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!

BalatonNet Conference....and a bike ride...

so last night we got back from the first ever keswick conference in Hungary. it was conference combined with a missions expo also. we were part of the team that stood at the OM booth and answered any questions about OM and tried to recruit others to join also. Luis Palau was the main speaker of the conference along with many other hungarian pastors. we greatly enjoyed the teachings and it was a very refreshing time for us....it was a bonus that the conference was right next to the balaton lake (hungarys holiday hotspot!) so in our free time we found ourselves enjoying the waters of the lake.

one night after the evening meeting we were at the missions expo tent and a HUGE storm decided to join us. we saw the constant lightening in the distance, but thought it might not get us.....but we were wrong! it got super windy and started to pour rain...they had to tie up the doors of the huge tent that the expo was in....the frame of the tent was "waving" with the strong winds (like a piece of wet spaghetti) we have learned that when one is in hungary....one should expect any random storm to hit at any time. but....one of our team mates ordered pizza just before the storm hit and the lady actually delivered it right to the tent door during the worst part of the storm....we were happy because she shared with us....what a devoted pizza delivery service! (for a cultural info: this pizza did not include tomato sauce but sour cream instead...quite tasty, even if it sounds weird! sour cream is a staple in hungarians diet....we like it)

ok....now onto our modes of transport....as we have told you we have no car here but by the generosity of team mates we have been able to borrow cars since last october but no we are back to our much beloved bikes, not so beloved by our rear ends but hey i guess we need to get used to them again....we took them also down to balaton to give us a little freedom, we took the train down since it was the easiest to get the bikes down, each train has a bike carriage also on them, we were sitting here as we got close to our stop and suddenly at the stop before us the other two who have bikes on the train come running back and decide to get out at that stop, they got one bike out and on the platform but as they had the second one half way out the train starts to role and there is one of them running along with the train trying to stop it and the other pulling his bike in to safe it...so we are thinking ok we need a game plan....we have very little time so lynnette jumps out right away at the next stop i throw the bags to her then pass on bike quickly run back grab the other and jump out.....whew we made it, we expect to see the train rolling away just as i jump out but ofcourse when one is ready for things like this the train sits for 5 minutes which is exactly what this did...oh well a little excitement never did any one any harm.

as promised here is some video and shots from the race this year...you may remember from last year but i got some more shots form different spots. the video is specially for you chris..... some proof of the inverted helicopter....it's kinda hard to see but i'm sure you get the point... the shot a couple below is of the malev jet liner that was flown through downtown at just above building level, was quite the sight to see so low and close to the parliament. since yesterday was the biggest national holiday of the year there was also tons of stuff happening around the city. we also headed up to the castle district for the folk art festival, a great place to see tons of cool local handcrafts and eat our new favorite "langos bread". oven fried pizza type with all sorts of toppings. the evening also featured a huge fireworks show which we have heard is really good. but we will never know because for the second year in a row we got stormed out. (chistina and beeni will remember this clearly, or maybe you chose to forget it!) last year we had no notice but this year we had some... so we were able to get under a castle wall....flash backs form last year....after 1/2 hour we thought it was over so we began to walk down to the river....well we had to run for cover and found the only place the tunnel on the end of the chain bridge...probably as long a massey tunnel for you vancouverites...it was packed from end to end a couple thousand people at least...all fearing the worst like last year but other than rain it was fine. we had a good time laughing as we ran through the huge puddles and streams flowing down the streets dashing for the subway. good times and memories!

a few notes to those who will find faults in this post (vicky and chris) i'm starting to think these are our only two readers....well anyways yes the food is quite good even if it doesn't look so perfect and already has bites out of it and secondly upon closer inspection i see there was room in the middle of the tunnel, this would have been helpful to know at the time as we stood shoulder to shoulder with strangers and took pictures of them! and maybe it wasn't quite as long as the massey tunnel but who's counting and i've been known to embellish once in a while?!

