Happy Thanksgiving!

I know, I know. I'm late again! I can give you a thousand reasons why I haven't updated since we got to the United States, but when I write them down, they all sound like excuses!

Anyway, we made it safely. We attended the Member Care conference in Indiana the week before Thanksgiving, and it was terrific!!



There were about 200 in attendance; some were counselors doing Member Care overseas like Glenn and me and some were counselors in private practice, along with university students working on their counseling degree, or professionals otherwise involved in mental health. The speakers were all excellent, tops in their various fields, and brought such a rich wealth of knowledge and understanding.



We heard speakers on topics ranging from distinquishing the difference in bi-polar disease and depression, to ethics in mental health, to how to stay recharged as counselors while bearing the weight of your patients' problems. My favorite was how spirituality can play a part in psychology and mental health.



The conference was held at an inn in a state park in Indiana. It was really beautiful, especially when we got a little bit of snow.



The inn has a 1/4 mile tobaggan run! Unfortunately, it doesn't open until Thanksgiving weekend, so we missed it by one week! We might just have to plan a vacation here some time in the future!



Our biggest shock coming back to the States was the price of gas. We were astounded at how cheap it was! It has been dropping in Hungary like it has dropped in the U.S. When we arrived in Hungary almost 2 years ago, it was $8 a gallon, but has dropped down to $5 a gallon. Sure made $1.62 look great!

Glenn and I brought very little with us in the way of clothes because most of what we have is old and worn out, and so we will be shopping. I was sooooo discouraged by the drab colors and the styles! Last winter, after several months of cold weather, I wanted to wear bright colors to lift my spirits so I was hoping for lots of bright colors to be readily available! But no! Everything is gray, brown or black. The tops for ladies remind me of the 70's, and are not very flattering for a figure in the 50's. And that cheap polyester look. Yuck.

After the conference ended, we flew to Atlanta and were picked up by my sister and her husband. We are staying with my dad in his new ranch condo. I immediately fell sick with a sinus infection and now have laryngitis.

We went to Columbia, S.C. for Thanksgiving, to be with my sister, Karin, and her family. I will post pictures of that visit in next weeks blog. Right now we are at Glenn's brothers' house celebrating Thanksgiving with the Borders side of the tree. Pictures of that too next week. Glenn's sister and her family will arrive from Augusta tomorrow so we'll continue the celebration!

"We" are supposed to speak at our church, West Cobb Church, tomorrow morning, but I think it will be "he" who will speak. Because I have been "sickly", we haven't gotten around to seeing our friends yet. Can't wait to run by our old house and visit with the Chupps! (But I am going to wait until I can talk!) We are meeting with friends for meals throughout our time here so I am working very hard at not gaining any weight while in the States. Be a shame to buy pants and then not be able to wear them because I can no longer fit in them!

I will update more pictures later this week while Glenn grabs a coffee at Starbucks or a sandwich at Subway. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

Friends from Marietta!

It has been a very calm week, and after the last few weeks with tons of pictures, I only have one for this week!!

Back in September we got an email from a friend in Marietta who goes to our home church and works for the police department. David wrote that one of his co-workers was moving to Budapest with his family, and would we please contact them to tell them about life in Budapest. Well, we've been corresponding with this family for several months and they are now here, living about 15 minutes away from us! We had Joe and Deana and their 4 children over for a Southern meal (fried chicken, green beans, buttered potatoes, homemade applesauce (we can't buy applesauce here!), croissant dinner rolls and cake (mix from America!). We had a great time with them and hope that we can get to know them better.

As we were walking them to the bus stop, I realized I had forgotten to take a picture of them but didn't have time to run back to the house to get my camera before the bus was due to arrive! Maybe next time!


Worship in English!

This weekend we had Eden House coverage. We do this once a month to give the Stevens a break from their job. (They live at the Eden House and are on-call 24/7 except on their 2 weekends off each month.) There were 4 families that arrived over the weekend so I went up there to welcome them, show them their rooms and get them settled. One of the guests, Mary Ellen, went with us to church this morning, but instead of going to our Hungarian Baptist church, we took her to the International Baptist Church of Budapest for worship in English. This is one of the services we provide to Eden House guests since so many of them come from areas where they never get to worship in English.

Well, it is Sunday afternoon and Glenn is upstairs napping. (Sundays are the best day for naps, aren't they?) Glenn is preaching tonight at the Eden House while the Doyles are on vacation. I am doing laundry in preparation for our trip on Tuesday to the U.S. for the Member Care conference. The suitcases are pulled out, but that is about it!

Please pray for our time at the conference in Indiana and the other participants that we will meet. Pray that we learn a lot, and that we develop friendships with others who are doing Member Care around the world. And then, before saying "Amen", please pray for our short time in Tennessee and Georgia with our families. It will be really nice to see them again.

Chez Kari et Jonathan!

Well, we've been to France to visit Kari and Jonathan and we're back already. We had a GREAT visit, and each time they come here or we go there, we thank God that we can live so close to them for these few years! Now, if God would just move Chris and Kate to this continent, we'd be pretty content!

I'm not going to show you all the pictures I took (aren't you glad?), but if you want to see more of our trip, just click on the link to the side for Kari and Jonathan and you can see what she has blogged about our trip.



We flew from Budapest to Geneva, Switzerland via Easy Jet.



And then from the Geneva airport, we caught a train shuttle to the main train station in the middle of the city, and rode the train from Geneva to Lyon. Kari and Jonathan met us at the Lyon train station, and then we took a bus to the house out in the country that Kari and Jonathan were house sitting for several months.



We stayed in an old French country home that belongs to a missionary couple with another organization who is on their stateside assignment until January. The house is across the street from the Saone River, so every time we would go for a walk, we would walk along the banks of the river. Gorgeous!



