Frimonday and Fraturday

An interesting thing about Hungary is that if there is a national holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday you will probably get the Monday or Friday off too. In order to make this possible you then have to "work off" the extra day that you got on a Saturday. This week we did not have school on Monday. I am still not sure why... some of my students told me it was because there were teacher meetings or something. I didn't go to any meetings though, so who knows. Next week we have October 22 and 23 off because the 23rd is the day that Hungarians commemorate the 1956 Revolution. As a result we have to "work off" Monday. We had normal school Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Today, Friday, we had Monday's schedule... resulting in Frimonday. Tomorrow, Saturday, we have Friday's schedule... now called Fraturday. Crazy.

Monday night Miss Long and I went bowling with one of our classes. We took the bus down to Szigetszentmiklos, where a lot of our students reside. It was good to get a feel for how far they ride the bus, what Miklos looks like, etc. We had a lot of fun, discovered that a few of our students are extremely gifted (or lucky) when it comes to bowling, and I even managed to break one-hundred on one game. It was really nice to get to know these students even more, most of them had been at the BBQ we had a few weeks ago. We have to do a lot of fighting of Hungarian culture and drinking when we hang out with our students because they are not old enough to drink yet, but no one enforces these laws. I was on the verge of being really angry when one student came out with a Pina Colada. He said "It's a virgin Pina Colada! I promise!" I told him Miss Long and I had to taste it to make sure... and it was alcohol free, so that made us happy. After bowling we went to a local pizza place. It was really fun and I just enjoy hearing what my students have to say about life in general. One girls dad gave us a ride home so that was really nice too. I look forward to hanging out again... they want to go ice skating next time. The best part about the whole bowling thing was that we did not organize it! One of our students organized, reserved the bowling alley, and took care of those things. Such a relief and it shows that they want to get to know us as much as we want to know them. Please keep these students in your prayers, and us that we will love them with the love of Christ.

On Wednesday night I went to a Bible study/ worship team practice at Paul and Kati's house. It was really nice to get some spiritual encouragement during the week and we had a really good discussion (I really just listened...) about the responsibilities of worship teams/leaders in the church. Mostly we talked about how we need to make sure that we are wanting to help people worship God and not wishing for people to think "Oh the worship team is great..." because then we start to want people to worship us and not God. It was a really intense discussion and I have definitely found myself in that place before. The focus in worship should always be God... not how good people can sing, play guitar, harmonize, etc.

Yesterday I got together with my friend Heather. She is a teacher in Budapest too. It was really great to talk about our struggles with teaching, time management, and catch up in general.

Other than that I have just been teaching and taking long naps in the afternoon. It is fairly cold now and I am really excited for my winter coat to get here next week. My room is so cold that I have been sleeping under two paplans and my Pepperdine blanket. I hear rumors that they will turn the heat on after fall break, but that it never really gets warm in our house.

Please pray for...
- Lauren to get her visa ASAP (she took a little trip to Bratislava to get it and they told her to come back in two weeks...)
- Us to stay healthy, even in the cold
- Energy (I am exhausted every afternoon...I think because of the cold)
- A peaceful 23 October commemoration
- 10C class... ahhhhh!
- The mosquitoes to go away (yes... it is cold and there are still mosquitoes in our house!)
- The Herrington Family, who will come to visit me next week, they are traveling right now
- Open hearts and spiritual growth (for me!)

Grace and peace-
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