Language and Rooster Testicle Stew
If you are not careful in Hungary, you too will end up eating Rooster Testicle stew. This language is HARD, really hard. I (Christina) am a Hungarian by heritage (both mother and father born in Budapest) but I’ve never lived here full time. I’ve been speaking Hungarian in the US my entire life and yet I can honestly say HUNGARIAN IS HARD.
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?