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.

Thanksgiving in Hungary

sometimes people in the US will ask if Thanksgiving is celebrated here in Hungary. The answer is "no". Thanksgiving is an American holiday. But every year WE celebrate Thanksgiving. This year we've invited some friends over and will feast on this 18.5lb (8.4kg) turkey.

We celebrate Thanksgiving not out of tradition cause here it's just a "normal" weekday (and there's no football on TV), we celebrate because as we look at our lives, even though there are difficulties & problems, we truly have so much to be thankful for. Especially with the arrivial of our daughter 3 months ago.

I think Thanksgiving should be celebrated all over the world. I think people do need to stop every once in a while & give thanks to the Almighty for the abundance of blessings that He pours out on us from day to day. If people gave thanks more & complained a little less, then their joy in life would increase.

We hope you have a wonderful day giving thanks to God for His abundance in your life.

"Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." - Hebrews 13:15

good news for Calvary Chapel Hungary

today the Hungarian Parliament approved a bill in which was included the accreditation of Calvary Chapel Bible College Hungary. This is a great "victory" as the Catholic gave a lot of money to the "Christian" opposition to try to block this bill. Now the bill will be given to the Hungarian President who has 15 days to sign it into law. this means the Calvary Chapel Bible College Europe (www.ccbce.com) will now be able to offer accredited Bachelor of Theology degree.

we're very blessed by this cause this could benefit so many people in their desire to get a degree in Biblical studies. what excites me personally about this is that for the past few years, the thought has been in my mind that, it'd be good to "go back to school" to get a degree. I've looked into a few places but never really acted upon anything, but now since this has really "fallen in my lap" I think it would be a good thing for me to begin a course to get a Bachelor's degree. So Lord willing, I'll start as soon as possible. I'll be sure to blog about it as things progress.

response from the mayor

yesterday I got a response from the mayor about our request for facilities to operate social services (soup kitchen & 2 pre-schools) in Szeged. the response was "at this time we don't have any buildings that meet the health board requirements". it was a little discouraging, but I guess this just means that we have to think a little "longer term" (maybe doing these things in 2011??). our rental agreement for the church is up in December 2010, so maybe we'll look to move to a different facility where we can have "multi-use" capabilities. please continue to pray with us about how we can be effective for the Kingdom of God here in Szeged.