Happy Thanksgiving!

Early on Wednesday morning my Dad (lovingly called Pop), Emogene (my sister's mother-in-law, our long-time family friend and my Dad's next door neighbor) and I headed out in Emogene's car for Columbia, S.C. for Thanksgiving with my other sister's family while Glenn and his parents climbed into their car and headed to North Augusta, S.C.. Glenn dropped his parents off at his sister's house to spend the holidays with them, and then he drove the extra hour up to my sister's house to join us for holidays.




Pop and Emogene




My memory doesn't work well but there are some things I remember REALLY well, like where the Krispy Kreme stores are located! I remember years ago stopping in Augusta on my way to my sister's house at a Krispy Kreme and, lo and behold, I remembered the correct exit. Pop and Emogene love donuts almost as much as me so they were willing to stop long enough to grab 2 dozen to share at the Heinzelmann's house!




When I arrived, my niece Corrie gave me a big hug as a gift from our daughter Kari! So cool!




My niece's are both beautiful girls, inside and out!




I helped my sister Karin to decorate her Christmas tree and then she enjoyed posing under the tree just like a model!

Husband Eric carved a perfectly roasted turkey.

We enjoyed a great meal with all of our favorites!

Some of us had dessert at the table and one of us had it in the kitchen a little later. Karin didn't want Morgan to dirty another dish???

On Black Friday, Karin and I left the house at 4:30 am and went to Walmart which had opened at midnight. We wanted to be there by 5:00 am when the sale prices went into effect. We were overwhelmed by the sight of lines from the cash registers practically to the back of the store, and every cart was piled to overflowing. NOTHING in the store was worth standing in line for 2 hours!

We then went back to the house to pick up Morgan and Emogene and then headed to the local mall to fight the crowds. After a few hours, Morgan and Karin took a short break while Emogene and I stood in line to get a pretzel.

After finishing at the mall, we went by Marshall's and Kohl's before finally heading home at 3:30 pm, exhausted! We got some great bargains and had a fun time experiencing Black Friday. Although the stores were packed and everyone was quite polite and friendly, I'm glad though that I didn't have any particular item that I HAD to stand in line to buy! That would have definitely taken the fun out of the day!

Corrie, Karin and Emogene "wave" to say good-bye to Glenn and me on Saturday as we left together to go to spend the day and night with Glenn's sister's family in Augusta. (Pop and Emogene drove themselves back to Marietta the same day.)

I will miss my sister Karin. She and her husband have been good to Glenn and me through the years, but I love her because she loves me. The fact that she is so much fun is an added blessing! BTW-Karin and her family will fly into Budapest this July and then hop on a boat to take a cruise down the Danube River. I'm so glad we'll get to see them again in 7 months!

Next week I'll give you pictures of our time with Glenn's family and a full update of this week. We're headed up to Maryville (yes, where our son used to live) to visit with two of our families from overseas who are on their stateside assignment right now!

Have a great week!

We're home!

The two days between our return from Turkey and our departure to America slipped by like oil in my hands! I was not sure we would be able to unpack, do laundry, clean house (remember-our kids will be arriving with us when we get back to BP on Dec. 20th, so the house needed to be cleaned before we left for the U.S.!), winterize our yard and house, pay bills at the post office, repack and leave the mailbox key with our neighbors!



Oh! And go into town to pick up our visas that will allow us another 5 years in Hungary! We were able to pick them up without any problems, but it took out 3 hours of our day on Monday.




We had to get up at 4 am in order to be at the airport in time for our 7 am' flight. We went from BP to Paris, Paris to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Glenn was able to catch a few zzzz's between Paris and Cincinnati.




This sign welcomed us at the Cincinnati airport!




After we picked up our rental "car", we stopped for dinner at Steak and Shake. We got a great bargain on our rental car because they were short on compact cars. They offered us 2 days free if we took a 12 passenger van so we thought, why not? It cost us $78 (plus taxes) for the van from Tuesday to Sunday!




