Well this last week was busy again, not quite as busy as the week before so i promise not as long of run-on sentences. But no guarantees there, so hold your breath. Just think of it as lung capacity exercises ok vicky! We had our regular ministries, Olga on monday, office on tuesday, wednesday clothing bazzar. On Thurday and Friday we had year end team meetings, plus we celebrated American Thanksgiving, our team mates had us all over for the big meal, so good! We had over 35 people packed into there place enjoying all the fixings and a 37 pound turkey (un heard of in Hungary), the ovens are too small! IT was a great time with the team and yes we had stuffing and pumpkin pie (not together).

Friday our english students invited us to their daughters music school for what we understood as the teachers guitar concert. We were ushered into a small class room together with many parents and before we knew it our hosts were gone and we were stuck in the class recitals. Looking around a bit wide eyed after 15 minutes ...of well to say it nicely new guitar students playing their pieces and still no hosts in the room we began to think ourselves in the wrong room. To make a long story short our friends came back and we sat through the rest of the plucking of strings. They treated us to some tea and hungarian sweets afterwards at the local coffee shop.We then headed back to our place... or so we thought, but instead we arrived at their place for the evening english lessons. Apparently our hungarian skills were taking an off day (we were very confused on many parts of the evening and what we had agreed to...all good though!), on the upside i (kyle) found some hockey games on there tv while lynnette taught english. We spent the evening with the family and had a good time, they are from a catholic background so we had some good talks about why missionaries would come here to a "christian" nation.

Saturday and Sunday we also had some wind up things to be at. Saturday we were invited into the city for a re-union of the summer camp we lead with CE. We played some games, i shared a short message, and they had a little send off for us so that was nice to see that group again. today we had the end of the baseball season party @ our team center. We showed the kids a bunch of sports bloopers which is always a hit for the kids, and had some games and slide show from the season. I also had the opportunity to share my testimony with all the kids so it was a great opportunity to share the reason we have come all this way.

This coming week will be spent visiting all sorts of friends all over the place as we begin to say our good-byes. I didn't think it would involve weeks but i guess better this way then running around the last week closing things down. We also have some team meetings and have english on monday and friday.

Coming up we are putting together christmas packages again this year, but this year will be more focused on the kids of ofalu/ercsi. The day before we leave we will be putting on a christmas service in our ofalu center. Or i guess we will be attending and trying to help our team mates with what we can but we really look forward to this time and it will be a great final evening send off i think. Please pray for this as we share the christmas story with all the kids!

here's one the kids from ofalu... you can pray for him, his name is alex. here's a shot of him this last wednesday, we gave him this bike and as you can see he was quite happy!

a different kinda week......
so this last week has been a little up and a little down, here's a little synopsis for you all, monday was spent riding down to ofalu & meeting with olga and then riding back quickly only for lynnettes bike to break thankfully near to home, for some reason the "transmission" has gone out, her legs must be too strong! she can pedal and pedal but go no where, and yes the chain is on! tuesday we went to the office for team meeting but with so many people out of the country it was a short one and then we had tons of stuff to do around the office, our team mates pranesh and heather were expecting a baby this week so on tuesday we picked up their kids from pre-school and helped her grandmother the next day to drop them off and show her how the whole place worked, because on wednesday meghan anandlal was born.....congrats heather, pranesh and family! wednesday we had ofalu bazaar as normal, and it was normal in it's own crazy way. thursday we headed into the office to help organize books for our team bus which was headed to romania, it was freezing cold, our train was late and the walk to the office was long. we tried to get done what we needed to but of course other things come up. so we headed out to the local mall to pick some stuff up for friends, and yes not everything we wanted was there and we needed to get more stuff done, oh well. we got home only to have our computer crash.....ahhh...oh yes and we got an sms from a person we know here saying looking forward to seeing you at the meeting tomorrow, hold on i didn't agree to any meeting tomorrow, plus we have some english students at that same time. apparently it wasn't only the computer that crashed. the train ride home was long, crowded and included a song or two by some one in the next compartment with a wooden flute, and we stopped in the middle of no where and some lady just hoped off the train, literally she had to jump as the train was high off the ground, lynnette, so suprised by it that she yelled out "this isn't a stop" with me saying "Lynnette whats with the yelling plus why in english!" it was funny and strange all at the same time. Friday we headed again to the office, short train ride, cold wind and a long walk, we got done what we needed to then walked down to the local resturant for some hot soup and coffee, it was sooooo good. now we are at home, the computer needed a system reboot, apparently we got a virus or something, so we lost everything that was on it. thankfully all our important stuff was backed up on a external hard drive, but we are happy it didn't cost anything and we are back in buisness. tomorrow is bazaar again in the morning, then into budapest for the afternoon, picking up stuff while we can, and sunday our neighbours kid is being baptised so we are going there and then back here for the after party and some stuffed cabbage. should be a great time of fellowship here. so there you go a little glimsp into our strange week. hopefully next week is a little less un eventfull and a whole lot less stressful, some how i think not! (seeing how we have only 4 weeks left here)

