Temesvary Travels in Hungary and Beyond

It's been a long time...

2008-02-23T17:54:00.010+01:00

... way too long, since we have updated our blog spot. Unfortunately our access to the internet is still very limited. We know that it is hard for some of you to believe that there are still places in the world where 24 hour internet access is not the norm. ☺ Hopefully we won’t fall into that category for much longer. They have begun running the cable lines in our town and ‘say’ that we should have access by mid March. Though, we’ve lived in Hungary long enough to know not to hold our breath’s.

Progress is moving forward on our house. The bathroom is almost completely finished. The tile work is done. The sink was hung
Wednesday night. And we are looking for the right shower wall to complete the project.

Robby, some friend’s of ours son, is with us right now. He will be with us for six weeks.
He and Joska have set up a weight room in the old post office, which the men in town are looking forward to using. Now they have begun working on the walls and floor of the second bedroom.

Unfortunately that means that Robby finds himself camping out in the living room amidst several boxes and things that have been removed from the bedroom until the tile is completed.

still working

2007-11-08T14:27:00.000+01:00

Progress is being made on our house.

The bathroom is starting to look more and more like a bathroom.

The gas pipes are installed. Today we had the inspection and they promise that tomorrow they will install the meter. After that the gas can be turned on. Hooray!

Joska did the finishing work around the three new windows in the back of the house.

Peti and Mark came out and helped during their fall break. They did the mozaic in four of the door jams. Don't you agree that it looks great?

Visitors

2007-11-06T15:35:00.000+01:00

We had the wonderful blessing of visitors early this fall.

Ildiko, Joska's mom, and Gero, Joska's nephew, were with us for five days. We really enjoyed our time together. It was a blessing to have them with us.

In the middle of their visit we also had Wayne and Greta Meece with us. Wayne is our new field coordinator with Team Expansion. We were blessed to have them with us as well. Together we all had a traditional Hungarian "Bogracs" of Hungarian Gulyas. It was fabulous! Wish you could have all been here!

Summer's Over

2007-10-04T11:53:00.000+02:00

Summer has come and gone, it seems so quickly. Sometimes we wonder where the time went, but then we remember...

We had several ministry outreaches this summer, in Boly, Kiskunmajsa, Kubekhaza, Cegled, Kiskunhalas and twice in Balatonszemes. Most of these outreaches were English camps together with some baseball, crafts and film clubs. One of the time in Balatonszemes was a large conference, an extension of the 'Keswick" conference from England. Most of our summer was occupied by these events with planning, preparing, back and forth to the office for supplies and traveling to and from these towns. However, evrey spare moment we had at home was spent continuing the work on our house. It certainly did not progress very quickly, but now we are getting back to work.

Here is some of the progress since the beginning of June. Drywall was put up on all the ceilings and new windows put into the bathroom and toilet, with some help from our friends.

Another friend helped install the furnace and conect it to all the radiators and floor heating.

We painted the ceiling in our bedroom and in the entry room. And we tiled the floor in the entry room.

And finally we got the tub installed. It may not look like it, but it is usuable. And we are still using it in this condition. Joska is commited to finishing the bathroom this month. :) We can hardly wait!

Girls too can have some fun!

2007-05-25T13:49:00.002+02:00

Boys and their toys

2007-05-25T13:21:00.003+02:00

It's been a long time!

2007-05-14T14:25:00.000+02:00

Sorry that we haven't updated our blog for so long. Life has been (and still is) crazy. Just haven't made it a priority.

We had a good time in the USA, although we were also very glad to return home, to Hungary. We traveled in 11 states during our three months in the USA, met with many of our friends and saw some great sites. We put many, many miles on our friends car. (Thanks again!) We lost track of how many different beds we slept in. And almost had a three day return trip.

Since our return we have enjoyed getting back into contact with many of our friends. We have busily been working on our house.

We have had visitors to help with the work from both the USA and Austria. We have been able to participate in ongoing outreaches in Balvanyos. And we have been putting together this summer's OVM outreach schedule. It looks like we will participate in 7 different OVM outreaches from June through September.

Work on the house is coming along. As usual not everything has worked out as planned. (Do they ever?) And things never go quite as quickly as we can work through them in our minds. Just this past Saturday (May 12) we poured the floors in the bathroom and toilet. Most of the water pipes have been run. The kitchen floor is mostly tiled.

One bedroom floor is completely finnished (thank you Duane, Bill and Dan). But there is still much more to be done. Regardless we are planning to move in this coming weekend (mainly because where we have been staying they have guests arriving), and I am so looking forward to unpacking our suitcases for the first time since last November.