We drove the 45 minutes from the Ft. Wayne International Airport to the Pokogan State Park where our conference was held. We stayed in the Potowatomi Inn, which was delightful. Very nice but quaintly rustic. The neatest thing happened though while we were there! One of our youth from when we were first married and working in Connersville, Indiana contacted us! Somehow he found out we were in northern Indiana for this conference and I guess he did a little research to find out where we were staying! It was cool! Maybe this time next year when we are on our stateside assignment, we can drive up for the conference and take an extra day to get by to see the folks in Connersville and to meet up with Mark Williams! It was a nice surprise.

Some of you that know me well may be wondering what we ate as soon as we got to America? Well, our first meal was at Steak and Shake in Ft. Wayne the evening we arrived, because we didn't see a good pizza place on our way. However, we did manage to find Little Ceasar's the next day in Angola, where the state park is located.

The conference was on Mental Health and Missions and was excellent. We knew a handful of people when we got there, and did a lot of networking during our 5 days there so that next year we'll know even more! We met a girl name Jennifer with the same last name as ours that is from Smyrna, Georgia!

There was a resource fair the last night that was a good place to get information on other member care agencies, retreat centers, and counseling centers that work with missionaries.

Well, it is Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in the Ft. Wayne International Airport ("International"?) waiting to catch our flight to Atlanta. We'll arrive in Atlanta at 4 pm and will be picked up by my sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Brennon (but staying with my dad). It will be good to see family and friends again and to reconnect with our church. We'll be taking 3 weeks of "vacation" but will be checking emails periodically. Give us a call if you want to do something together!

New stamp in our new passport!

Well, we got our first stamp in our NEW passports this past week as we entered Turkey. We went for a member care meeting, attended by our folks who do member care in Eurasia, to get ourselves organized into teams under our new structure.





We had a few hours layover in Istanbul before our connecting flight to Izmir so Glenn and I got dinner in the airport at Burger King. Now, we have Burger King in Budapest, so that wasn't necessarily a special treat or even a surprise, but the size of the drinks was a real shocker! They were HUGE! It has been such a long time since I've seen drinks this size! They reminded me of the BIG GULPs that they were selling at Racetrac or Quiktrip gas stations in America a few years back.





Our meeting was held an hours drive from Izmir so we were driven "up country" to a town that is near Ephesus. On the way, we passed a town with this name and, of course, I asked the driver to stop and let me take a picture! He was as tickled as me that my name was on a sign! He said he never can find his name on anything. (It was some Turkish name I couldn't even begin to pronounce.) I understood completely!




We stayed in a really nice hotel on the water. Usually we can't stay in this nice of a place but because we were there during the off-season, the rates were extremely reasonable!




The first order of business was to find out who was going to lead our member care team across Eurasia and then to get ourselves organized into teams so that we could meet the needs of all our personnel. Glenn was named as the Lead Member Care Consultant for Eurasia! We then assigned all our countries (of which there are 80+) to the various member care consultants who will take responsibility for them.

Alvin is very proud of Glenn being named the Lead, but Glenn's response is that you can add another curl to the pig's tail but it's still a pig. :)





Our meetings were from 8:30 am until about 6 pm, with instructions to spend time with each other in the evenings to get to know each other, since for many of us, this was our first time to really get to know the member care folks from the other parts of the world. No problem! We enjoyed playing Farkle with folks in the lobby each evening! I'm pretty social so this was not difficult for me.





Glenn, however, had to use the time in the evenings to take care of some member care issues that were going on back in our part of the world! He had to find a quiet cubby hole somewhere in the lobby to make his calls, which was pretty hard to find (a quiet place, that is) since the rest of us were laughing as we were playing Farkle!





The last day of the meeting was MAP training and since some of us had already had MAP training (I've had it twice before), we were excused from it. Five of us ladies, therefore, had a free afternoon and took advantage of a taxi that was parked outside the hotel to go into the nearby town to do some shopping in the market.




From the center of town, in one direction you'd see the sign that led to the Turkish Market. Another sign led to the Grand Market, and another sign led to the Central Market. The whole town was just one big market and I think the signs were just so you could get your bearings!





