a visitor from Japan?!

I realized that I seemingly skipped over a pretty major event here in Hungary. Actually, I've skipped a couple, but we'll get to them, I promise.
I'm attempting to keep my blog posts short with lots of pictures for you, my awesome supporters... but sometimes I get caught in moments and get backlogged with stories and pictures. Unfortunately, this is what happened to this post. Sorry, Katharine!

In July, as many of you may remember, I had a 2 week training in Chicago. Upon arrival, I'd met Jay, Jeff and Don... but there was word of this one girl coming. Her name: Katharine. Destination: Japan. and... she was my suitemate for the 2 weeks.

After spending two weeks with people for non-stop, as you can imagine, us young people grew quite close. It seemed like Jeff, Katharine and I were quite the trio and we had a lot of fun together. In what I took as good intentions, but never thought I'd see them realized, Katharine said that she'd come and visit us in Hungary. Her situation is a bit different and so she is able to afford some traveling, but still... Japan to Hungary is a LONG way.

Then, when we got to Hungary, the conversation continued. Even after she bought the tickets, there were things that came up that made it a little unbelievable. However, Katharine landed in Budapest on April 19th and the next 5 days were nothing short of awesome.

Jeff and I waited at the wrong terminal for her, of course. After realizing this, we nearly ran to the other one and she was just getting out of the arrival gate when we got there.


From Budapest, we left the next morning and went to Jeff's town, Nyírtelek, where we spent two days exploring and getting a taste of his life.


Jeff's church...


we even got to hang out with a Roma family!


Then we came back to Budapest, for 2 days of packed sightseeing and great company. Aside from RCA related visits, Katharine is my visitor this year. And, as a connection from home, it's funny to think that we only knew each other a month before we spread out around the world. It's great to know that some friendships just don't take long to nurture and yet can be some of the most amazing friendships of your life.