Almost 3 months on the mission field
I cannot believe how we are coming up on being here for three months!
Adjustment time:
The shock and awe of being here has worn off. I look back to what I was struggling with when I first arrived and am happy that I don't notice those issues anymore. First arriving here was very claustrophobic. It is a bit different having everything gated and small. The houses in this town are right up to the sidewalk which is right next to the road, so lying in bed my head is less than 10ft. from the road. The house we are in is smaller than our garage was back home. It is amazing how fast and well a person can adapt to such changes. I do however not recommend putting the bathroom right next to the kitchen, for smell purposes. Speaking of smells this was also an adjustment. A lot of the buildings are old and musty smelling and also the sewer systems maybe leak? I learned to cook here, do the laundry, drive, well almost...We had our vehicle for two weeks and someone backed into me as I was backing out. It left a nice dent on their car and a couple of scratches on mine. I was thankful that Norbi was with me so he could talk with them but it left me with the feeling that if something happened without Norbi it would be difficult.
Housing situation:
Before we arrived here, Norbi's parents had told us that we could live in their house and they would move into Norbi's late Grandmother's place. It had been for sale for 1 ½ yrs. but was not selling. We had been here a month when someone offered them full price for the place so we told them to sell it. This of course changed our plans and we started to look at places. We found a nice property in the next town and have signed the papers to buy it. The only problem is that we had to use almost all of our money we were planning to live off of this coming year. The house has a beautiful yard with room for the kids to play. It has a small wooden house on it that we can use as a guest house and also the boys can live out there at least in the spring, summer and fall. It does not have heat or a bathroom but comes with a little kitchen. Moving on to the house, it is old and in rough shape. It is also small coming in at 400sq. ft. My father in law told me not to take down the vine on the side of the house because that is what is holding the house together, ha-ha. Before we move in we need to put in a floor and some heat. Right now the outside door opens into the one bedroom so we need to build an entryway. We hope to add a couple of bedrooms on to the front of the house come spring.
This is our new house.
This is the little wood house on the back yard
Setting up Children's English Program:
Our Children's English program is in full swing. It is really so much fun and we enjoy this. We go into the largest public school here in Sopron and build relationships with the children there and teach them English. The kids are so very cute and I love seeing the sparkle in their eyes!
The middle school in the background where we have our English club at
Norbi is able to communicate, teach and preach in Hungarian. Last Sunday he was invited to preach here in a church that he had helped start 20 some years ago. It was very special for me to meet people that had become followers of Jesus in that time and were still in that church. Norbi preached and at the end we had an exciting time of prayer for people.
We did not know before we came that we would walk into a dream team here! I am so grateful for this. We somehow stumbled into finding out that there is an English/Hungarian church here in town. So our first Sunday we walked 40min. to this church and found out that the pastor is an American, married to a Hungarian. Also, two young missionary girls there, one from Russia the other from England. We have so enjoyed this group of people and were so embraced. Many ministries are already in place that we were able to plug into.
Here are some of them: prayer for the city, English for college age group, mental hospital ministry, bible studies, orphanage, worship night, gypsy camp in the summer...
One of the missionary girls spends a lot of time at the orphanages here and Selah is able to go often with her. This is so cute, Selah had a hard time leaving her friends back home and she felt that her heart had a tear in it. A couple of weeks ago she told the girl that she helped heal that tear.
Our church building
This is where we go and pray over the city on Monday nights
Same place during the day. This was an Amphitheater small Colosseum from the Roman Empire. Currently it is covered up with dirt to preserve it.
Update on kids:
I asked them each how they are adjusting being here and this is what they said:
Izi misses the US. He often talks about his dog and the stores and how he misses his things and friends.
Izaac says He likes it but misses America and his friends.
Selah says she is doing good and she enjoys it here. It's fun and she loves seeing her family more.
Zion says he would rather be in America. “Food is good here. Candy is good and I like the chocolate covered raisins. Buildings are cool.” He says “I am getting used to it.”
The kids call this the Barbie tower since it is lit in pink at night
I want to say a huge Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your prayers, encouragement, support and love. It has been such an amazing time and in pressing through all of the fear and all of the uncertainty and all of the work in making this move. We can say with all confidence that we are happy that we have followed what God has for us. It indeed was what God had planned for us!
With love,
The Báns