We were impressed with their honesty in this market! At least they didn't try to convince us that the Rolodex watches were genuine Rolex! This particular town, Kusadasi, is a port where huge cruise ships bring tourists to visit nearby Ephesus. (Ephesus is important as a historical, biblical town. The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Ephesus; his letter to the Ephesians is in the Bible.)

Because of all the tourists that come through their town, they have built their economy on the market, selling souvenirs of anything they think will make a dollar or Turkish Lira. Most of the workers in the shops in the market speak English. Mary and I enjoyed a good laugh as one of the shopkeepers called to us as we walked by, "Good day, ladies. How can I take your money today?"




We watched a lady weaving a "Persian" rug. It was impressive. They had a small, beautiful throw rug of the Lord's Last Supper that was gorgeous, but I bet it was about $500 for a rug that was not much bigger than 2 ft. by 3 ft.




We had to return to the hotel as the sun was setting and the light on the white buildings across the port on the other hillside was breath-taking!





There was a Grand Princess cruise ship in the port when we arrived but when we left, in its' place were little, old fishing boats lined up along the shore. It was quite a contrast; the glamour of the cruise line versus the reality of making a living from hard work on a small fishing boat.





Some parts of Turkey brought back fond memories of our time in Africa, and I know this is part of why I loved it. We will be going back to Turkey in February and March for two other meetings, and I am looking forward to it!

Glenn and I are now back in Budapest for two days; just long enough to water the plants, do laundry, and repack our suitcases for our trip to the United States. We leave on Tuesday morning for Indiana, where we will attend a Mental Health in Missions conference before heading to Marietta, Georgia for Thanksgiving and vacation time with our families.

At the end of our time in the States, we will go to Richmond, VA for a member care meeting at our home office, before returning home to Hungary. When we return to BP, all our kids (Kate, Chris, Kari and Jonathan-in no particular order, Kari!) will be coming to spend Christmas with us! (We will all arrive on the same day; K & J from France, C & K from New Jersey, and Glenn and me from Georgia.)

If you live in Georgia, we hope to be able to see you while we are home. If you live on this side of the water and something comes up and you need to talk to us, don't hesitate to contact us! Even though we will be there, we will still be "here" for you!

I'd like to be spiritual...

Sometimes when I mention to folks here that I write a blog each week, they want to know the blog address. I really don't mind them reading this, but I always cringe because I'm afraid they're expecting something spiritual, insightful or my deepest thoughts. I'm quick to explain that it is really more of a public journal so that our family and friends can see what Glenn and I are doing. Of course, the part that we're REALLY doing, we can't write about so it looks like we just travel a lot to meetings, conferences and to visit our families. However, if you want to know what God is teaching me, you'd have to read my prayer journal that Donna from NCCS gave me as a good-bye gift. Or just write me and ask!



Tuesday night Bible study

This week has been busy but nothing out of the ordinary. Monday and Tuesday night we fixed a meal for two families up at the Eden House who we wanted to spend some time with but who were not in good enough health to come down to our house. Tuesday evening Bible study was at our house. (It was our turn to lead it and prepare the refreshments. (Well, Glenn led it and I fixed the applesauce cake and coffee.)

Wednesday is date night because it is the day the local theatre discounts their movies from $8 down to $6.50...so we went to see The Time Traveler's Wife. It was okay. Not great. Kind of a weird ending, and I much prefer movies to end "happily ever after".



Shopping, anyone?

Thursday was our annual neighborhood dump day. Once a year the trash company indicates a specific location in each neighborhood for everyone to place their broken appliances, furniture, used clothing and other junk that wouldn't fit in the trash can during the year. This year the empty lot in front of our house was NOT supposed to be one of the chosen locations but instead, a block up the street. Evidently old habits die hard.

They picked it up on Thursday but folks have continued to bring stuff to the spot infront of our house. I sure hope they come back again!!!! Today is Sunday, it is raining, and a guy is sitting under a scrawny tree with an umbrella, just waiting for folks to drop stuff off. He wants to be the first to dig through it to see if he wants anything.



