please pray for miklos....

as many of you may know we have been working with a gypsy family in a town called erchi. miklos and eva have been a very special family to us here. miklos lost his legs a few years ago in a accident and the family has been living in what can only be described as a shack. this past fall we were very happy to complete a new place for them to live, although still quite basic it is rain tight and much warmer, well in the past month miklos has become seriously ill. two weeks ago we travelled out to visit as he had been in hospital but discharged himself. he wasn't doing very good at the time but refused to go back. today carlos and i travelled out to visit again, (carlos is in the picture here that was taken in the summer.) miklos is really in a rough state and the doctors have given him a month to live, in or out of hospital. we travel out tomrorow again to pray with the family and take him into a hospital. please pray with us for healing of miklos and also that God would move in his heart at this time. and of course for his wife and 3 children during this time.

what once was.....

have you ever thought ummm, i need a new bible cover why not use this purse, no. well i have never also, but lynnette on the other hand seems to work on another bandwidth and had this bright idea. she had picked up what she thought was a "kinda cool" red leather purse (personally i never really thought it so cool), and at first had no further plans of using it but upon seeing the need of her badly battered bible cover and remembering my grandpa's hobby of recovering bibles with leather skirts she decided to take on a new project. yes she's quite crafty. and as you can see her below it turned out quite good, not that i had any doubt but i am still quite impressed. the button was also picked up at our clothing bazaar as was the purse, what finds! so there you have it, do you have a beaten up bible, bring it back to live easily with skirt, or purse. costs involved, 400 ft (2$) for the leather glue!

it's all about the small victories, just a couple language stories to give you an idea of what life is like battling the language, i (kyle) was assigned to doing some repair and painting work at our team office and after getting the walls prepared i headed out with all the key words i figured i needed, a paint chip of the colour i wanted and the dimensions of the wall. well unknown to me i picked the one paint shop in town that had a rookie on the job. in my head i thought, easy enough bring the paint chip in say i want the new paint a little darker and here are the dimensions i need to cover with paint. after explaining all this the girl looked back at me and with a look of confusion said "micsoda" (what did you say), i knew i was off to a bad start. i explained it again and she handed me a small can of paint for a door. when i needed a large pail of paint for a concrete wall! well after much explaining i finally called a friend who was able to explain what i needed. i also realized half way through i said "fa" (tree) instead of "fal" (wall) she was apparently new on the job and didn't know how to mix paint so i had to by paint dye and mix it myself, at first the mix turned out purple but after some more colour i was able to find the colour i needed. as i stood in the shop with her looking at me like i was from another planet i felt like walking out and giving up on the whole language thing, then this past sunday rolled along and we had to rush out with a visiting german family as their girls had bronchitis to find a pharmacy that was open. both parents were doctors and knew what prescription was needed but legally they can't just prescribe at the pharmacy here. but we didn't want to wait till monday to see a doctor so off we went, thankfully we experienced a very kind pharmacist and my extremely talented wife who seems to have the nack for hungarian and was able to explain the situation and we left with what we needed and some much needed confidence with hungarian.

also a new feature added to the blog is a archive of all our prayer/ministry letters, (thanks kitty for showing me how to do this!) just follow the link on the sidebar if you missed any, and if you would like to recieve them regularly and don't already just drop us a note and we will put u on our list.

"space is shared in europe, not protected. Tables are shared, the air is evidently shared because smoking bothers no one. Cars, houses, buses, apartments, cafes- so many important aspects of life are smaller, thus more cramped, thus more willingly shared. It's not offensive to go nose to nose with an acquaintance during routine conversation because no space is being violated. Talk with your hands, hug, embrace, even kiss at times. Even for friendly people, such familiarity was difficult for americans to understand."

this is a quote from a john grisham book, and i just had to laugh as i read it. it's so true. you know that personal space we all hold so dearly, well it's not so dear here. when waiting in line if your not close enough to count the neck hairs of who ever is in front of you well then you will soon be one place further back in line. we had to laugh once watching a visiting girl wait in line, as we stood outside watching she stood in line but 3 feet away from the person infront of her and after 3 people stepped infront of her she finally caught on and snuggled on up. we keep telling each other that when we get home we better drop this habit quickly otherwise we may get a strange look or two at the 7-11 lineup. so there you go if your coming to europe be warned and get to know your fellow line upers.

