yay! video works!!!

edit note: this took forever to finally figure out how to get this to work. I finally figured it out. Please keep in mind that this was recorded on Tuesday... it's now Thursday. I'll post an update before I leave for the weekend :)

*~*~*

I can't believe this is the 101st entry in my blog. It comes a little over 14 months after my first blog post, back on December 15, 2008

there's a lot on my mind, so I think i'll make it a video post :)



*~*~*

A weekend in Magyarmecske, a tiny village in southern Hungary - aka Emilie's village :)


cute little village :)



Jeff, Emilie, Livia (Hungarian volunteer from Transcarpathia, Ukraine, who lives with Emilie and Simon) and I went on a walk and were joined by two little Roma boys - one of them became our photographer :)


this is our photographer - I can't remember their names, but they were fun :)

Good weekend and... Burial Chambers in Pécs

Mostly just a picture post today. I had a great weekend - Thursday-Monday all of my roommates were at a European Volunteer Service seminar and so I was alone... but not really. Emilie stayed on Thursday night. Thursday and Friday nights, I also had the pleasure of welcoming in a couple other American girls, one volunteering in Debrecen for a year and the other was visiting her. The visitor and I have a common friend and when their original plans fell through, she used the 'mutual friend' card and it was great. It was perfect timing! Saturday and Sunday were amazing quiet days for me. It was nice to just... be.
Today, I traveled with Joe and Kathy Angi to a dentist friend in North-Eastern Hungary. It was a long trip, but filled with great moments of story sharing, sight-seeing and newly formed friendships.
And for now, I'm off to figure out a grocery list and then back to work tomorrow. Have a great day, friends!

*~*~*

When Jeff and I were in Pécs, we had just enough time to go to the Necropolis of Sephianae (Pécs's old name), which is an old Christian burial site dating back to the 4 and 5th century. Stop. Do some math. 2009 minus 300-400 = 1709-1609 years ago. The grave areas you are about to see are over 1600 years old. They were excavated, preserved, and put on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in_Europe). You pay less than $10 to check this place out and it took us a few hours. It was really interesting and I wish that my short summary could do any justice for it, but it won't. If you're ever in Hungary and have any sort of fascination with history (especially Christian history), I suggest you check it out.

This is the Cella Septichora - the largest part that they found - there were never any bodies put in here and from what we read, no one knows why. See all those paintings? Also on display are all these BEAUTIFUL paintings that are several hundred years old, as well. Some are done by Popes. Some are just done by normal, everyday people - but they depict a lot of saints, Jesus, stories of the Bible, and even Heaven.


this is actually the ONLY body found in the entire part that Jeff and I toured. Inside is an old man. That's really all they know about him. I'm sure he lived a good life and I hope to meet him someday.


This is looking down into the "Wine Pitcher Burial Chamber" which is named as such because in that little hole in the wall, there is a painting of a wine pitcher and adorning the chamber are paintings of grapes and vines.


This is the medieval inner castle wall. This was built in the 12th century (1100s). Is anyone else's mind blown by this kind of stuff? It hurts my brain to think about it. Really!


An inside look of the "Peter and Paul Burial Chamber"


a painting on the top of the "Peter and Paul Burial Chamber" - remember this was painted 1600 years ago - that's some amazing artwork and very durable paint!

deep thoughts? wandering through Pécs!

deep-ish thoughts...
Whose team are you on?

My devotional today was from 2 Corinthians 6, where it talks about not being unequally yoked with unbelievers. I've heard this passage translated and interpretted in a lot of different ways... about everything from work relationships to dating to roommate situations... and every time, I learn something new not only about myself, but also about others.

We, as followers of Christ, are told that we are not of this world (1 Peter 2:11) and that we shouldn't become part of the world (Romans 12:2), but how can we LIVE in the world without being teamed up with unbelievers? I mean, isn't one of our main goals to also live among them and to be a witness (1 Peter 2:12)?

In finding this balance, there is always a struggle in my heart. Some of my friends may be believers but are also not the people I want to surround myself with. Others of my friends may be unbelievers, but really good people whom I love and hope to someday witness their realization of the truth I've found.

In my last placement, the tanoda's director came right out and asked my religion/faith. Shamelessly, I told her that I am a follower of Christ's teachings and believe I have a good Father God and a Holy Spirit within me. She then told me that she wasn't raised in a church and does not have a religion, so she is 'free' (exact phrase). At which point, I could have gone on to say that I am the one who is free, but decided to hold off for the moment. In this case, she is a great teacher and someone who truly cares about the prosperity of Roma/Gypsies in this society. Being 'yoked' with her at the tanoda taught me a lot and I believe we were a good pair, so is this the situation that I should be avoiding?