Kimber and Christina

On Friday I went into town with two of our Eden House guests to show them the sights. They'd been at the Eden House all week and were a little bored, so even though it was cold and dreary, we headed into town to walk around a little. We hit the high tourist spots: Gellert Hotel, climbed up to Church in the Rock, walked across the Szechenyi Bridge, wandered into Grand Market hall and shared a langos (fried dough with sour cream, shredded cheese and ham-yum!), caught the metro out to Heroe's Square, meandered through City Park to the fake castle, and then stopped in a local grocery store on the way home.



Christina was a trooper!

We did stop to smell the roses and to let Christina do something she would enjoy. :)



That is not Chex Mix!

We are heading to Turkey for a Member Care meeting this week so come back this time next week and I'll have pictures of our trip!

Whenever we head out of town (which is quite frequent) we have to do something with whatever is left in our fridge so that it doesn't spoil while we're gone. This includes fruit, fresh veggies and bread. I had two partial loaves of bread that needed to be used up or thrown out, so I made garlic croutons. (I hate to waste food.) I've come into the kitchen twice and caught Glenn eating them as if they were Chex Mix!

Now that we have become masters at packing and closing up our house, we don't even have to write down our list of things to do before leaving. We even know automatically who does what task. In case you're interested, this is what we do every time we travel:

1) move plants from kitchen window and living room out to the mud room, 2) take mailbox key and note of where we're going and when we'll be back to our next door neighbor, 3) call for a taxi, 4) make a soup to use up left-over veggies in bin and freeze, 5) lock file drawer cabinet, 6) turn off hot water heater, 7) turn off water to the house so pipes don't burst when freezing outside, 8) turn down thermostat, 9) close all doors (in case of fire :), 10) Put milk and orange juice from fridge into freezer 11) plug in timers for the lights so it looks like we're home, 12) put bikes in basement, 13) close all the downstairs shutters 14) and then empty all trash cans into outside trash can.

And of course, we do the reverse when we get home!

Have a great week!

I was in the hospital earlier this week...

I was in the hospital earlier this week, but fortunately I was just visiting someone. It was an interesting experience for me because the hospital has to be one of the oldest in Budapest and is quite different from any hospital I've ever been in before. It is, however, three stars above the one we had in Daloa, Ivory Coast!!!



St. Janos Hospital is a complex of buildings that takes up a whole block. The above building is just one of about 30 that make up the "hospital". Each building houses a specialty, such as a children's building, audiology, cancer, etc.




This is the building where I went to visit a friend. It was quite old; even the addition on the front of the main building was old!




This is the front entranceway, or the lobby of this particular "hospital". Quite different from the front lobby of Wellstar/Kennestone Hospital! No receptionist in sight. Good thing I knew which room she was in!




This is one of the hallways just inside the front door. I went to visit on Thursday, a little before noon. I saw very few people, all of which were medical personnel or patients. I didn't see any family members visiting sick patients.

Even though the hospital was old, it was clean. The doctors that work at this hospital are some of the very best in the country so we feel good about the medical care that is available to us. (You can relax, Dad!)




Hungary is buying into the western world of commercialism and materialism, full-steam ahead! I saw Halloween costumes for sale at Tesco for the first time, and that is definitely not a Hungarian custom. A friend of ours at church said the costumes for sale are nothing more than a way to make money for the stores. The kids don't do trick or treating-yet. Of course, when the stores start selling aisle after aisle of large bags of candy, we'll know trick or treating is on it's way!

Christmas decorations have been showing up in stores for the past few weeks but that is not a surprise to us since we are used to that in America. However, the one thing that is big here that we haven't seen in America (and hope we never do) is the large quantities of Santa's climbing down ladders (or is he climbing up?) We saw these last year too, but they are everywhere this year!

