California

well we've been in CA for almost 2 weeks now but we really haven't talked about how our trip was with Zara. in a nutshell it was great! as you can see on the plane she had a little bed to sleep in (don't you wish they had those for adults!!). our little world traveler didn't scream or cry and when we were deplaning people said "I didn't know there was a baby on the flight". it took all of us a couple of days to adjust to the time but it's been easier than we had anticipated with Zara.

we've been so blessed to spend time with family & friends.

personally, I'm not missing the weather in Hungary. there's been a lot of snow since we left with temps in the 20's & 30's. I'm lovin' the sunshine & 70 degree temps!!

but we'll have to go back to the cold next month, until then, we're gonna enjoy every day!

St. Nicholas Project 2009

as I blogged on December 6th, we began the "St. Nicholas Project". I challenged the church to bring joy to some mentally handicapped young people who live at an institution in Szeged. it was a challenge for a couple of reasons. first becasue the school told us when we could take the gifts & do a "show" for them and it was only a little over a week from the "challenge" to the church. so I didn't know if we'd get the 45+ packages or not. aslo I felt kind of strange challengeing the church and then leaving for America. but it turns out I guess I was of "little faith". the church answered the challenge in a wonderful way. not only did they prepare enough gift bags, there were a few left over. here are some pictures of this year's "event". the first pic is the gift bags (obviously), the second is of members of CC Szeged "preforming" for the school, and the last 2 pictures are of the young people who recieved the gifts.
I was told that the staff of the school was very grateful for our gifts. but we don't want this to just be a "it's Christmas and we're Christians so we should do this", we really want to help this school throughout the year. so we're going to be talking with them about how we as a church can minister to the school, either by coming and do things with the students or renewing a room or the courtyard.
anyways, I'm just so blessed that CC Szeged answered this challenge and that we've taken the first step to really reaching our community.

more St. Nick day pictures

some more pictures of Zara & us from yesterday.

St. Nicholas Day

today many people here in central & eastern europe celebrate St. Nicholas Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas#Saint_Nicholas_Day). and since we have St. Nick's cutest little helper we had to take pictures of her as such. and yes that is Zara up in the pulpit with me. She came up to help me with this morning's sermon which was about God's heart for those in need, which was exmplified in the real Saint Nicholas. the sermon was the call to action for Calvary Szeged for our first "Saint Nicholas Project". this year we are going to perpare Christmas presents for 60 mentally hanidcapped here in Szeged. we hope to bring some joy to their lives through these gift packages and to point their caretakers to the Babe of Bethlehem.