As I continued in my devotion, a thought occurred to me that sometimes it's okay to be teamed up with someone who doesn't believe the same things... as long as they don't cause you to compromise YOUR faith. I believe this is the situation that Paul is warning the Corinthians against in his second letter to them.

So, what about you? Are there any areas in your life where you're finding yourself questioning the meaning of these verses or maybe even convicted by this verse?

*~*~*

Last weekend, I got to do a little traveling. On Friday, Jeff and I spent time in Pécs, a city in Southern Hungary, wandering around and seeing a little bit of the city. Below are some of the images we took from our wandering :)

this street just had a(n?) "OMG I'm in EUROPE" feeling!


love locks - lovers prove their commitment to each other by placing a lock onto several fences or other public fixtures. They're all over town!


This is a cathedral from the Middle Ages/11th century - so beautiful!


this is the gate to enter the above cathedral - isn't it pretty?


and the view as we were walking away from the cathedral...

placement update, lenten challenge and the Mangalica Fesztivál

Well, I have a short update and then a long post of pictures.
Today I got an answer of sorts. For the next two weeks, I'll be in the Önkéntes Diakóniai Év office, helping with their selection event planning. Then, I'll get to go to their interview/selection event during the last weekend of February. It's a lot of office work, but it's fun and stuff I'm good at. Then, when that's finished, I'll start another placement. Stay tuned, folks :)

Also, the season of Lent is upon us. This year, as many of you are giving up something, I have made the decision to give up negativity. I am taking part in a devotional series called "40 Days from Negativity" hosted by a pastor friend of mine. You can check it out for yourself here.

Happy Ash Wednesday and may YOU encounter God, His Beloved Son and the Spirit within yourself this Lenten season.

*~*~*
February 5-7 hosted an interesting festival in Budapest - the Mangalica Festival. Mangalica is a type of pig and so this festival, as you could imagine, centered around a LOT of meat, music and palinka (Hungarian brandy with an amazingly high alcohol content). On Saturday, I read the schedule to find a band called "Fel a Kalappel" (top with the hat), which was labeled as playing "ethnofunk." Not knowing exactly what "ethnofunk" means, I decided I would head to the festival around the time that they'd be performing and find out. Matt, having nothing better to do, graciously joined me in the adventure.

The festival was held in the city park (Városliget) at the Vajdahunyad Vár (a castle replica that I wrote about here. this is the market as we approached...


look at all that sausage!


grilling up some pig!


pretty sure this guy goes everywhere - him and his hard, nasty tasting pretzels. he's probably wherever you are today as well!


Okay, so any explanation that I can give will not do this band ANY justice. the program said "ethnofunk". I'm pretty sure Matt and I wandered up as they were singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit"... they followed up with such songs as "Burning Ring of Fire", "Billie Jean", "These Boots (Are Made For Walking)" and other popular karaoke songs from the states. Add to it that they were REALLY not the greatest musicians (as a band, the drummer and lead guitar guy had skills ... while the vocalist/non-existent bass player and back-up vocalist/tambourine man had anything but skills). Add to THAT the fact that they really didn't know all the English lyrics and you have the hilarity that Matt and I found. Nothing ethnic. Nothing funky, unless you mean an odor that the band gave off to your ears :P


and what festival would be complete without a pony?!

Debrecen... and beyond!

I'm starting to get behind on posts and pictures again. This is a good thing :) I was beginning to wonder if my posts would become boring and filled with only words. It saddened me because I really enjoy sharing pictures and showing my activities to you. For those of you who are reading, I do want to express that you may use my pictures, but if you would please link my blog, that would be much appreciated.

I had a wonderful weekend with friends and new experiences. I have found a few websites which suggest festivals and things to do in Hungary, which will definitely vivify my experience here. I cannot wait to share those stories with you! This weekend, I went to Pécs (a beautiful city), Magyarmecske (to visit Emilie, Livia and Simon) and Mohács (Busójárás fesztivál). I traveled for many hours in buses, which was a very new experience. However, one of the most intriguing things was when I had finished my book this morning... and I just looked out the window, listening to music. We weren't really driving the autopályaudvar (highway), so we were often entering the small towns via the main road. I would watch as we would drive through a couple kilometers of fields without any signs of civilization, then if I closed my eyes for just a few seconds and we would all of a sudden be in another village/town. It was a pretty cool experience :) More stories to come when I post pictures, promise!

In other news - we don't have heat or hot water in our flat right now. It's currently about 31* Fahrenheit/-1* Celsius outside. It's pretty cold in our flat, too. Apparently Emese and Gyüri are coming to look at it tomorrow morning to see if they can fix the issue. In the meantime, we freeze.

