Ippistle 39
Monday, April 23, 2012
Dear Friends and Family,
We have both had a good start to the
work week, and have come home to prepare supper with our ESI team
mates Justin and Stephen. Each week we try to have a meal together
and then discuss a book that we have agreed to read together. We
finished “Radical” by David Platt and are now beginning “A
Breviary of Sin: Not the Way It's Supposed to Be” by Cornelius
Plantinga. We share good physical and spiritual food.
May 1 is a holiday for the people of
Hungary, and it seems everyone will also have the day before as a
“holiday”, thus creating a four-day weekend. We and Justin are
traveling to the Transylvanian part of Romania with our 12th
grade student Szilvi and her family. She has planned a lot of
sight-seeing for us, including a salt-mine, Dracula's castle, and
some hikes in the mountains. Besides being a great time for
relaxation, we also see this time as an opportunity to develop our
relationship with Szilvi and her family.
The following Saturday, May 5, is our
school's “ballagás”. It is really a type of graduation ceremony
for the students who leave the school this year—mostly 13th
graders, but also some in 12th. Ballagás actually means
“walking”; the students process slowly through the hallways of
both buildings to say “goodbye” to their school. They will be
wearing their formal-wear and carrying huge bouquets of flowers and
balloons. The audience of family, friends, and other school personnel
will be standing around the school courtyard, waiting for all classes
to have finished. After a few speeches and thank-you's, the balloons
will be released and everyone goes out to celebrate. But for these
students, school is not quite done. They will have to return to the
school for their final tests, which are not finished until the third
week of June. By that point, we will already be back in the States!
Last week Thursday and Friday we
accompanied the 9D class on their class trip to Salgótarján. We
posted quite a few pictures and described our “program” on our
blog, so check that out if you haven't seen it. The town is about two
and a half hours by train and lies on the border with Slovakia. The
class teacher is originally from this city so she did a great job of
planning the two day program which included hiking to a beautiful
castle ruins and visiting the only mining museum in Europe that
includes an original working mine.
On Saturday we were both able to
participate in different activities put on by “Serve The
City-Budapest” an organization that encourages volunteering within
Budapest. In the morning, Cindy was able to go to the Reménysugár
Habilitációs Intézet which is a living facility for mentally
handicapped adults. She was one of six STC volunteers who went to
play and sing and dance with the residents. Fortunately the residents
don't care how much Hungarian you know; it's the smiles and touch
that communicate. In the afternoon, Jack participated in another STC
trash clean up event in the same location that we've gone before
(where the prostitutes line the street). There were four of Jack's
students that also joined the “Serve The City” group in the
afternoon. Afterwards the whole group went out for pizza. It's a
great venue for building relationships. Since many from our Tuesday
night Bible study are active in the Serve the City events, they have
invited others who come to volunteer at STC to come to our Tuesday
night Bible study.
Hopefully this gives you a reminder of
what we are up to and can guide you as you pray for us in the
upcoming weeks. Thanks again for your love and care for us.
Blessings!
Jack and Cindy
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