Lots of old buildings and houses along the river. Just about every day we would take a walk down to the grocery store, or to the next village, or up the hillside.



It was a quaint little town with lots of boulangeries (bakeries) and other quaint shops.



Notice the hill in the distance? The village where we stayed is nestled in between hills.



A week before during the night the Saone River quickly overflowed its' banks! Cars parked along the river were covered. In this picture, the water came up over the flat grassy area, and rose almost to the road where I was standing to take the picture!



Our quite capable tour guides through the villages!



Kari and Jonathan want to live in this tower. It is for sale. They are saving their centimes.

The leaves in the country and in town were at their peak of color!



One day we decided to go into town to do a little errand running and some sight seeing so we caught a bus or two...



...and wandered around in town.



One day Jonathan will have his own osteopath plaque or shingle on a wall somewhere! Ronald Ellis is an American osteopath who has his own practice there in Lyon and he teaches at the school that Jonathan attends! (In most European countries, you write the last name before the first name. For example, my name would be Borders Cile.)



We came upon the first (and only?) bagel shop in Lyon. We passed them up because we prefer the soft french pastries to the hard, crusty bagels any day!



Resting in front of one of the many fountains.



Street scene off of Bellecour.



I love the pedestrian walkways!



Along the river the government has done a major improvement by adding walking paths for several miles along the bank. They have also added amphitheatre-type seating that goes down to the waters edge so you can sit and watch the boats go by all day. They've also added fountains and play areas, like this skateboarding pit!



Okay, make that a bike pit! This would never happen in America due to law suits, but I think it is really neat! We enjoyed watching a couple of guys do stunts on their skateboards and bikes as we took a break.



We had gone into town that morning about 11 am, ran earrands and walked around all day, and then decided to surprise Jonathan and "pick him up" from his school when his classes ended at 5:30 pm.



Since it was such a beautiful evening and Jonathan had been cooped up inside all day, we decided just to continue walking some in town so that we could see the city at night.



Earlier, Kari, Glenn and I had eaten some pita sandwiches we'd bought at a little hole in the wall, and saved a little bit for Jonathan to tide him over until we got home and could fix supper.



Flowers for sale by lamp light.



Majestic old buildings that are beautiful in day light and night light! By time we got home, we were exhausted!



My favorite part of the trip, besides getting to see Kari and Jonathan, is eating all the French bread and pastries. For one week, I allow myself to eat just about anything I want (which is about everything in sight!) Here, Jonathan goes to get us bread for one of our meals...



...from one of the boulangeries!

And this is my absolute favorite, chocolate eclairs! And because I ate so much bread with butter, chocolate eclairs, pain au chocolate and such, now that I am back in Budapest, I am going to have to eat cabbage soup for the next week! Ahhh, but it is worth it! I love France, but it is probably a good thing that we don't live there or I would gain 10 pounds a year!!

We leave for a conference in Indiana on November 18th and then to spend a little time with our families in Georgia and Tennessee but we'll be home in Budapest for the next 9 days! Home, sweet home!

It snowed in Russia!

We continue our story in Russia!



Our last day in PK (Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky)was very cold and it snowed off and on all day. The Roberts decided to take a day off from their language study so we went on a special day trip about 45 minutes away from their house to a....



thermal pool! It is heated by hot springs that are warmed by the nearby volcanoes. It was awesome! The water was hot and the air was cold so you can see all the steam floating up! They have a large (hot!) lap pool, a jacuzzi that will seat about 25 people, and a large round pool with several water slides! We went on a Thursday morning about 11 am, and it was just the 6 of us and 5 or 6 other young men and then when we were about to leave a couple of hours later, a couple of other people showed up. It was cool to be in the hot pools with snow flakes falling on us!


Glenn getting a mouthful!


One of their churches out in a nearby village


Bible study in the living room

While we were there, we stayed in another families' apartment while they are on stateside assignment. Before leaving for the States, the family had started a Bible study in their living room, and the Roberts are carrying on with it while their co-workers are stateside. We were really impressed with the Roberts' level of Russian in such a short time. They evidently have worked hard at learning it, but also, since they are out there in PK alone, they have no choice but to speak Russian!!

We left PK on Friday morning to return to Budapest. We had to be at the airport by 1:30 pm to catch a 3:00 pm flight to Moscow.


Countryside on the way to airport


Volcano peeking ABOVE the clouds

Our flight from PK to Moscow was 9 hours long! Once we arrived in Moscow, we had 5 hours to kill before catching our flight to Budapest, which was about 2 1/2 hours long. Mary and Alvin met us at the airport to take us home. Normally, Glenn and I catch a taxi home but Alvin has a real strong gift of service that shows itself in always wanting to take and pick us up from the airport so since we were so tired, we let him, and we were glad we did! We woke up at 8 am on Friday to fly home, and arrived in Budapest the same night because of flying westward, but according to our bodies, it was 7 am the next day when we arrived and NO SLEEP!


Our yellow duplex behind Glenn, left half

On Saturday, after starting the 5 loads of laundry, Glenn and I decided to go into town and hike up the mountain that overlooks the city, up to the Citadel. Usually we drive up to the top behind the mountain. but this time we went via public transportation and walked up the trails on the front side. (We now have a bus stop in FRONT of our house in addition to the one in the block behind our house. We are so spoiled!)


Beautiful fall leaves


Half-way up


All the way up


2 million people


The Danube River


The Castle


~200 motorcycles ride across the bridge

On Tuesday we leave for France to spend 5 days with Kari and Jonathan. We are really looking forward to this trip! We are taking some vacation time and plan to walk a lot and eat a little. We will be staying out in the country where they have been housesitting since the beginning of summer. I hope we get to rest some while there!!!