Christmas is here!

The fam at the Christmas Eve service

Our family traditions live on! On Christmas Eve we went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants after the service at West Cobb Church. We figured out a few years ago that there's not much of a wait on Christmas Eve. We walked right in and ate some great steaks.


Chris and Kate

Christmas morning we did stockings-brunch-gifts, but everything seemed 'extra' special since all six of us were here together for it. Today we're headed over to see the other half of the family (the Borders clan). More photos to come!


The tree at the Christmas Eve service at West Cobb Church


Kate, the designated cookie cutter


Cookie decorators at work: Kari, Corrie, Christian and Mom


Cousins: Dannelly, Kate and Corrie


Chris is famous for his creative cookies. This year he took one with a crack and painted on jeans and a shirt to make a 'plumber cookie'. No one ate it.


Cousins: Chris, Kari, Jonathan, Bryce and Corrie


Girl cousins: Kari, Kate, Corrie and Dannelly


Playing Mad Gabs - very funny stuff...


...as you can see from us (Jonathan) laughing "with" me!








Kate and Kari modeling Hungarian scarves


Chris opening gifts in his stocking

We've saved the best for last!

We started the week at the Member Care conference in Richmond, Virginia at ILC, went through Marietta to say hi to our parents, and finished the week in Tennessee with Kate and Chris. But I jump ahead of myself...



Glenn and I had a great week and really enjoyed the conference, especially the time with our teammates. The shopping wasn't bad either!



We also had various errands to run and "things to do" while in Richmond. One of the things to do was to mail two suitcases to Darin and Kesha who served with us in Budapest. They completed their 2 year commitment overseas and returned to the US in November, but needed help getting some things back to the States.



Another thing we had to do was go to Cheeburger Cheeburger (no misspelling there) for Glenn. We ate there several times when we were at ILC a year ago. They are famous, or rather, well-known for their homemade onion rings and about 25 flavors of malts and shakes.


Yum! Yum!

Our Member Care teammates

Glenn and I ate there at the beginning of the week to make sure it was as good as we had remembered (it was!) before we took our teammates at the end of the conference. You know, if you know something is good, you want to share it with others...

On Saturday, we flew to Marietta for a quick visit with our parents. I mean "quick"! Barely over 24 hours.

Lunch at the Borders' homestead

We ate lunch with Glenn's family and spent the afternoon visiting with them before heading across town to spend some time with my dad and Emogene.

Johnny's Pizza

First choice was pizza (natch) so we ate at Johnny's on Saturday night (Don't worry, Kari-we're still on for Johnny's next Saturday when you get here!)

Second choice

Sunday morning we visited First Baptist Church Marietta where my Dad and Glenn's parents are members. It was good seeing all our old friends and meeting their new pastor, Dr. Bill Ross. We decided to go to FBCM this first Sunday because we will be speaking at our home church, West Cobb Baptist Church, on December 23rd.

After church we ate lunch with my sister Elizabeth and her husband Brennon, Dad and Emogene at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then went to visit our former next door neighbors, Ed and Jo Chupp. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of them! Someone needs to remind me to do it when we go back to visit them when Kate, Chris, Jonathan and Kari get here!

After a short visit with the Chupp's and talking with the family that is living in our house, we headed up to Maryville, Tennessee to spend a few days with Kate and Chris.

It was soooooooo good to see them!

Glenn and Chris are going backpacking Wednesday-Friday while Kate and I stay home (dry and warm). On Friday afternoon, we will all head to Marietta for Christmas. Jonathan and Kari arrive from France on Saturday! It is such a wonderful blessing to all be together for Christmas this year. Thank you God for your goodness to our family! May we never forget how awesome You are!

This One's for Kari and Jonathan!

We said good-bye to dear friends in Budapest and boarded a plane on Friday at noon that took us to Richmond, Virginia by way of a short stop in New York. We arrived at ILC on Friday night and crawled into bed at 12:30 am (which was 6:30 am Budapest time!). A long day, but fortunately, uneventful!



This photo is for Kari and Jonathan who are also so close they can almost taste it!



Sleeping until 10 am, we finally crawled out of bed to go meet Brian and Michelle Stevens at Applebees for a long lunch. They are the wonderful couple that is coming in April to Budapest to manage the Eden House. We enjoyed getting to get to know them, sharing about the work and ministry, and hearing about how God led them to join our team. We ask you to keep them in your prayers as they have MUCH to do to get ready! We remember all too well all there is to do before saying the last good-bye!



Glenn usually spoils me by letting me choose where to eat, but Glenn put in his request long ago for Cheeburger, Cheeburger so that's where we went for dinner on Saturday night. They have delicious "real" hamburgers (you know, not pressed patties) and the most awesome fried onion rings. Their only weakness is that they serve Pepsi. Coming from Atlanta, we are Coke fans through and through, but up here in Virginia, everyone serves Pepsi.

