Full Speed Ahead

I mistakenly thought that the week between Christmas and New Year's was going to be slow and quiet for me. Instead, my week was busy every day spending time with families in the church and doing fun things. It was wonderful!

On Tuesday, I spent all evening at a family's home. This family is not a part of the Trinity Church and we met initially through a friend who wanted to introduce us because this family lived from January-July of this past year in the US. Come to find out, they were living in Lansing because the husband was teaching for a semester at MSU on a Fulbright scholarship. How small can this world be?! Out of all the places to be in the US, they were living in the same town and working for the same university!! I consider this to be a "God wink." The family has two children: Zsofi (8) and Peti (6); the parents are Anita and Zoli. The kids amaze me--they only lived in the US for six months and now both speak English perfectly with hardly a trace of an accent.

We've become quite close and we had a wonderful evening of talking, eating, and playing Wii together. Anita made guacamole and I was in heaven! The family came to the New Year's Celebration here at the Bridge and so far have attended several special church events over the past two months. I hope they will start attending church at Trinity--it would be wonderful!

Wednesday was spent with the Fekete family, beginning with two hours of ice skating in the frosty air. Afterwards, we did something which gave me the greatest delight.....

We got to visit the Fekete's neighbor's puppies! Absolutely adorable!

Of course, my heart melted and I wanted to take one home with me.

Backtracking a bit, I mentioned in a post before Christmas that I had the opportunity to work in a stained glass workshop. I didn't want to tell about it just then because the two items I made are/were Christmas gifts for my parents! Now I've sent them the photos to show them what I will bring back with me, so I can share with you.

I made this angel for my mom...

...and this candle holder for my dad (for his office).

It was amazing learning about this process--cutting and sanding all the glass
pieces, lining the edges of the glass with copper tape...

...then fusing together the pieces with melted metal. The copper tape
acts as a magnet for the liquid metal so it's not as difficult as one might think.

Agi Fekete is the one who taught me all of this. She shares this workshop with another lady in the church and they make the most gorgeous stained glass items--everything from jewelry boxes to napkin holders to windows and doors. They sell their work and I would seriously love to buy some windows from them one day to put in our home.

Back to this past week...Thursday I had a delicious lunch at another family's home and then in the evening, I took all of the youth (and their younger siblings) to the cinema to see 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader 3D.' Last month, I held two 'film nights' here at the Bridge where we watched Narnia films 1 and 2 with a projecter and the sound system. This was my prelude to this cinema trip. The film was in Hungarian only, with no subtitles, but I was pleasantly suprised at how much I understood of the dialogue and of course I've read the books, so I already know the story line. It was so fun to look down the row at all the kids (we occupied the entire row!) and see them all looking so cute with their 3D glasses and munching their popcorn and sipping their Coke's.

From here on out, things are going to be busy and a little crazy. This is my last week living in the Bridge building and this afternoon will be our final church service held here. The rest of this week, the church members will spend time either during the day or in the evening packing everything up and moving out of the building. I start teaching in the high school again this week, too. We're not sure exactly when the internet will be shut off here at the Bridge, but it could be any time, so that fact combined with my busy schedule this week might make it that I don't post again until next week.

Then next weekend, I'll move in with the Szasz family! I talked about them in an earlier post...they are the family with two daughters who do competitive aerobics. They have a lovely home and I'm really happy to get to stay with them. I had four families total in the church offer their homes to me and that meant so much. It was hard to choose!

At the end of the following week, I'll travel to Budapest to meet my friend Sarah and stay there for four days. I'll show her all around the beautiful city and then she'll come back with me to Debrecen for three days. I can't wait!

Somehow, I have a feeling that January will be gone in the blink of an eye...