[image:372:l]Valerie & I went took the kids to see the Prestonwood Baptist Church Student Choir that was here on tour this past Saturday. My aunt who attends had let us know that they were coming. The only person that I knew we would run into was Ross Robinson, the missions’ pastor, whose brother works with me here in Budapest.

When we found them on Margaret Island (the big island/park in the middle of the Danube). I saw Ross so I went up and introduced myself. He was talking to 5 or 6 girls in the group and he started to introduce me. He then said that they all went to Trinity Christian Academy!!! That’s where I went! Weird. I realized while talking to them that I graduated before they were born!! With my 20 year reunion this summer, that was a huge OUCH!!! I’m closer in age to their parents than them.

Then, we told someone else that we met that I grew up at Legacy Drive Baptist Church. Instantly, they said, “You must know Carly Henderson.” I instantly knew that she was Curt & Cindy’s daughter although I’m sure I haven’t seen her since she was 2. They went and found her and it was fun to get to meet her. She was excited that someone that knew her parents mysteriously showed up on the other side of the world. She was kind of freaked out about it.
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It was a great day and the concert was amazing. 300 kids and they were really good. Also, they really had a heart for ministry and were rushing into the crowd after the concert to tell people about Jesus. My kids loved the concert and the boys played soccer and football with some of the guys after the concert.

It was fun to make some back home connections all the way on this side of the world.

Uncle Tom and Cayden

Originally uploaded by G Luv.

Trent and I are getting a great treat this weekend as we drove to Dallas to spend the weekend with my sister’s family. Yesterday morning we talked on the phone and both jumped in the car. It is quite fun to have a spontaneous road trip!

Here I am with my neice, Cayden. She is a sweetheart.

I’m looking forward to a great weekend. We’re going to see Cars this afternoon. We’ll play the rest by ear.

We had a great week in Germany. Here’s the promised pictures of our adventure. If you click on the picture, then you can see the others.

Here’s a summary of our time there.

Day One New Schwanstein Castle- – I already blogged about this one. It was a magical day. On the way home, we drove through some of the mountains in northern Austria and southern Germany. We stopped and had a pastry in a villaged named Oberammergau nestled in the mountains.[image:348:c]

Day Two – LegoLand – This was a dream come true for my lego obsessed boys. They had seen it on the lego website and have wanted to go for a long time. There are rides, shows, and lots and lots of legos. We all had a great time.[image:350:c]

Day Three – Andechs and Wal-Mart – We went to a monastary on a hill with some beautiful views of the surrounding countryside. Then, we headed off to Wal-Mart. We had heard that they had Wal-Mart in Germany and we were dying to go. The one that we visited was pretty small. We did find some stuff that we can’t get in Hungary, but I think it wasn’t too different from other stores in Germany. It was nice to see a familiar store with the friendly familiar signs. [image:353:c]

Day Four – Munich – While Valerie’s parents visited Dachau (the WWII concentration camp), the rest of us wanted to tour the new Allianz Arena. [thumb:352:r]It will be the site of the first game of the World Cup this summer. It was closed, though, because there was a game later that day. We did get to see it from the outside, though. Instead, we went to Toys ‘R Us. The kids enjoyed this just as much.

After the shopping, we all went to downtown Munich and walked around and saw some of the sites. We ate dinner in the famous Hofbrauhaus. We had a great time eating sausage, wienerschnitzel, and the best apple struhdle ever. [image:354:c]

Day Five – Headed Home – We set out for the long journey home. It is about 8 1/2 hours from where we were. On the way, we stopped off for a few hours in Salzburg. It was a beautiful warm day to wander around the streets. How amazing is it that we could just “stop by” a major city like Salzburg. Just another great thing about living in Europe.[image:351:l]

Day Six – Exhaustion – Today is total exhaustion day. We are just laying around and taking it easy. For me, things get really busy tomorrow. I have one day to get ready for our National Directors conference which starts on Tuesday. Today is the calm before the storm.

This post if high on the geek factor if you aren’t a blogger.  If you are a blogger, then you are going to think it is really cool.  Either way, I’m way overdue for a geeky post so here it is.

Thanks to Andrew Jones for pointing me towards this blog software called Qumana.  It is pretty cool and allows me to compose offline, add pictures and do all kinds of cool things without having to be online. 

I’m on my 3rd try so I haven’t been having much success.  If you are reading this, then you’ll know the third time is the charm.

Tags: blog, software, qumana

Absolutely incredible! Aggies not only show up at the tourney, they dominated a really hot Syracuse team! I had to keep reminding myself that this was the Texas A&M, football only, Aggies. This might get us over the hump to being a decent team every year. We’ve already landed some big recruits for next year!!!

