so we have arrived.....
crazy to think we are actually at home, on one hand it feels like we have been gone less than a month but then one the other like we've been gone forever, & we sometimes have to question ourselves if we the last 2 years really happened at all.

the flight was mostly un eventful, long hours of sitting on planes and in airports, not so exciting. all our bags arrived although we had to be separated from some prime hungarian sausage. apparently meat is a no go in canada, especially hungarian kolbasz. we had been given it the night before we left and thought well lets see if it will make it, and i guess it didn't.

we had a great evening catching up with family and friends. always a little funny walking through the airport doors to be greeted by all. but especially strange when two reindeer show up to usher you back into canada. we were making the rounds hugging and greeting people when one of friends tells us we need to hug the reindeer in the crowd too! lynnette quickly saying no way i'm not hugging some strange airport workers! well it turned out to be two of my good friends who i guess were feeling quite festive! great laughs of course. thanks all for the grand re-entrance.

we mentioned a couple posts back about how on our last day we were joining team mates to go to ercsi and hand out christmas bags, it went so great and really was the perfect way to spend our last day in hungary. we had packed 73 bags and handed out 72 of them on the one block! visiting 10 homes, a couple we had never before been before. so it was a great way to build some new contacts for our team mates. we told the christmas story, sang some songs and then prayed with the families. here's a couple shots from the day. thank you again to all of you supporting us through prayer. hungary holds such a special place in our hearts, our last two years have been so incredible seeing God work in the lives around us and in our own lives. we really have felt so blessed to have been able to serve in hungary and to be blessed by such a great team there, who were so patient with us and so encouraging. i guess a two year wrap up blog will be soon coming so until then merry christmas.

only 3 days till we are home....crazy! we are busy moving and cleaning up our place. tonight we have a team christmas party and send off for us. tomorrow finish packing and cleaning because saturday we will be busy. we will be in ercsi giving out christmas packages to the children there, we made up over 70 bags, so hope that will be enough! speaking about kids....we cant wait to meet these cute family members for the first time:

Charlie

Lila

Elias

and of course to catch up with growing

Ben

cant wait to see you all next week!!! if you want our flight info maybe call our parents as i dont really want to post it here for all the world to see!

p.s. hope you dont mind i stole these pics off of your facebook and blogs (cheryl, vicky & mark) but i had to crop the one of baby elias a bit! hehe!

many of you i'm sure have heard about the shooting in denver at the YWAM base, i know there have been so many of these sort of incidents in the last year but this one really hits us personally hard. i guess because these are young missionaries getting ready to head out to the unknown. YWAM is doing so many great things around the world and here in Hungary. I guess the most difficult thing is that these missionaries were getting ready to head out all around the world and give their hearts where ever that may be in what ever dangers may come but the last place you would think would be right at home. our thoughts and prayers are with all of YWAM and with all involved.

went to ercsi today to visit miklos and eva, they are doing good.....i got to see my friend melinda which was a highlight. she comes from a family of 9 that lives in the house behind her (which is the size of a small bedroom) its amazing to me how she always is smiling, full of joy even though she comes from a rough family....it reminded me again just how i have been given in life ...and how i need to be daily grateful for what i have. she brought joy into my day today with just her little smile. its going to be hard to leave here next week. lynnette

so some of you may be wondering, "it's been two years, am i really going to remember what kyle and lynnette look like?" "what if they come through the doors at the airport and none of us recognize them?"

well be comforted ...here is what you should be expecting upon our arrival.... i know i know your thinking, my oh my when did you become so fashionable. well to be honest we always had it in us it just took us some years to develop.

honestly the christmas market is now officially opened in budapest and we took a stroll by today and couldn't resist the photo op., and rest assured no animals were harmed in the making of these pictures although i fear the same cannot be true in the making of these hats! yes fur is in fashion here.

the snow has already come and gone although our street still remains a skating rink. i guess the fact that it's dirt and never sees the sun lends to the fact it's one of the few still with some hard packed snow. i even got in a good game of snow football, with all our neighbours looking on in strange wonderment. we had a good week meeting up with friends and team mates, on monday we headed out to a city 1 hour out of budapest to spend the night with our team mate and family, which is always a good time. they are doing a church plant in the city and it was so great to hear how God is working there.

Today we also spent the afternoon with our team mate jill and took her to the much anticipated trip of coffee at the new york. a very old and classic coffee house here in the city. it had been closed for a year for renovations and since opening last year we had promised to take her there. She got us thorough our first year and spent many of coffees filling us in on all the little details we were missing, showing us all the in and outs of hungary and listening to us complain!thanks jill, for all that. so it was just a little thanks plus we really wanted to see this place and experience it so it was a great reason to go. Here's a couple shots from there.

Our week ahead is full of ministry and starting to get things moved, this last week we went in and closed our bank account here, which was really strange, it was sorta the first thing that really made me think wow we are actually going home soon. our main moving will be next week but i guess we need to get things in order. we plan to do chirstmas bags for the kids in ercsi and ofalu so we will also be helping our team mates with that. on sat the 15th we will head our to the houses and give the bags out and also something small for the families, we really look forward to this, spending some time with the families and just being there one last time.