in other news lynnette was very pleased to hear after a long journey home a touque which she knitted for our nephew finally made it. ok originally the touque (winter hat for you non canadians) was meant for me but somewhere the pattern shrunk, so plan 2 was made and it was sent to ben for his birthday, and that's where the adventures began, it was being sent to lynnettes sister in-laws parents place (a mouth full) but somewhere along the way a house number was left off and it stopped on route. when we finally realized this a month late! bonnies parents phoned up the post office and were told "ya it was here but we sent it back to hungary since it was wrongly addressed", great we figured that was it we will never see it again. well a week later they get a call and are told it is sitting in the post office waiting to be picked up, apparently it didn't go back to hungary rather to someone on the same road with the same last name and they so nicely brought it back to the post office since it wasn't theres! so there you go the adventures of the touque that could.

well today we finally finished the process of getting our residency permits!!!! YAHOO! we went to the office in budapest today to pick them up and it only took about 15 mins, that is a miracle in itself considering the first time we went there (and government offices in general here!) so about a month ago we went to bring in all our papers for our residency permit (cause our 1 year visa ran out) and we spent 5 hours in total there, yes thats right. in one office, waiting and waiting for our numbers to show up. and it was so annoying because every time the number changed on the board it was a mystery as to which number it was going to be...its like winning the lottery...random numbers come up! anyways, we submitted all our forms and only had to mail a couple extra ones we were missing, and they told us to come back the 15th of january. but about 2 weeks ago they called and decided the needed just one more paper....of course! and this one was a paper saying that there is actually a house on the land of our address, weird hey? so after all that they gave us our fancy "tartózkodási engedély" sticker in our passports!

on friday we went to Erchi to do some visiting. we went to miklos & ava's house and talked to them for a bit. miklos was in the hospital for a month over christmas. he decided on his own that he didnt want to be there anymore, so against the doctors orders he left a little while ago. when we saw him on friday, he looked quite sick still. his skin and the whites of his eyes were totally yellow. we tried to tell him he should go back, but he has a strong will and dosent want to. so please pray with us that he would go get medical help and be healed. also pray for him to see the Lord in all of this too. exciting news in that family though is about ava, she is now attending the weekly bible study that is held in the town! praise God! we pray that miklos would see God in her and want the same in his life!

right now kyle is doing some work here in the OM center, painting and fixing some walls. and i am busy preparing for english with Olga tonight, should be interesting as usual! but pray that we can be a good witness to her through our lives and testimony. our winter prayer letter should be arriving in your email/or mail soon...if you read this blog, and dont receive our newsletter and would like to just leave us a comment and we would be happy to email it to you!

sushi's back and i'm alright!

today was the grand opening of the klassen's hungarian sushi house (5 customers served), oh so satisfying! we received some sushi supplies in our christmas package and found the remaining necessities here and finally after a year absence we are back sushiazied, "why so pumped for a bunch of seaweed and rice" you may ask, "just because" i say. i have come to realize this is my most missed food from home, besides some good home cooking by mom of course. (no need to step on toes here!) we even had some first time sushiers join us, 3 of our neighbours gave it a try and we got 2 thumbs up and one no comment. we have seen a couple sushi restaurants here but they are very expensive and i don't know how much i trust seafood in a landlocked country. so there you go you now all know of my obsession with sushi.

back by popular demand is our name that photo contest, so get out your thinking caps and tell us what does this sign mean and why is it in the middle of budapest? and once again the winner as voted by us (bribes will be accepted) will be the proud recipient of a boci chocolate bar, true hungarian goodness. and don't forget we have a tendency to vote on the more comedic side of the spectrum. Lynnette was the proud spotter of this sign and immediately declared it blogable, so enjoy! oh and heres a hint it's not "only cars with DonKing hairdo's beyond this point"..... in other news this weekend we will celebrate the completion of our first year in hungary, well not exactly but our weeks will become busy later in the month so we better celebrate this weekend... maybe with a trip to the thermal baths close to here.