In even more news - tomorrow I will *hopefully* find out about my new placement. I will keep you all posted :)

*~*~*

When Jay Harsevoort (the RCA Mission Volunteer Coordinator) was visiting Hungary, he came to our volunteer seminar/retreat. Afterwards, Dick Otterness drove Jay, Jeff and I to Nyirtelek, where Jeff is working. On the way, we stopped at the Reformed Church of Hungary's main city: Debrecen. This really seems to be the capital of Reformed churches world-wide.

Just to give you an idea of how far I am from home: (yeah, that says "New Brunswick, NJ - 8400km")


this is just a cool looking Reformed church...


This is the Nagy Templom (Big Church) - basically the main Reformed church. It was closed, so we couldn't go inside, but the outside was beautiful!


the boys exploring: Jay in front, Dick and Jeff


We had some time, so we stopped and enjoyed some coffee and sweets in a nearby bookstore café. We all got something different and they all looked sooo yummy!

Big news?!

well, friends, i have some pretty big news to share with you. I've given it about two evenings to really sink in and allow me to post something that wasn't completely disconcerting and filled with sadness. There are many moments that I look back on and think "It would have been really easy to just give up..." but none like a moment I experienced on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I went back to the Tanoda after it was closed for two weeks and had a meeting with Helga, the director. She had told me that there would be a new program in place when we started again after the short break. Nothing could have prepared me for what I heard, though. See, the tanoda got a grant to run a special program for students in order to prepare them for their final high school exams/graduation. This is a good thing for them, because it's an opportunity to showcase some of their strengths. It's also a good thing because it provided new funding. However, after lots of brainstorming meetings, they decided on a plan: They would only be open Tuesdays and Thursdays 4-6p. That's a total of 4 hours every week.

How does this affect me? Well, that means my MAIN placement cut back its hours to only 4 hours a week, which is less than most volunteers put in during one day. Also, I worked in the main part of the tanoda, but the main part is actually closing until April, so only the smaller part would be open those 4 hours. The entire system changed as well - teachers left and other teacher(s?) were hired as well.
Staying at the Tanoda for only four hours, would have been an option for me, except for one major point. My language course is on Tuesdays at 5. I always had to leave the tanoda at 4:15 in order to get there on time. This cuts Tuesdays completely out of my availability. That leaves 2 hours on Thursdays and, if I went to the Tanoda, I would be missing our volunteer Bible Studies/Cultural events (not a huge deal, but still would be sad to miss those...)
I spoke with Emese, our volunteer coordinator and she suggested a change in placements again.

Why was this hard for me? As you can imagine, I will now start my THIRD placement, which just makes me feel like a bit of a failure. Even though the tanoda's closing is not my fault, it just doesn't feel good to always be switching placements. Also, I was just starting to develop really good relationships with the kids and with the teachers. I was beginning to find my place and figure out ways that I could enrich life at the Tanoda (if any of you heard me talk about "manikúrek hétfön" (Manicures on Monday) or "Crafty Kedden" (crafts on Tuesday) or "Excursion Szérdán" (excursions on Wednesday) or "Sütemény Csütörtökön" (Baked Goods on Thursday)... you know. I was excited to put these programs into place and now? Now I get to meet a bunch of new people (probably kids) and learn what possibilities are there.

I'm trying to remain positive, but there are some moments that it can really get me down. I would welcome prayers on my behalf: for guidance into a new placement, speedy transitions, and a welcome place where I can grow, but also help others to grow. Thanks!

*~*~*

more Seminar/retreat pictures!
This is one of our meals - isn't it pretty? Those are beets on the left and in the main dish, the orange stuff is potatoes. The main course is a meatloaf-type food with half of a hard boiled egg in the middle - so creative!


The next three pictures are of my friend and fellow volunteer, Gyüri, in many poses. He's such a character, but he's really friendly and patient in teaching us Hungarian.
so... Gyüri at dinner...


Gyüri taking his shirt off?


Gyüri making a snowman (hóember)


this is the Reformed church in Berekfürdő - doesn't it just look like a picture from a Christmas card? or one of those tins you see a lot of around Christmas? so peaceful, beautiful, serene... *sigh*

Volunteer Seminar/Retreat - önkéntesek szeminárium

I'm going to try and incorporate some Hungarian words into my updates. The main goal would be to start writing sentences, thoughts, even whole posts in Hungarian (and English, of course)... so this is the beginning :)

In the end of January (január), we had the opportunity as a host organization to meet together (találkozzunk) for the second time this year. All of the Önkéntes Diakóniai Év Program volunteers (önkéntesek) met in Berekfürdő for 5 days. It was a good time and it was nice to see everyone again, as some are serving (szolgálnak) in Ukraine and Romania, as well as distant places in Hungary (magyarország). We were able to share stories (történetek) of joy and concern, and even learn a bit more about our world and what our place (hely) is as volunteers.
There were some moments of laughter, pain, joy, sadness, love (szeretet), anger... all mixed with a strange sense of unity among us. So good (jó)!

