to the czech and back in a day and a half........

so apparently this is something we have picked up since being here calling the czech just that "the czech". not the czech republic as was pointed out to us. i guess we are on a first name basis. so after almost 1000km of driving, 2 baseball games, sleeping on a gym floor with 27 kids (needless to say not much sleep) and a tour of a castle we are back home.

we were invited up by the czech coaches to play their kids and teens teams at a town just outside of Ceske Budejovice, it was a interesting couple games to say the least. in this town they have 2 full time baseball coaches and a facility to rival anything. Compared to us with players who had never seen a baseball before this year and our field well not quite as perfect. we won't say anything about the 2 canadian coaches who are far from

full time. so we were in charge of the kids team and our team mate terry took the teen games. and altogether i guess we played not so bad. considering our kids have only played one other team all season, it was a good experience for the kids and a good challenge to play the czech guys.

between the games we had the chance to visit the local castle which was a big plus. actually the fields were right below the castle so it was quite funny to look down from the castle down onto the sports complex, complete with golf course. not exactly what was in the original plans of the castle i'm guessing. we spent the night sleeping in a gym and of course it took till 1am to get the kids to quiet down but i guess that's to be expected and it made for a much quieter drive home. i was assigned to be the driver for the girls van, 8 girls in a van makes for some seriously loud giggling on the journey there, but home was a whole different story with the girls catching up on the lost sleep, no complaining here. but yes it was a good trip, sometimes felt a little like babysitting but it seemed like the kids had a good time so that's what it was about. many of the kids was there first trip to austria/czech so it was very exciting for them to be out of hungary, some of the kids picking every object up and saying wow a czech leaf, or a czech ball. funny to watch them.

second time around in kiskunhalas

last summer we travelled to this southern Hungarian city to put on a 2 week English camp in the local reformed high school. this year since our summer was already committed to other places, we instead were invited to come into their regular English classes and be guest teachers. very apprehensively we approached this task since none of us are trained as teachers and all we had to offer were some activities and being native speakers. this happened to be exactly what they wanted and the week turned out surprisingly well. at least we thought so, hopefully them as well! we taught in the grades 9-12, and were quite surprised at their level of English knowledge. most of them being in an English intensive program, we taught in about 3-4 classes a day. and we taught each class a little about Canada too as we did a presentation in each new class we were in. we also used many speaking exercises and songs to bring along their English. on going we really didn't know what to expect and had a tough time seeing where we would have chances to share muc more than English with the kids, but we realized at the end of week that we had tons of great talks. monday and wednesday we were involved in their evening bible studies and on friday we were given a class block to do skits and share testimonies. so we saw once again how God works in ways that we are not prepared or expect to happen! many kids we saw last year we again talked to and we were also able to talk lots with the teachers. with one teacher telling us how she didn't really enjoy reading the mandatory morning bible verse in class as she "wasn't really religious" as she put it. but then at the end of the week she told us how she was really thinking through the stuff she had been hearing and that it made a lot of sense to her.

as we shared our canada presentation we would always mention how young canada is...only 140 (1867), and how my parents church built in 1950's has historic landmark plates on it and how there are many buildings in hungary older than our country! and one class spoke up and told us there school building was built in 1890 so not much older/younger than canada and the school was founded in the 1600s. one class we taught in was even in the historic library with the picutres of the school founders looking on, a grand piano in the corner and many books older than well too old for me to explain. we originally had a game planned called a "running dictation" which as the title suggests included running but we felt a little apprehensive about that and decided to calm it down a little, "a strolling dictation" when we taught in that class room.

we got home late friday night and saturday night we headed out to our team mates church plant to help them with their english club. we did our canada presentation one last time (sixth time that week) and sharing some good old maple syrup, and explaining about a little place that has too many doughnuts to count. sunday we were in ercsi for the first church service. and even did a skit to boot. yes we are "pantomime extraordinaires" as our team mates put it. we put it more like we learnt two skits and now are called on to perform all over the place. oh ya and i (kyle) sang on the worship team (in hungarian). ya ok strange and funny to say the least but you never know just what you may do here! thankfully and by coincidence our mic cut out after the first song, maybe it's a sign from God. He's saying you can do the skit all you want, at least then your mouth is shut, but sing, come on that's where i draw the line, zap!

we had about 25 people come out so we were thankful for that. and yes it may not be your typical service, or far from how any of us may think a service may run. (ask us in a couple months all the details when we can tell you in person) but honestly it went well, to some one who may walk out of a north american church service and into this one may think it is total chaos, but hey that's just how things run at times! but amidst it all we know God is moving and especially see it in the lives of Miklos and Eva who we can see just light up whenever God is shared with them. and of course all the kids were out, which may have a little to do with the chaos but again when they all walk close to an hour to get to the church service it shows they desire to be there! so there you go hopefully a little taste of our last weeks, sorry it took a while to update, but im sure you can all appriciate our busy-ness and forgive us.

this weekend we head to czech republic with our kids and teenage boys baseball teams for friday and saturday for a couple of games. so that should be a good time away with them all, the last event of the year with them all and a weekend away is always fun for the kids, especially for the kids who haven't played a game in months.

