of my girl students twice a week and I'm really excited about it! It's called Kangoo Jumping and it's basically a dance class where you wear these crazy space- agey looking shoes and jump around to some great, upbeat music. They've also invited me out with them for hot chocolate and just some general hang out time. I have to say that I'm incredibly blessed because it means that my invested time and many, many prayers have started to bear fruit. :)



I also met a guy last night that might possibly start joining the Bible study that I attend every Tuesday. I was meeting with my friend, Nicki, before the Bible study at our little slice of American-heaven...Starbucks. Well, she asked me a question about baseball that one of her students had asked her and we spent a little time discussing it. Then we spent some other time talking about our schools/students, etc. A few minutes later a guy behind me perked up and asked what company we teach with. We started up a conversation with him and then come to find out that he actually went to Lynchburg college which is about 5 miles away from my college, Liberty!! It was crazy. Anyway, we invited him to join our Bible study some time. He said that he goes back and forth in spiritual things, but it interests him nonetheless. So thanks to a loud conversation about baseball being overheard, we might have a new member to our home fellowship group.

I'm really, really excited about these opportunities (among others) that I've been given in order to build relationships and get to know some people through the city.