We rejoice at the Resurrection of Jesus and thank you for your continued support.

“He has risen; He is not here!”

Mark 16:6

And While I firmly believe when God calls the parents into missions, He calls the children as well, that does not mean there won’t be days that will just be REALLY STINKING HARD.
I won’t relay the rest of our conversation for the sake of her privacy, but obviously now, almost 2 months into our lives in Hungary, we DID DO THIS – and not because we had any strength left of our own (because we didn’t).  We have survived and even thrived some here in Hungary due to God’s Grace, His Power, His Mercy, His calling on our lives.

On an average day I take the bus to get groceries, recycle many things, have a conversation with my neighbor that starts with her asking”what are you cooking”, break up fights between my children, and wonder when (not if) I am going to freeze to death. My wonderful husband tackles everything from plumbing to finances and mimes his way through most conversations around town when I am not there.  He is the family driver and navigates in a foreign country where he cannot read a single traffic sign.  NOT ONE.

Learning how to live above average for God, while being below average, even really mediocre doing every day things is a challenge. 
In general nothing I say or do is going to cause that much excitement here. “Who are you”, “What are you doing”, and “Why did you come” are much more common phrases here than “OMG!”

In the coming weeks we are finding a language school for Terry. A good school is hard to come by and for the sake of our marriage (grins) I will not be his language tutor. Although I do enjoy being a helper. I also enjoy being a Hungarian, just like I enjoy being an American. I can adjust to living between two worlds, I”ve been doing it my entire life. There are days when like our 9yr old I too think  I . CAN’T . DO . THIS.  But God can do this and He will. Thank you for being on this journey with us. All God does is for our Good. All we do is for His Glory.

Just a short video I shot while heading downtown for a meeting. It’s the view (as best you can see while in a car) on the Petofi bridge. No, I’m not crashing at the end of it. I dropped the camera while trying to turn it off.

This was on one of the recent clear days. The weather has been really erratic. For example, yesterday another snow storm hit and dropped about 2″. Last night was really windy all night and today there is zero snow anywhere to be found. The sun is out and it’s just about t-shirt weather.

I look like them, I sound like them, I even gesture like them, and yet still when the cashier at IKEA asked me if I wanted “nyomtatott nyugtát”  I had no idea what she was talking about! Turns out it’s a receipt. So friends as you are wondering how we are doing, pray for our language learning.

I have been able to buy groceries, enroll children in school, call a plumber, meet a neighbor and communicate with immigration officials, but I (we) still have a LOT to learn. And unlike other countries where you can mime your way through a conversation, here people treat you like an adult, and when they ask you a question actually expect at least a toddler-level response of some sort.  Ministry here cannot thrive without language. And so we press on learning the day to day things and looking for ministry opportunity, but awknowleding that right now that looks like burning trash with your 70yr old neighbor, who speaks no English.  And have I mentioned Hungarian is hard?

Every day is full of activity. I (Terry) have moved over two dozen times over the years and this is on a whole ‘nutha level. It really is like combining all the complexity of an international, cross-cultural move with starting a new business at the same time, there are that many details and puzzle pieces.

So today we’re taking rest…and getting in some good snowball fights

We are so thankful to Keith and Beverly Sellers (and their daughter and son) for giving us a place to stay. We hope to have our own rental home within a couple of weeks and then we can start the process for our residency permits (visas).

There’s a flurry of other stuff going on too; arranging schooling for the girls, figuring our cell phone service, when to rent a car (we can’t buy one until we have some other documents completed) etc. But for today and tomorrow it’s about REST. The ‘littles’ actually slept until 10:30AM (3:30AM Houston time)! Granted it was due to jet lag, but it was great for Christina and me to be able to get some extra hours of deep sleep too. We’re hoping to kick the jet lag by tomorrow.

Anyway, here’s a few pics of our two days traveling. Stay tuned!

It’s an interesting thing to be on the verge of an international, over-the-pond move; especially when it’s not just yourself, but your wife and children as well. I wonder if it’s similar to what military personnel feel when preparing to be deployed. You’ve trained for it. You’ve thought about it and obsessed over it at times. You’ve played the ‘hurry up and wait’ game. Now it’s here. Time to get step on a plane and change the course of your life. Time for all the ‘what-if’s’ to start falling by the wayside, washed away by reality.

So we’re two weeks out, full of training, facts, and more questions than when we officially started down this path in May of 2009. D-Day 1/29. We’re ready to jump.

Over the centuries much has taken place in the space captured in this photo. We wonder what will be in the days ahead, and take great comfort in the knowledge that our uncertainties are perfectly known to God. In all circumstances there is surety through faith in the God over all circumstances.