This must have been taken in the early morning, for I see many cups of coffee (kávé) in this picture! This was our main meeting room (szoba) for the seminar.


the "American Girls' room" (Amerikai lányok szoba) - home of Emilie, Kristy and myself. Yes, we have the window open. Nagyon meleg volt (it was very warm).


one (egy) of our projects was to make a collage of ourselves. Kristy is working very hard on hers :) "Ki vagyok én?" / "Who Am I?"


This is our schedule. If you read (olvasd) what we're doing on Saturday afternoon and you read what I read, you should be smiling :)


these friends even found time for a star(csillag)-shaped group nap... starting with the boy and going clockwise, I present:
Zoltán from Ukraine serving in Hungary
Hilde from Hungary serving in Ukraine
Livija from Ukraine serving in Hungary
Ildikó from Hungary serving in Romania and...
Silke from Germany serving in Hungary

esik a hó!

snow is falling! I feel like that's the only thing that's been consistent the last two weeks - it has snowed a LOT. It's beautiful, especially when I could get out of the city and see it freshly fallen on a lot of trees :)

so much has happened these last couple weeks, that I wish I could tell you about it all in one moment... but right now, I'm exhausted and wanted to share some pictures with you.

Enjoy!

*~*~*

Kristy and Matt in our train car en route to our Önkéntes Diakóniai Év mid-year seminar/retreat. Does it seem so romantic? It's like a scene out of a movie - in a train car, watching the world pass you by, sitting across from your friends... so great!



the next 4 pictures are of snow. This is me and the snow in Debrecen, Hungary...


and this is the snow outside of the retreat center in Berekfürdő, Hungary




i would also like to point out that in the pictures below (in previous posts), you saw green grass. yes, those were taken AFTER the new year, so within the last month... your eyes did NOT deceive you :)

what is Hungary?

"Hungary: a mania with a population of ten million. It is now generally regarded as curable, though this would take away much of its charm." - István Örkény

this is an interesting quote in the beginning of a book I borrowed from the ÖDÉ office today. let's tear this quote down a bit, shall we?

mania is defined in the medical dictionary as "excitement of psychotic proportions manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity, disorganization of behavior, and elevation of mood"
ten million is about the current population. A quick Google search revealed that the World Bank's population of Hungary in 2008 was 10,037,637.
curable is being such that healing is possible, in this quote it's referring to the aforementioned 'mania'
charm... charm... charm is one of the things Hungary is NOT lacking. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that Hungary is not lacking. After spending five months here, one of the things I've come to love, though, is the charm that the people, the country, the language, the buildings and the customs all have. It truly is incomparable to the 'charm' that the United States has... or any other country has, for that matter.

When I go about my day-to-day life, it's easy to find things about which I can complain. Most of my life experience comes from the "American" lifestyle and way of thinking. I think often in my head "because that makes SOOO much sense" with more sarcasm than anything. It's not that Hungarians are doing anything wrong, per se, but when compared to similar situations I would face back home, perhaps a different solution would be found.
Let's take, for instance, a situation I have found myself in twice now. Hungarians are pretty good about recycling and preserving their resources (good thing!), including their paper. In order to make paper go further, it's not unusual to load a copier with scrap paper with a blank side. Many of you may see where I'm headed with this. I print my newsletters double-sided in order to save weight (and paper), so I go to print my newsletter and end up wasting paper because the paper in the printer only has one clean side... now, this is not to offend the office, because it's actually a wise idea, but just maybe not the way I'm used to going about this. Now that I've run into the issue twice, I'm sure to remember next time and will remember to check the paper on which I'll be printing before just assuming it's all clean.
I also think that sarcastic phrase often when I learn something new in Hungarian. Even though I say that there are more 'exceptions to the rules' than 'rules' themselves, that is part of what gives the Hungarian language it's charm. It really isn't something that is bad or good, it just is.

When living abroad it's easy to compare situations to similar ones in the states - our reactions, our approaches, our solutions... however, it's important to remember that Hungary is NOT the United States, and even though McDonald's and Beyonce and American Pie have all "invaded" Hungary, the two countries should never be able to be compared. Hungary, to outsiders, may then appear to be 'cured of its mania'... but to those who have experienced what Hungary has to offer would indeed notice the lack of charm if it ever happened.

*~*~*

Speaking of charm, I don't know if you've seen enough of this place yet, but I assure you that I haven't. This street, all uphill or downhill depending on where you're going, appears as though these bricks have been here for at LEAST a century, and I would dare to guess that it's been more like 200-300 years (if not more!)



looking down on the same street: notice that the white building on the left side of the street is the same building as in the previous picture...

...
This is a terraced Turkish burial ground, which is below where Gül Baba's tomb is (see previous post).