In just a few minutes Glenn and I will be heading back to the airport to pick up Alvin and Mary Doyle, our co-workers from Budapest who have been on their stateside assignment for the past 5 months. They are attending this Member Care conference also, and then will have one more month in the U.S. before returning to Hungary. It will be good to see them again and get caught up on their news.

We will be here until Saturday, at which point we will pass through Marietta on our way to Tennessee to visit with Chris and Kate, arriving at their place on Sunday evening. We look forward to seeing you soon!

America, Here We Come!

Monday morning we woke to a surprise!



Two inches of beautiful snow had fallen during the night.



But have no fear! The stores were ready with their many different types of sleds; everything from the old-fashion wooden ones to spiffy, ultra-modern plastic seats that hold nothing more than a bottom and two feet. Fortunately, I own a pair of ski pants that would keep me warm while sledding. Unfortunately, we don't live near a hill. I remember when Glenn and I were first married and living on the seminary campus, we woke to about 6 inches of snow one morning. We learned that poor seminary students "borrow" the plastic trays from the cafeteria to use as sleds. It works pretty well, if your bottom isn't bigger than 12" x 18"!



Saci loves the snow, but doesn't like the draft in the mud room, so every so often she would step inside the house to see if we had changed our mind about letting her in. Her family returns to Budapest tomorrow so we will have to say good-bye to her! She's been a great dog!


Glenn "babysits" the older Corder children...


While I babysit Rachel!

In addition to the exciting birth of baby Rachel, we've been able to spend some time with Nancy who came for knee surgery. After getting dressed in her stylish hospital gown, one of the orderlies needing to get the surgical room ready came in and and asked her if surgery would be on her left leg. We all kinda panicked!

So we decided to mark her left leg just to make sure there wasn't any doubt. NEM! means NO! Her surgeon and the nurses all got a kick out of it, as did the rest of us!

She was in and out of surgery within an hour, and two hours later was eating a hamburger from Burger King! Everything went well with the surgery and she is recovering nicely.

Today we said good-bye to the Corder family as they returned to their country of service. We have grown so close to them that it was difficult to say good-bye. I told Nancy as the Corders pulled out of the parking lot, that saying good-bye to folks that we'd gotten to know so well is the hardest part of our job. We will miss them!

And for those of you who know how much I love dishes (Kari, Kate, Kristin, Donna, Diane), I hope you noticed my Christmas dishes and goblets. When I started setting the table for this meal, which was on December 1, and pulled out my small amount of Christmas dishes, I grieved a little for all the dishes and things I gave away or sold before coming. Same thing at Thanksgiving! I kept thinking, "You know, a year ago I had ..." Oh, well.

Tomorrow starts the real countdown until we fly to America. 5-4-3-2-1! We leave here on Friday morning, and will arrive in Richmond, Virginia that evening. Saturday, we are meeting up with the ISC couple that will be coming in April as host/hostess of the Eden House for two years. (They live about 2 hours from Richmond.) On Sunday, we will pick up Mary and Alvin Doyle, our co-workers, at the Richmond airport. Mary and Alvin will be attending the Member Care conference with us next week. It will be good to see them again. They return to Budapest on January 10th.

After the conference, we will spend one night in Atlanta before heading up to Tennessee to visit with Chris and Kate for a few days. Kari and Jonathan arrive in Atlanta on December 21st. We hope we get to see a lot of our friends during the short time we are in the Atlanta area! I'm sure the time will fly by all too quickly.

Szia!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The baby is finally here! Rachel Kristen was born on Tuesday evening at 8 pm.


The complete, happy Corder family

Mom, Dad and Glenn arrived at the hospital an hour before she was born, and the doctor arrived just 5 minutes before! Close call! I had studied my book that I had in Africa called Where There Is No Doctor and tried to get Glenn to keep it in the car "just in case" he needed it; he refused to even consider the possibility that he might need to deliver little Rachel on the 45 minute drive out to the hospital. We thank God that everything went smoothly and for His beautiful gift to the Corder family!

Unfortunately though, Carolyn was still in the hospital and missed our Thanksgiving get-together on Thursday at the Eden House. We saved her some turkey and all the trimmings though!


It barely fit!

We ordered 2 turkeys for the 16 adults and 12 children. Karen cooked one and I cooked the other. As you can see, the turkey barely fit into my oven! I had 2 inches on the bottom and 1 inch to spare at the top!



But it turned out just right! Glenn actually cooked the turkey while I was up at the Eden House setting up and decorating for our Thanksgiving feast.

