The view from Budapest

We have had a great weekend together celebrating the birth of Jesus. We are so looking forward to Christmas Day tomorrow. It is snowing so we are going to have a White Christmas for sure!

Saturday Night - Church Christmas Program at The Gellert Hotel
Kendall and her friend Janie performed a Flute Duet:


Sunday - Church in the morning. Christmas Adam Celebration at our Office in the Evening

Monday -Ice Skating in the City in the morning

Christmas Eve at our house with Special Guests, Larry & Debby Thompson

Last night as we were returning from our office Christmas Adam Party (Adam came before Eve so Christmas Adam is the day before Christmas Eve), we had quite an experience in front of our house.  Valerie & I were in separate cars and as I drove by the woods near our house, I noticed a figure in the snow which I didn’t pay much attention to.  I thought it was just someone walking down the street.  Valerie came behind me and noticed that it was an old lady who was trying to get her coat on.  She was in the dark, in the snow, and not near anything.  Valerie told me about it and we went to check it out.  When we approached, we saw a very old lady (probably 70s or 80s), about 4 ft 10in, that was standing in the snow and trying to get her coat on (It was -4 C & 27 F).  Valerie recognized pretty quickly that she was drunk and very disoriented.  She tried to ask her where she lived or where she was going without much response.  Valerie started helping her down our street hoping we could find a Hungarian neighbor to help.  We rang the doorbell of our neighbors that is a Hungarian lady married to an American.  She came out in her shorts and tried to talk to the lady and she wasn’t responding.  Then, another neighbor approached and said that he would help.  He called an Ambulance as we walked to the bus stop.  We tried to get her to sit down at the bus stop, but she wouldn’t have any part of that.  Valerie searched her pockets looking for some identification, and to her surprise pulled out her TEETH!!!  As we stood there with our new Hungarian friend Balazs, we learned that her name was Marika and that she didn’t have any family.  After Valerie asked about her family, she started crying.  She didn’t answer most of the questions, so while we were waiting we were talking to Balazs in English trying to get to know him.  Marika spoke up and said (in Hungarian), “Talk Hungarian!!!”  That was a funny moment in the midst of a scary one.  Eventually, the Ambulance came and took Marika off.  We pray that she will be okay and that they will get her home.  It is scary to think of what would have happened to her if we hadn’t seen her.  The ambulance drivers said that they had been looking for her and couldn’t find her.

(Written by Valerie) Kirby Ann came home from school the other day and said, ” I can read!” It was a very amazing transformation for her. One day she couldn’t read, the next day she could read anything. Anything in Hungarian that is!!

She has been learning to read in English off and on at home over the last year or so. She has consonants, vowels, most blends, and is working on the harder blends (ou, ow, augh, etc) She can easily sound out words in English when they follow the rules. Fluent reading will come soon, we hope.

Hungarian, however, is perfectly phonetic. That is the ONLY easy thing about the language! Therefore, she realized that if she put the new sounds she learned with the sounding out she could already do, tah dah…she could READ!!!

So today, I bought my little girl her first reading book ever. She loves Bible stories and has always said that she can’t wait to read the Bible. Never would I have guessed that the first Bible Story book she would read to herself would be in Hungarian!

We had to fly halfway around the world, but my good friend, Mark Sanders and I were able to go to the A&M - Missouri football game together this past Saturday. We regularly watch college football together in Budapest and I think we have watched the last few A&M - Missouri games together on TV. It was fun to meet and actually go to the game together. The Aggies didn’t win, but they did much better than I expected and didn’t get totally blown out so it wasn’t a total downer.

Mark got us 50 yard line seats from one of his good friends. Thanks Mark for bringing me along for the ride!!  We remained friends throughout the game and there wasn’t any major taunting.

I was working in Kansas City so it was an easy drive over to the game with my long time friend, Rick Pierce. Rick & I went to high school and A&M together and it was awesome to go together to another Aggie game. I’ve had a great time hanging out with his family.

PS Despite the fact that is all I have blogged about, I have done a ton of work while in the US.  Football has been my entertainment of choice and I’ve been loving it!

  One of the great things about returning to the US this month is that I got to go to my nephew, Hunter’s, high school football game.  Abilene High is ranked 9th in the state of Texas and was playing their crosstown rivals, Cooper High School.  It is always the biggest game of the year for them and it was fun to be there as a part of it.

They won the game 34-10 and the outcome was never in doubt.  Hunter played great and even had a near sack that ended up on the front page of the Sports section in the Abilene paper!  Pretty awesome.