Saturday Glenn and I, along with Dan and Janet, went to hear Dr. Gary Collins speak on "coaching". Dr. Collins is a well-known Christian psychologist who has written many books through the years, and one of his latest is on the recent trend of life coaching. If you aren't familiar with coaching, it is similar to counseling, only you don't give advice and ask people how they feel. Instead, very generally speaking, you help a person go from where he is in his life to where he wants to be.



Anyway, I wanted to make sure to get a good seat so I asked if we could get there "early". There was no cost, no reservations, and no way to have any idea how many people would show up so we decided to get there 30 minutes early "just in case". Well, we were the first ones besides those who were setting up for it!

I would guess there were about 30-35 people there, which surprised me. I obviously expected a lot more than that with a big name like Dr. Collins (or I wouldn't have come so early!). Even though there are 2000 American missionaries in Budapest, only about 10 of them came!

After the seminar, we had dinner at the Perryman's house. Skipper is quite a cook and makes one of the best pizza's I've ever had (aside from Kari's, of course!)

After dinner, Sue and I took a drive out to the neighborhood cemetery because it was the eve of the Day of the Dead (if you translate it literally). This weekend everyone goes to the cemetery to clean up the plot of their loved one and they leave candles and flowers on the gravesite. The holiday originates from the Catholic Church. This is the day families remember the dead and pray for their souls as they are stuck in pergatory. For believers, it is a day of rememberance for their loved ones.

It was 8 pm when Sue and I arrived at the cemetery, and even though the candles were burning on each of the gravesites, it was too dark to see to walk through and admire the gorgeous arrangements. We were also run out by the security guards! Tonight, Glenn and I are going to go at dusk when the candles will be lit and there will be enough light to see where we are walking. It is quite beautiful. As we walk, I will be remembering my mother who is already in heaven with Jesus.

As I write this, my husband is taking care of the dishes. I am so blessed. I know it.

We're home for another week before we hit the road again. I've never been to Turkey before!

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Nein.

Sorry folks for the blog backlog! Last Sunday was a travel day from one part of Germany to another and I just completely lost track of what day it was.

Thursday, Oct. 15th, Glenn and I flew into Basel, Switzerland which is a very small and quaint little town on the border touching both France and Germany.




We were told that when we exited the customs area, we should exit on the side that will take us to France. How cool is that? We were picked up by one of our personnel and taken to our little gasthaus (guesthouse=hotel) where we stayed for 3 nights.



Our gasthouse

Our first meeting was in the town of Kandern, Germany where there is a boarding school that some of our children attend when they get into high school.



Fountain in the center of town

We were there for a meeting of TCK education consultants (Third Culture Kids). There were about 15 of us. Only two of us were officially TCK consultants; the rest were teachers (and Glenn). The meeting was very helpful. With all of the changes within our organization, I felt so out of the loop and uninformed. By attending this meeting, I realized all the others involved in TCK education felt the same way, and that the new policies and guidelines will not be ready until January. Phew! I thought I'd missed something along the way!



Typical German village

We didn't have any free time so the only pictures I took were on our way out of town on Sunday as we headed to a town north of Frankfort about 4 1/2 hours away for a conference for first termers.



Horrible traffic on the autobahn

Before the reorg, our conference for first termers was called Ebenezer and was held in Prague, Czech Republic. Now, by combining Central and Eastern Europe with Western Europe, we have a new name, E-migrate, and a new location, Holhauzen, Germany.

On a side note: I lived in Germany when I was 3-5 years of age (in Heidelburg and Frankfort), and then again when I was in 7th and 8th grade (in Mannheim) so I was thrilled when I saw the road signs leading us to some familiar towns! Maybe on another visit to Germany, we can take an extra day and drive to Mannheim to see if I can recognize my old stompin' grounds!




Most of the participants have been living overseas for 9-15 months. Glenn and I came to do member care appointments to see how they were dealing with all the adjustments. We had some great messages and seminars on various topics.

The picture above has been "played with" to disguise the innocent, but I wanted to show you a slide he showed during one of his presentations. It is a slide of an exit off of Interstate 95 that passes through Virginia and Washington, D.C. This is the exit we took to get to our house when we lived in Springfield, Virginia when I was in high school! Between my house and the interstate was one row of houses, we were that close! I lived about 1/2 mile from this sign.