"csak a kispest!"........ the cry of the honved Football Club faithful, our landlord and I headed out for a true hungarian soccer match in budapest this last week, figured i needed to experience a little hungarian sports action, it was a great time, a little cold as you can tell from the picture a little stormy but good. honved is the top team in the country but had a disappointing game tieing the 6th place team but controlled the whole game, so of course that had the fans going a little crazy on their team but made for a good atmosphere.

this week we headed out also for some house visits with families we have got to know during the time, on thursday we headed out to Cégled to spend the day with a family that hosted us for a week during a summer outreach. The bonus was that Kati (our hungarian mother as she refers to herself as) took the opportunity to train lynnette in true hungarian cooking teaching her to make "gulyas leves", (number one soup of hungary), "korozott", my personal favorite, basically a onion, cheese, paprika spread, turro teszta (pasta with cottage cheese and bacon type stuff in it) and "piskota" (a fruit dough dessert) we also visited the church where we served and sat in on their ladies evening, giving a report on our work, they told us about how great a time the community had when we had been there and how many new faces were in church, which was great to hear. we also visited Miklos and Eva in ercsi, who are doing really well, which was also such a great thing to see as they have been having a tough time. since the house dedication they have appeared on the local news and are now "celebrities".

it's snowing now so this next week could be interesting, without a car and relying on our bikes makes snowy conditions a little tricky but then again i've been looking forward to some good snow fall so i can't complain, so let it snow!

some little random facts of what we will miss from here and what we look forward to over there: out of order and incomplete but here you go:

from home:

- mom d's fresh baked cookies & buns

- mom k's tortilla soup

- a dryer for our clothes

- english speaking country

- the smell of the ocean

- donuts

- niko

- waking up on a clear morning and seeing fresh snow on the local mountains

- sidewalks

- my own bed

- waffle maker & rice cooker

- white spot breakfasts!

- carpeted floors

- frosted flakes

- VMB

- walks on the dyke

- a freezer large enough to hold more than a tub of ice cream

-our bikes (ours here constantly gets flat tires and lynnettes pedal some how loosens every ride)

-our roller blades and a place actually smooth enough to ride them

-hockey night in canada

-and of course family and friends

things we will miss from here:

-walks through Budapest

-good and cheap coffee spots

-bath houses

-the history

-being able to actually enjoy the fall (little rain)

-the christmas market

-being able to travel to vienna for the weekend (same distance as going to seattle)

-festivals every week of the summer

-trabants

-team mates and new friends

-our patio and being able to use it for half the year

-public transit system, being 5 minute walk from train station

-langos

-my BBQ

-our neighbours

-not our neighbours dog (mono)

-un-paved roads

-when people come to visit and are actually surprised we have a flushing toilet and heating

-our church, calvary chapel

-travelling the country in the summer

-paprika

-turo

-H&M (lynnette will miss this)

-the buda hills

-budapest by night (the lights on the river are awesome)

-olga and her weekly kisses for us (although a little wet at times)

-working together (every day all day), it's great

-cheap flowers from old ladies