There is nothing like Texas High School Football!  I just wish the rest of my family could have been here to enjoy it with me.

Click here to see more pictures.

Yesterday I traveled from Budapest to the US.  I arrived at the Budapest airport bright and early for what I thought was a really good set of flight connections to the US.  When I checked in, they told me that my flight to Frankfurt had been delayed and that it was going to mess up my whole trip.  Therefore, I needed to go to the ticketing office and they would change all of my flights.  Bummer!

I wandered over there bummed about losing my good connections and wondered how many times I was going to have to circle the globe to get to the US.  While I was in line, Valerie called.  I told her about the delay and then she said, “Are you not taking your laptop?  because it is sitting here in the living room.”   “AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!”   I’m sure the whole Budapest airport could hear my cry.   Valerie started packing up with the laptop (at 6:30am) to bring it to me (about a 45 minute drive).   Soon after I learned that I was going out on a later flight and that she would have plenty of time to get it to me.

I didn’t connect the dots right away, but pretty soon I realized that if my flight had not been delayed, I wouldn’t have gotten my laptop.  I have no idea how I would have made it on this trip without it.  Therefore, the Lord allowed the delay to rescue me from the stupidity of forgetting my laptop.  I guess that is why the Bible says to Praise the Lord in all things.

I arrived 4 hours later than I expected and I had one more connection than expected, but at least I had my laptop.

We can feel the heat tonight!  Our gas was turned back on today.  I paid the bill yesterday morning, but it took 30 hours or so to get it back on.  Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold over the last couple of days and it never got too bad.  It is warm again tonight!

Just in time for me to head to the US in the morning.  I’m off to Abilene, TX and then Kansas City.  Who knows where after that?  I’ll keep you posted.

Today Valerie called me during a meeting and when I answered she made it clear that I needed to take this call right away. When I got into the hallway, she said that there were people at our house saying that they were going to cut off our gas. I started thinking, “I’m sure I paid the bill”, “We haven’t received any notices”, etc . . . My assistant, Moni, started talking to the guy on the phone and he was sure that we needed our gas cut off and that he had the right house. In the mean time, I found several of my bills and confirmed that I had paid for the past 3 months and that the bill said nothing about a late payment. Although I didn’t understand everything Moni was saying, I could tell that she was being pretty forceful that we had paid our bill and that we shouldn’t have our gas cut off. The guy told her that if he didn’t do this today, that they would come tomorrow and totally disconnect our house from the gas company (which is a really big deal, evidently). We asked if there was anywhere in Budapest that we could go and pay the bill. He said that all the offices close at 3pm. Conveniently for this guy, it was 4:15pm. No luck. In the end, he had to cut off our gas. It is our heat for our house and our hot water.

After the phone call, I found a bill from April that I hadn’t paid. Then, I found a notice of disconnection dated in late May that said that they would disconnect in 10 days if I didn’t pay. I couldn’t read the notice and I’m sure I must have taken it to the office for translation, but in the busy-ness of getting ready to leave for the summer, I guess I forgot. The crazy thing is that none of our bills since then even mentioned the outstanding bill.  After calling the company on the phone, we found out that we do owe from the late payment and that they don’t put late payments on the bill since I’m on balanced billing.

The next step is that I go to the Gas Company in the morning and pay the bill.  Then, I FAX the payment notice to the company and they have 48 hours to cut the gas back on.

Please pray that it would be quick and that it won’t get too cold over the next few days.

This is clearly the STUPID AMERICAN TAX.  We couldn’t read the notice.  It is likely that we received phone calls which we couldn’t understand.

Here in Europe, we went off of daylight savings time last night.  It is very dramatic here since it was dark at about 4:30 or 4:45 today.  It means winter is here.  We were all wondering about 5 if it was time for bed soon.  The weirdest part is that I’ll start coming home from work int he dark every day.  In a few more weeks, it will be pitch dark at 4:15.  It isn’t one of our favorite parts of living in Europe this far north.

Here is what I have been looking at all day.  Many staff from across Eastern Europe & Russia, asking God to bring more students to know Him and to be involved in the ministry.  They are being trained in Change Action Teams and how they can come up with creative solutions to some of the challenges that they face.  It has been a fun day.  We all look forward to seeing what God will do.

The next 3 days will be filled with prayer, training, discussions, brainstorming, relationship building, and lots of fun.  Right now they are doing a group exercise using puzzles.