Thanksgiving in Hungary

Well, Thanksgiving Day is not really celebrated in Hungary as a nation-wide holiday, but the Baptist churches across the country do celebrate it, typically sometime in the fall though not on a set date. Our church celebrated it today, so I am reminded of all the things for which I am thankful. I am dedicating this blog to some things for which I am thankful.


Once a year trash pick-up

I am thankful for weekly trash pick-up! I am also thankful that this trash pile is in front of our our house for only about a week out of every year! Each neigborhood is given a date by the local government in which they will send garbage trucks out to pick up old furniture, broken appliances, discarded building supplies, smelly rugs, empty cardboard boxes and any other kind of trash that has accumulated during the past year. (They evidently don't have dumps where people can throw it away during the year!) Fortunately, when they come to pick up the tons and tons of garbage on the assigned day, they do a great job of raking the ground and getting up all the scraps; in fact, it looks nicer right after the junk is picked up than at any other time of the year!!


Mark and Linda, Member Care Head Honcho

We are thankful for friends like Mark and Linda who work in Member Care in our Richmond office. Mark led a retreat in western Europe and then he and Linda came over to visit with Glenn and me for two nights. We really enjoy them and had a great time getting caught up on their news.


My new favorite ice cream place!

While we were out showing Mark and Linda our beautiful city, after they treated us to dinner at TGI Fridays, we stopped for a bit of ice cream. Not only was it some of the most delicious ice cream I've ever had, it was definitely the most beautiful!!! The lady artistically scooped the ice cream out of the tub and formed it into a rose!


Thanksgiving decorations at church

We are thankful for our local church here in Budapest. It's been a while since we have been able to go to church in Budapest due to our travel schedule or our work at the Eden House when it was our turn to cover for the weekend so it was good to be back there this morning! We were told by our friend Ambroise that the Hungarians don't have a Thanksgiving Day but that the churches choose a convenient day in October or November to thank God for His abundant blessings during the past year. I thought this was really pretty but it didn't seem to have the "finished" look that Anne Q. would have given it!


Gorgeous colorful leaves and crisp cool temperatures

We are thankful for the moderate weather that we have here in Budapest! We have long springs and long falls, and only a couple of weeks of really hot or really cold weather, for which I am extremely grateful! We heard today that our friends in Ukraine have already had their first light snow!!


Glenn and Istvan (Steve)

We are thankful for our Hungarian friend, Istvan. Our lack of Hungarian language and our busy travel schedule makes it really hard to make friends with Hungarians; this is one thing that we really miss.

Notice the scarf around his neck? Hungarians (and many Europeans) believe that if you have a sore throat, you should keep it wrapped up to help it heal faster. Interesting, eh?

Well, as you see, we have much for which we are thankful, and the list could go on and on... We enjoyed Thanksgiving at church this morning, but didn't stay for the pot luck meal since we didn't realize it was Thanksgiving and came unprepared. We are also thankful to be spending Thanksgiving in America with our families this year! Glenn and I will be attending a Member Care conference in Indiana the week before Thanksgiving and then arriving in Marietta on Sunday before the holiday.

But in the meantime, we are off to Far East Russia (11 time zones away!) to visit some of our families this Tuesday for 10 days, and then to France to visit Kari and Jonathan before we head stateside. We think we will have internet access while we are gone, so stay tuned... We return to Budapest on October 31st.