Just a note here: In Budapest, we have to order turkeys ahead of time because they don't sell whole turkey's in the grocery stores except at Christmas time. Most of the year, if you want a turkey and catch them at a meat store before they cut the turkeys up, you can buy one that weighs about 20 kilos (44 pounds). They don't kill them until they are huge because they usually cut them up into pieces to sell. Only at Christmas can you buy a whole turkey that is "small" at about 20 pounds. (Hungarians don't celebrate our American holiday called Thanksgiving in November. They do, however, celebrate it as part of the big celebration on August 20th commemorating when Hungary became a country.)


Glenn carves the turkey

We had invited all our co-workers in Hungary to join us but most of them were doing something with their "team" so it was mainly the ones who live in Budapest, the Corder family (minus Carolyn), one of our language tutors, and our friends, the Snyders. We had tons of food and 12 baskets left over!

The fellowship was sweet!

James loved the black olives!

On Saturday, we drove about 1 1/2 hours to the western part of Hungary to enjoy another Thanksgiving meal with the Brown's. There were a total of four families at that gathering. We had a great time, and it was nice to get away for a day!

Doesn't he look at home in the pulpit?

Glenn was asked to share at our church on Sunday a testimony of Thanksgiving. Fortunately, Gabor was there to translate for Glenn since the Hungarian language is still "in progress". Glenn shared a little bit about the commitment he made while we were at ILC (this time last year!) to memorize Scripture and how God has blessed him through it. At the end of the worship service, one of the ladies in the church asked him which Scriptures he had memorized because the Lord convicted her that she needed to be doing that too! Glenn gave her the 6 verses that are known as the Roman Road (the road to salvation) to start with, but he really has a stack of them! It was encouraging to realize that God can speak through a translator too!

Well, now it is officially the Christmas season!

Cile at Campona Mall

We didn't see Christmas decorations in the mall until about 2 weeks ago, but they have had decorations for sale for over a month. However, we did notice that they were NOT for sale before November 1, unlike in America!

We will be flying to the U.S. for a Member Care conference in Richmond, Virginia at ILC from December 10-14. From there, we will spend some vacation time in Tennessee with Chris and Kate (son and daughter in law) before going on down to Marietta to visit with our parents, brothers and sisters. We were blessed by friends Dennis and Karen at our church in Marietta with a gift of sky miles to fly Kari and Jonathan (daughter and son in law) from France to Marietta for Christmas to be with us!! It will be wonderful to have the whole family together! We have not seen our son in almost a year, so I am counting down the days! Thank you Karen and Dennis!

We will return to Budapest on January 7. While we are gone, the Eden House is going to be "covered" by 3 couples, each taking a week to 10 days. Pray for these couples, and thank God for each one of them!

Have a good week!

Slow Week, thank goodness!

This week has been slow, at least in terms of blogworthy news and pictures! I will have more pictures next week because of the upcoming Thanksgving holiday. Even though the Hungarians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, they do eat turkey so we will be eating turkey (galore) and the typical sweet potato casserole, dressing, cranberry salad and pumpkin pie just like the rest of America.

About 20-25 of our missionaries and their children will gather at the Eden House on Thursday to celebrate together. Glenn and I are responsible for picking up the turkey from the Grand Market Hall in downtown Budapest, and the last we heard, we could expect our turkey to weigh about 20 kilos. That is 44 pounds! We found out that you can't get small turkeys at this time of year; they do, however, have "family size" turkeys at Christmas time. I think we are going to cut the turkey in half and Karen will cook half and I will cook the other half!

On Saturday, we are going to the town of Gyor about 1 1/2 hours away to celebrate with some of our other missionary friends. Fortunately, I am not cooking that turkey!



We are still waiting on the mom at the Eden House to give birth so Glenn and I are staying close to the phone. Earlier this week I took one of our missionaries to the medical clinic we use in town, and I thought you might like to see some pictures of it. It is very clean and modern, and looks like any doctors' office you might see in America.



This is Kriszta. She is the liason between our missionaries and the clinic. She schedules our appointments and goes with our folks to specialists who are "outside the clinic" in order to show us how to get there and to translate for us if the specialists don't speak English. Kriszta has been witnessed to by many of our missionaries through out the past couple of years, and she became a follower of Christ about 7 months ago! Keep her in your prayers, please.



Glenn has used his electrical know-how this week to install an electric gate opener for me! He worked outside in the cold and dark (even though it was about 5:00 pm!) It is so nice to just punch a remote in the car as I drive up to the house and have the gate open for me! Glenn was able to do all the work except for the welding!

I am going to be teaching conversational English to our landlord's son once a week. He is about 5th or 6th grade and has been learning English at school, and does a pretty good job of it. It won't demand much of me; I'm just supposed to give him an opportunity to talk and help him with his pronunciation. Would you pray for my time with him? Pray specifically that I will have an opportunity to share Christ with him.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!