Piliscaba english camp:

we spent this past week in piliscaba a smaller town not far from budapest, we worked together with a organization called CE (christian endevour) who were putting on this camp. in past years they have had a pastor from ireland helping them but he could not come for the whole camp this year and they asked if we could help. upon arriving to the camp we realized we had been chosen as camp leaders so our roles quickly grew. but it was a really good week, tiring but really good. each morning i (kyle) shared the morning bible study and after we would have discussion groups and also team tasks based also on the study, which added a little stress but each day we were amazed at the creativity of the kids. skits, posters and land art were the tasks and normally they were quite comedic! we really felt God moving in the lives of the kids, through the discussion groups, really good times of sharing with the kids and also in many other ways. we were really grateful for this opportunity to serve in this camp although it was stressful we really felt carried by God throughout this camp. we learnt that we can't completely prepare for anything, often times during the discussion groups i would have no idea what questions to ask or how to get a good talk going but was always amazed by how God would direct them, sometimes the kids would come up with the craziest questions, with one even saying on friday but what now? what happens when i go home? how do i keep driving the porsche? (this being my last talk, drive the porsche not the the trabant). as illustrated in the poster. it was a complete learning experience for us both, as i had never lead a series bible study and we really understood the verse "when i am weak, you are strong". we now have a couple days to catch up, going into the city to watch the Red Bull Air Race,

some video to follow, and then on Wednesday we will head off for a conference, we will spend 5 days at this conference were we will also be having a missions expo, so basically hangin around our new bus, also to be unveiled at the conference and answering questions, Luis Palau is the main speaker so we are looking forward to catching some of the sessions also.

bumper crop.....

well after months of toil and hard work we are finally seeing some results..... look at our spoils.... a month ago we had bought this little plant at the local veggie stand and thought we would see what we could come up with...apparently severe heat and being gone for weeks on end isn't so great for pepper plants, but hey i guess a couple ain't so bad! i'm kinda scared after being famished for weeks on end they may take a little revenge on me and scorch my mouth. maybe i can convince lynnette to try the first on.

in other news after a whole week at home we are back out.... we leave this afternoon for a week outreach where i will be doing the morning bible studies. the bible/english camp will have 25 kids around 11-16 years old so a wide margin of ages but we are looking forward to it. we will also have conversation groups and different activities for the kids, we had been invited to help by a organization called CE (christian endeavour) they do camps throughout the summer and this will be the first time OM has helped to it should also be a good chance to link our two organizations for future ministry.

OM and the Irish in Cegled:

This past week we spent in a city not far out of Budapest called Cegled, a great city where we did english club and baseball for kids from 4-15. It was a great week, and thankfully not as hot as our past outreach. Also we were joined by a group from Ireland part of a group called Exodus. One leader and 5 teens came and helped with our programs, basically like what north americans would know as VBS, we put on a program for the city in the reform church. We had around 45 kids depending on the day and then in the evenings also had film club, where we watched films like National treasure, Good Will Hunting and others and then afterwards had discussions on the film. Lynnette co-lead the english clubs and i the baseball where we taught many kids for the first time the game of baseball. quite funny and then afterwards had a testimony each day. We worked alongside the reform church of Cegled, interesting point... in Cegled there is the largest reform church in Eastern Europe. we had a tour of this church on Saturday, where lynnette proudly held the large old key of the church and also rang the bell, and deafened the rest of us since we were high up in the tour. (we also listened to an oragn concert in this church one eveining...very cool!) The church where we had our programs was actually built during the communist years, one of only 10 built in the whole country during communist rule. also quite interesting to me maybe not you, oh well you know now! we spent the week with some hungarian hosts, where lynnette learnt all sorts of hungarian cooking tips and even got her eye lashes dyed, long story.... she had a cosmetic shop attached to the house, lynnette disappeared into the shop for a while and i was quite interested to see what she may come out with.....they were great hosts and we got tons of hungarian practice, really it was so much fun to just feel at home in their place! this is zsolt one of our star students...ok well he required alot of attention, as he could hardly sit still for more then 10 seconds, but we really had a good time with him and saw him really thinking about things and responded so well as we gave him more responsibility and tasks. Going into these cities and towns we never really know what to expect and each place is so different but we really have enjoyed the diversity of the towns and we had such a good time in Cegled. hopefully we will be able to head out and drop into our hosts place for a weekend sometime in the fall before heading home!