Budapest - Thursday

This is the lovely view that unfolded before me when I unfolded my eyes this morning......
Because our air conditioning does not apparently work and the room gets stifling at night, we usually sleep with the window wide open and theres a lovely breeze.  On top of that, you lie in bed and you can see the sun just popping up in the horizon and you can hear the bells chiming (if you wake up late enough) and hear people out walking in the park.  It really a great way to start the day.

This morning, we were headed to yet another different high school and so we had to go a little farther away.  We had to take a tram and a bus and a train and found ourselves passing the beautiful Hungarian Parliament on the Danube -- love that building.... remind me sometime to tell you a really funny little joke that Jodi told me about the Parliament building...

Anyways - we wound up on the outskirts of the city in this fabulous high school.  It was just a really nice building and really nice people and a nice overall day.  We had a fun time in the classrooms and the students warmed right up to us.

 These pictures are of Philip - this really big friendly giant of a guy who is from Mississippi - works in Memphis (I know this because I hear this 6 and 7 times a day in our intros to the class :)).

 Here's Big Philip and the giant chess set that doesn't actually look too giant compared to him! :)

 Philip started the week off pretty timid and nervous, but he's warmed right up to the students and was the bellle of the ball today.  He made these great dunks and the students were just all cheering him on.  He had just a blast playing with them.

While he was over playing basket ball, I was just standing around trying to see if I could click in with any student conversations.  There was one kid that came out of the school and jumped on another kids' back and started singing in English "here I am - rock you like a hurricane" with a really great voice.  I went over and asked him if he sang in a band and in perfect "American" English he responded "no" with a few other comments.  I was so impressed by his American accent that I started talking to him and the other kid who was standing with him.  Turns out, the one boy had done a student exchange program in the states for a year.  We discussed his experience and all, living in Virginia, and he continued to talk about the family he had lived with who were Mormon.  We ended up having a good, but brief conversation about God as, he told me that the Mormons were trying to make him believe what they believed and he didn't think he even believed in God.  I talked about how everyone has a god that they believe in and not everyone can be right and no one can "make" you believe their views.  I wanted him to know that that was why we were here to, not talk about our God, but to show students how our God has changed our lives.  His name is "Frank" and he and the other boy who were talking to me had said that they have English classes with us tomorrow.  I know that there will be another group with us that will be there tomorrow instead of our group.  Please pray that they would have an opportunity to talk to Frank more and that he would come to the FEK event on Friday evening.

 This is the group that we've been in all week - its Brian from Texas, Zena is from Moldova, Timi is Hungarian and is on staff with FEK, Shelley has just come from the states to be on staff at FEK for a year, me and Philip from Mississippi.  Its fun working with the same people all week and getting to know them so well.  We just have a fun time together.

This was out group with our "sponsor" teacher from the school we worked at today.  She's actually a Christian and was so excited to have us there with them.  It was a great experience!

Tonight, we have a "cultural event" which I believe is a concert at St Stephens Basilica (if you read my weekly story on StoriesFromASnapshot, the Basilica is on there).  It should be a fun relaxing time.

Please pray for our last day in high schools tomorrow and pray for the high school FEK event tomorrow night.  Also, the Teachers Symposium starts tomorrow night and I think I'm going to request to go to that as I really want to see how things work.  I missed the first year when my dad passed so I'm looking forward to being "in the loop" now.  Pray for all the teachers that will be assembling for that as well.