When I began writing this update, it had been almost three
weeks since we arrived back to Hungary. The summer has left little time for
anything other than camp, and now we are only two weeks from the end of the
season. Leaving the States and coming back to Hungary was both exciting and
hard. We were really looking forward to going back to continue serving the
Lord among the Hungarian people, but it is always hard to say farewell to
relatives and friends. Although we now have two homes, America and Hungary,
we can only be present in one at a time, and it can make us feel a bit homesick
for the other. But wherever we are our God is taking care of us meeting all
our needs.
As soon as we arrived back we went down to Komló
to visit my parents. We were able to spend a week with them before camp started.
They were very happy to see us again since the wedding. After our visit we
returned to Tóalmás for the beginning of camp. During the first
week of children’s camp, it was fun to see our “old” friends again. We had
about 120 campers and among them were our very good friends Gergô and
Gina Várbíró. Most of the campers come for one week
of camp, but Gergô and Gina come every summer for four weeks of camp
(the full length of children’s camp). They are a sweet and loveable brother
and sister who are growing up in a very difficult family situation. Their
grandma raises them because their mom doesn’t care too much about them. This
past week when I took a picture with Gina, she really wanted me to use the
picture in the summer camp brochure next year. When I asked her why she wants
that so badly, she said something that broke my heart. She said she wanted
to make her grandma proud of them… not mom but grandma. I’m very thankful
that she has a caring Grandma who will take care of them, but it’s sad to
see an 11-year-old little girl whose life is so empty of a mother. This four
weeks of camp is the highlight of the whole year for them. Every year when
they arrive they find me to say hi and just let me know they are here. It
was so neat to see how much they had grown and changed since last year. I
was glad to be able to spend four weeks with Gergô and Gina again this
summer.
The second week of camp the number of English teachers
was desperately low, so Angie was asked to help. She had ten 11-12 year olds
in her group and loved the opportunity to get to know some of the campers
through the class time. Angie’s parents will be leading a group from her
home church to teach English during the last week of camp. We are very excited
to have them with us for a week.
Please pray for the rest of the summer season… especially
for the campers, counselors and staff. (Andris)
Since our arrival in June we have had the pleasure of
staying in the house of a good friend and coworker. Kelly Davidson left for
her furlough just as we arrived here. We will be in her house until she arrives
back in mid-August. She spent the past year building the house, and Andris
has tried to spend his little free time in helping with some of the unfinished
projects.
There is a house that we can rent in the village,
but it is in the midst of some major repairs and will not be ready for us
to move into for another month or so. Therefore, in the mean time, one of
our other colleagues here, Alex and Kathy Katona, have offered for us to
stay in their little house in the village until the other house is ready.
It’s a lot of moving around, but we’ll be even more thankful when we are
finally able to settle into a house.
We have also been looking into the best way to provide
housing for ourselves long term. Normally we would not be in such a big rush
to start thinking about such things, but the prices have been skyrocketing,
and Hungary’s imminent induction into the European Union only promises higher
prices. Therefore we think it wise to move quickly to secure future housing.
In checking houses for sale in the village, we found that it will be less
expensive for us to build a house than to buy a used house. We’ve been warned
about the headache that it will be to build, but at this time in our lives
we have more stamina that we do money, so we’ve decided to go the more frugal,
rather than the more headache-free route.
In case you have not already guessed from the picture
to above (I always look at the pictures first), we have purchased land
in Tóalmás. We searched and searched for the best deal, and
when we thought we had found it, we prayed and made an offer, which was promptly
rejected. We prayed more and soon had half the camp praying that the couple
would accept our offer or settle for not much more. God always hears our
prayers and He answers, but not always in the way we expect Him to. Just
when we were about to throw in the towel and spend every last penny we had
saved on the property we found, God provided another piece of land. The couple
selling it had not put up a sign or told many people that they were trying
to sell it, but we heard about it from one of the workers here. It is better
situated than the other and cost less. In fact, it cost less than what
we had offered for the other property. God is amazing! He didn’t give us
what we wanted, but rather chose to give us much better.
We hope to begin building as soon as possible. Please
pray that we will be able to secure a loan from a Hungarian bank and come
up with the initial percentage to build.
Life of Love