Szervusz!

This is the Eden House, the guesthouse for our 400 missionaries who live in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest probably has the best overall medical care in this part of the world, and so missionaries that cannot get appropriate medical care where they live come to Budapest and stay here. We are staying in the basement apartment while we wait for our crates to arrive, which we have no idea when that will be! Cile loves it here because there are always people coming and going!



We've just finished our first week of language study and are trying to use what we've learned as much as possible. So far, we've mastered the basic greetings, which we think are very difficult to pronounce!



Agnes is our language teacher. She speaks very good English, which is extremely helpful when we need something explained. She is also very patient, which is definitely needed!!!



Hungarian is a very difficult language for Americans to learn but we're giving it our best efforts! (Read between the lines: pray, pray pray for us!) Hungarians add prefixes and suffixes to add meanings to the original root word. This 21 letter word is just one of the many long words that we see on signs all around us! I took a picture of this sign so that Agnes could tell us what it means. The word means plants and growing and the things that pertain to them. (This building houses a research center for plants.)



Thursday evenings we meet for Bible study with 2 other couples. Coincidentally (or is it?), all 3 couples have previously served as missionaries in West Africa so we share a common bond and have lots of fun telling "war" stories. We are currently studying the book of James.



In our spare time between walking to the grocery store, studying Hungarian, going to church and Bible study, riding the bus and trams into town to learn where everything is and visiting with missionaries as they come for medical care, Cile responds to emails and Glenn plays Solitaire on the computer.



Early Saturday morning we went to the outskirts of town to go to the large, well-known flea market in hopes of finding some real bargains for our house. We were disappointed with the fleas, but enjoyed walking, being together, and trying to use our kicsi (little) Hungarian. When it closed, we caught a couple of buses and trams and went into downtown Budapest to take some pictures. We then walked and walked and walked. On the way home, we hopped off the bus and went into a "mall" that had an Office Depot! Very cool. Very expensive!


Beautiful, old buildings in Budapest!


Walked on the sidewalk down the Danube River

We left the house that morning at 10:00 am and arrived back at the house at 5:30 pm, having walked 8-10 miles that day. Cile's feet were exhausted and all they wanted to do was watch a movie. She didn't move off the bed the rest of the evening and was sore on Sunday but it was worth it!


Isten Ha'za-God's House

We went back to Budafok (that's the name of our neighborhood) Baptist Church on Sunday, and again, Gabor translated the whole service for us. We met the pastor and his wife, who, fortunately for us, both speak a little English! Next Sunday, they want us to "speak" during the service and tell a little about ourselves. They will have Gabor translate for us, but wouldn't it be great if we could work with our tutor and learn how to say it in Hungarian!?!

In closing, we'd like to ask you to pray about the sale of our house in Marietta. So far, the only interested buyers we've had have been folks wanting it for rental property or wanting to "fix it up" and resell it, both of whom want to buy it at a "fire sale" price (as Cile's father says). We ask you to pray that God will give us peace to wait on the right buyer, or let us know whether to lower the price, or that He has a third plan for it. We're asking you to pray for this for us because we want to be able to focus on our work here, and not be distracted by an empty house there. Thanks!