Our prayer "triplet"

We were divided into groups of three and prayed together about specific needs during the conference.



Fellowship time

We were in sessions for the most part from 9 am until 6 pm with 30 minute breaks scattered through-out the day. Everyone loved the breaks because it was a good time for getting to know people. We also had some free time in the evenings (except when we had member care appointments) for playing games and chit-chatting. As leaders, we were asked to make ourselves "available" so we didn't have a lot of time for checking emails and updating our blog!



Small group time

Glenn and I facilitated a small group where we discussed certain assigned topics.



Aren't they cute?

And, of course, there is always a children's program at the end of the week when they show off what they have learned. The children are taught by a volunteer team that comes out from the U.S. for this specific purpose. Now THAT'S MEMBER CARE for the whole family! The kids love it and the parents enjoy having child care too!



Solving the problems of the world

Glenn and Mick are "processing" all they've seen and heard during the week.



Brause Stabchen


And totally unrelated to the conference but a definite perk...while we were there in Germany, I found the candy that I used to eat when I lived in Mannheim. It is called Brause Stabchen, or Sour Sticks.


Little sour sticks

Some kids never grow up.



Geneva, Switzerland by air

The conference ended on Thursday night so we flew home on Friday with a 4 hour lay-over in Geneva's airport.




We had a great 10 days in Germany but I was so exhausted that I slept 12 hours our first night home!

Glenn heads out Monday for a meeting elsewhere in Hungary and will be gone until Thursday. I'll be here, holding down the fort until he returns. Home, sweet home.

I"m so sorry!

Hey! We're still in Germany but we didn't have internet our first week here, and we were traveling to another part of Germany on Sunday, my usual day to update this blog. I was sitting in a seminar on Tuesday when, all of a sudden, I realized I had completely forgotten to update on Sunday!

We have full days in sessions and since we're leaders, we're supposed to set good examples by being present (even though this conference isn't for us). In the evenings we have our member care appointments so busy, busy, busy!

We return to BP on Friday, so I will update on Sunday. I promise!

Passport to ...?

This past week we got our new passports. They weren't expired yet, but we are getting ready to apply for another visa to extend our stay in Hungary, and the time remaining on our passports must be longer than the length of the visa to be issued . Right now, it seems, the Hungarian government is giving five year visas instead of their normal one and two year visas so we needed new passports to be able to get a 5 year visa.



The American Embassy

We got our new passports that are good for 10 years, and we had them put 50 extra pages in them to hold all the customs' stamps as we enter and leave the countries in which we work AND they gave us back our old passports (invalidated, of course) as souvenirs.



Szabadsag Ter = Liberty Square

I thought it interesting that the American Embassy is located on Liberty Square. Do you think they looked for an empty building at that particular square or did they rename it when the American Embassy moved in?




This dark building is also located on the same square. It is in desperate need of a deep cleaning pressure wash!




This building is also on Liberty Square and this is what a building looks like when it is clean. Quite a change, isn't it? I know the variations in color add character to a city, but the clean buildings just look so much prettier to me.




We had company this week. Andy and Kaye do member care in Western Europe and they came over for a couple of days for us to get to know each other better, work on strategy, and a few other work related things. Above, Kaye is talking with her granddaughter via Skype while Andy talks with their daughter. It was so cute watching Kaye play pat-a-cake! I guess one day we will be doing this too.

We went into town Saturday night to show Andy and Kaye the night lights and ran into these two young ladies from America. The one next to me is from New York and they were in Budapest to celebrate her birthday! Some present! The one on the far right is from Roswell, Georgia! It was fun talking with them and hearing their fascinating stories. It was nice running into someone from "home".

Glenn and I are driving to Germany this Wednesday to attend an MK education conference for those who work with childrens' education in our part of the world and then a conference for first termers called E-migrate (formerly called Ebenezer). Be back soon!