Also, there wasn’t much of a celebration after the game. They acted like they had been there before and they expected to win. I like that!

Normally, a 12 seed would be a Cinderella, but A&M was way underseeded and Syracuse was way overseeded. I guess if we get the Sweet 16 there will be a little Cinderella feel.

Watch out LSU! Hope that game is at a decent hour here in Budapest. (Just found out that it will start around 6pm eastern which is midnight here. Sleep is overrated)

Time to get ready for work!

On Saturday night at the tournament, we were all getting ready for the two championship games when Valerie got my attention and told me to come with her in a hurry. When we got there, we found Kendall laid out on the floor and in a lot of pain. She was running down the stairs at the stadium and twisted her ankle. After our physical therapist friend look at her, we were off the hospital.

We had always heard of Szent Janos Korhaz from many of our friends, but we had never been ourselves. It seems like it might be a type of rite of passage for expats here in Budapest.

We arrived at the front door to the hospital and the guard gave us a huge map of the complex. It had 30-40 different buildings. After driving around for a while, we finally found the one that was taking child emergency cases. We entered the waiting room where there was a locked door and we waited. This is typical of the doctor’s offices and hosptials. You wait outside and they come out to get you. There isn’t a receptionist or window or anything. They came out pretty quick and we were able to get the x-ray. Thankfully, she didn’t have a broken ankle!!!

She is doing much better today although she still has plenty of pain. Hopefully, it will heal quickly and she will be back to her normal active self.

Jerry blogged about how the Muslim world is so upset about a cartoon portraying Mohammad in a Danish newspaper. They believe that creating images of Mohammad will lead to idolatry, so therefore you shouldn’t do it. Jerry expressed dismay with how the Muslim world governments are responding to the crisis and expecting western governments to control their press. Crazy.

What struck me in this whole thing is how it relates to the Christian world. We, as Christians, are often dismayed and saddened with the lack of morality in the world. The thing that surprises me is how so many Christians think that non-Christians should behave as Christians. They are offended and outraged when a movie that opposes Christian values does well at the box office. They don’t understand when laws protecting abortion are the law of the land. Why does this surprise us? Why would we expect people outside of our faith to act as if they were in it.

When we do this, we are acting just like the Muslims in this story. They are expecting non-muslims to act muslim. This seems utterly ridiculous to us. Are we more attracted to the muslim faith because of this??? No! I think the same is true of non-Christians. They aren’t attracted to Christianity because of our strong public stands on morality. They are attracted because of the love and grace of Christ. It seems like we should spend more time loving our neighbor rather than making sure everyone understands what we think is right and wrong.

As I watched the images of Palestinians on CNN, with machine guns in hand, lashing out against the west, I couldn’t help but think this is what non-Christians see when they see Christians lashing out against movies, tv or the government.

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The report says “Fair”, but this isn’t fair at all!!!

Here’s the weather report from Yahoo Weather this morning. Ouch! It’s cold. When I woke up this morning it said 3 degrees, but I didn’t clip it then so you’ll have to take my word for it. Valerie thinks that we have had negative temps (fahrenheit) since we have been here, but this is the coldest I can remember.

The doors to my car will hardly open because they are frozen shut and there was ice on the inside of my car windows. Also, my car doesn’t warm up very fast so after taking Kirby Ann to preschool, it finally warmed up just as I was turning into my office parking lot (about 30 minutes since I left home)!!

It looks like it is going to be like this all week.

It is Day 3 of our skiing adventure and it couldn’t be better! There has been tons of snow (4 to 5 inches per day) and everyone in the family loves it!!

We had a little trouble getting here since it had started snowing overnight on the morning we left. It had already snowed 3 to 4 inches when we left and it continued to snow hard. The highway was pretty well covered and we went 30 to 40 mph all the way out of Hungary. It took us almost 6 hours to get to Vienna (normally a little over 2). It cleared up after Vienna, but it still took us another 5 hours to make it. We turned a 7 hour trip into 12. Fun! Fun! Fun! I drove the entire way so that was a positive thing. I wasn’t in much pain at all. Valerie wouldn’t have wanted to drive in the snow so we were thankful that I was feeling okay.

All the kids and Valerie have been in ski school all week and they are loving it. Kirby Ann didn’t want to come home the first day and even after the lifts closed she was marching up the hill trying to get another run in. The older kids are doing well too and started on the BIG HILL yesterday. Valerie has also been taking classes. She has been progressing so well that she keeps taking the lessons. She loves it.

The only place that I found Internet around here is in the lobby of a hotel at a kiosk so I can’t post pictures. I guess that will have to wait until we get home.

I’ll try to give you another update later in the week.