Erdély

This past week has been pretty busy. Last Wednesday was Ballagás, or graduation at our school. As a result there was a lot of irregularity all week long. Monday and Wednesday we had short classes. It was just utterly useless to be there... oh well. The school was all decked out on Wednesday with lilacs (my favorite flower). It smelled heavenly. I was unable to actually attend the graduation ceremony because I left to go to Erdély.

Erdély is the Hungarian name for Transylvania. This trip was organized by Árpád, a friend of mine from the ICFB. Árpád grew up in a town near where we went to visit. There were about twenty of us, we stayed in a house that we rented up in the Carpathian Mountains. On Wednesday we drove 13 hours and arrived at four in the morning! Luckily it was a very relaxing trip, so we were able to sleep in the next day. We spent time out in "the nature," played lots of games, ate some amazing food, went to a museum in Kézdivásárhely, and spent a lot of time worshiping our Father.

Because of the international mix I somehow was asked to translate for our worship times. Árpád speaks English very well, but there were some people who only spoke Hungarian, so he wanted to give some devotional thoughts in Hungarian. We talked about communication with God, art, things that break down communication and things that build it up. It was really refreshing. We also spent a lot of time singing worship songs in English... which I really appreciated.

When we went to the museum they asked me to translate there too. It was such a good experience to try out translating. I have thought about this a lot and think that it would be good to practice more. Translating from Hungarian to English is not too hard and I can find the appropriate nuances. The museum was a little bit more difficult because there were words like "ceh" which is a guild. Or "asztalos" = carpenter. Things like that are more difficult to translate because I don't use those words every day. Church vocabulary I am pretty good at. I hope that there will be more opportunities for me to practice and that God will use this for his work.

This week has been really nice because we have seven days off from school. I got back from Erdély on Sunday and still had three days of freedom!

Yesterday we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. Lauren and I made a Pinata, tortillas, salsa, guacamole and margaritas from scratch. It was fun to have "authentic" Mexican food and hang out with some people.

Hopefully I will be able to steal some pictures from people of these great events to show you everything...

Prayer requests:
- Energy and Health to finish the school year with a bang! (Last day is June 13)
- Funding for a plane ticket home and other expenses (like grad school...)
- Harvest: we have been investing so much time, energy and love into our students this year and I just pray that they see God in it. I want them to know God so badly and I pray that they will know Him soon!
- SpeakOut: for students to have fun, enjoy and see God working at camp
- APU: I am still procrastinating... I have to do grad work... please pray for this to go well.
- Summer plans: I am still trying to work out specific dates for the summer. Please pray for the summer to be a time of rest and preparation for next year.

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