off to the bazaar tomorrow!!!

just a couple things before we head out for outreach tomorrow. today we went to ercsi for the new Saturday kids program along with our team mates carlos, rita and niki. we meet at the house that was built for miklos and eva, notice the nice new tiles and green walls. Above is a little clip from the day, a hungarian version of "this little light of mine", the kids of course loving to yell "nem" (no) we had around 20 kids, sang with them memorized, John 3:16, made salvation bracelets (with the 5 colours) and fed them. it's always a joy to be in ersci but also quite difficult with the surroundings and just the conditions the kids are in. please continue to pray for ersci and the programs there. next sunday will be the first "church" meeting which will happen twice monthly at the community house. please also pray for miklos and eva as they continue to be in very difficult times dealing with jealousy, others being jealous of their new place and causing many problems.

in other news our new prayer/ministry letter is hot of the press and here for you to see,

click here, and follow the links. it will also be coming in the mail for those of you who receive it.

so in the past we have asked you to name that sign, while us knowing the sign wondering what your creative minds can come up with, well today we actually need your help, what on earth is this sign telling us? ok obviously the Popsicle and alcohol makes sense fair enough, although you would hardly ever see a Hungarian eating a Popsicle (ice cream is the treat) and well somebody obviously sees no problem with drinking on the bus but whats with whatever is in the middle? what are those? please help, we are confused!

so another week is suddenly done and we find ourselves with only a couple months until we are home, and if you want to know what our plans are for when we get home well, (not that we are counting down)..... let me direct you to this sign, maybe it will answer your questions, and maybe it won't... all i know is i get confused every time i look at it and in the end well all roads lead to.....well other roads. so enough said. alright so life here, well the last week was spent starting up English club again in Ofalu, meeting with good old Olga and also with our friday class, daughter and mother so it was good getting those groups going again. we are also preping to head out for our last OVM outreach, next sunday we will leave for kiskunhalas a city we were in last year for a english camp, the only difference is this year we will go into their class rooms to teach english, yikes! we made them know and realize none of us are trained english teachers so most of what we will do will be more activities based and not so much teaching based. but it should be a good week being in the local high school and hopefully doing more than just teaching english! the other exciting thing is that the ersci church will be starting in the next weeks! Carlos and Rita our brazilian team mates who we have worked alot with in Ofalu and Ercsi are planning to start meetings in the local community hall. We will be helping them with this and also every Saturday we plan to do a kids program, possibly in Mikos and Eva's house/yard, this is the house that was built this last year. It's really exciting to see progression happening in Ercsi and we have many families who have showed interest and have been asking us when we will begin meetings, it is our prayer that as we begin these meetings that the message of Christ would be clearly spoken to the people, that he would move in the hearts of those in ersci and many would come into relationship with him, we are excited to see how God will work in the next coming months. please pray for these coming months, for the ercsi church that both hungarians and gypsies would attend, (which is usually un common). maybe your wondering what does the car photo have to do with anything, well nothing i just like the picture so thats why it's there.

what to write....nothing too exciting has been happening around here this last week. we are just getting back into life and ministry here in Erd, which is nice after being away for most of the summer. although we have been a little disappointed when the Ofalu centre got broken into twice in the last couple weeks....they managed to steal the last computer that was hiding in the attic the first time....and now there is officially nothing of value to steal in there. but whoever it was decided that twice would be nice...we think they are just trying to discourage us. but we will continue to use that house as long as we can!

we have started up the clothing bazaar again and English club too. we are getting some good exercise lately too because we have to bike there and back which is about 10kms round trip...so 3 times a week is pretty good! anyways, today we met with Olga for the first time since the beginning of summer. she is her chipper self with many thoughts flowing out of her and arguments that could last us a lifetime. but today was hard for me (lynnette)....for some reason my Hungarian was not working and i was feeling so frustrated with myself. i really wanted to give her the answers to all her questions that were floating around in my head in english....its just that when they come out in hungarian....well they aren't as good. so i kept telling her that it was an off day for me, but she continued to talk and talk. so i just pulled out my hungarian bible and started reading some verses to her....at least she could understand me then! and then she stopped me and reminded me of the verse that i taught her in english the last time we met.....she proceeded to say the whole thing off by heart too. it was this verse:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." Epesians 2:8

i was very encouraged that she actually remembered it and hoped that God some how can use that verse to remind her that she can be saved through grace and have an assurance of salvation in Christ. then we moved on to the "english" part...i was going to teach her some names of foods today, but she stopped me and told me that she wanted to learn another verse from the bible in english....so that's what we did! although its so hard meeting and talking with her...i know that God has a plan and purpose for all our times together even though we only understand each other half the time....and kyle is looking up words in the dictionary for me the whole time! but at the end of the class i asked her for some advice on how to cook this one hungarian specialty....and oh did her eyes light up when she had the chance to share some of her culture with me. it was funny...i will be sure to come up with some more cooking questions for her next week too!