Traveling State Side

2007-02-15T17:04:00.000+01:00

We have passed the halfway mark in our time in the states and have already been in 10 different states along the way. We have had weather as warm as 60 F and as cold as -6 F. We have seen rain, snow, ice and sun shine. And, Praise the Lord, we have had mostly clear dry roads when we have been traveling from state to state.
It has been great fun to visit with so many of our family and friends. And we look forward to seeing many more of you before we head home to Hungary.

A little Alabama sun shine.

A view from above in windy, cold Chicago.

Just taking a nap.

A little snow in Indiana.

So thankful it's just temporary.

2006-12-01T11:42:00.000+01:00

We moved into our temporary home a week ago today. Sandi had not yet been there and was not quite prepared for what welcomed them. Let's simply call it a fly invasion. In the first hour Sandi must have vacumed up over a thousand flys. And has vacumed everyday since as they continue to come in and die. Here are just a couple of pictures so that you can see for yourselves.

The house itself is also not in the best condition. But it will do for a month. However, if we are able to work out some heating in our new home we are more than happy to move out of here and into it. :)

The front view.

The back view.

In our bedroom.

Possibilities...

2006-11-06T11:01:00.000+01:00

We've done it. We've found a house and are in the process of making the purchase. We must have looked at about 25-30 houses or properties. Right in the middle we came upon one that we liked, but we just kept on looking. However, everything we saw afterward simply reassured us that this would be the one. We will sign all the papers today and then, as foreigners of course, we will have to wait for it to be approved. But by December the house should be ours. Praise the Lord!

The house is in Nagycsepely, a small town 12 kilometers south of Lake Balaton, in the southwest part of Hungary. It is a small, quiet town. Though not on the lake, Nagycsepely is located in between Balatonszemes, where the church is with which we will be partnering, and Balatonfoldvar, where they would like to plant a church.

The house is about 20 years old. Very well built, though never completely finished. We will do a couple of things to it right away (like put in heating and kitchen cabinets) and then slowly finish and decorate the rooms as we have time and money. It has a large yard. (The property is 4040 m2.) Joska is looking forward to gardening. I'm just wondering with our schedule how I will manage to keep the whole house clean. :)

Please continue to pray for us as we go forward with this purchase. We are very excited, but also a bit nervous. So far the process has gone quite smoothly, agreeing with the sellers, getting together the money for the purchase, finding a good lawyer and making the arrangements. We feel that God is pleased with our decision. So, please pray that the approval will come back quickly in order for us to get the heating system in and be able to move our things in before we leave for furlough at Christmas.

Nothing to do

2006-10-09T13:55:00.000+02:00

Here we are, out in the middle of nowhere, there’s no one around, nobody to talk with. What should we do?

We could…

Or…

I know!
Let’s…

…build a wall.

Wow! That was so much fun. Let’s build another one.

And one over here. And another over there. And connecting to the first one. And diagonally. And curved around this way. And… Help! We just can’t stop.

Seriously though, all through Croatia and Montenegro you can find these stonewalls. They are in the middle of nowhere. They lead to nothing. They keep nothing/no one in or out. Who built them? Why are they there? Unfortunately, as there really was no one around, we were not able to find out the answer. Sorry! Maybe one of you can help us?

No life beyond this point, update

2006-10-09T13:17:00.000+02:00

Here are the responses we received explaining the meaning behind the sign.

- Animals welcome - Humans not

- People are not allowed to walk to the train station and cars should look for football players.

The real answer is not so extraordinary:

- End of residential zone.

Enjoying God's Creation

2006-09-13T10:00:00.000+02:00

Summer is our busiest time of year. Thus we are resigned to taking a short vacation in either May or September. Two years ago we took our summer holiday in September and went to Transylvania, where the leaves were already beginning to change and we found ourselves donning our winter coats (picture on right). Not exactly ‘summery.’ So this year we decided to go south and found ourselves both enjoying a ‘summery’ holiday and the wondrous glory of God’s creation.

As countries in Europe are sometimes the same size or smaller than states in the US, we made our way out of southwestern Hungary into Croatia. Crossing Croatia heading slightly southwest and then south along the coastline crossing about 8 Kms of Bosnia, then back into Croatia. Spending our first night in Dubrovnik and then heading south along the coast to the southern most coastal town in Montenegro, Ulcinj. The entire trip (with a 1 ½ hour detour in Croatia) took less than 15 hours. Four different countries in 15 hours. Not bad, heh?

We drank in the beauty of the mountains, rocky cliffs and the Adriatic Sea. The weather was perfect, barely a cloud in the sky with temperatures between 25 – 34 degrees C. (that’s 77 – 93 degrees F) and smooth clear sea with a cool breeze. We enjoyed the water, the rocky cliffs, the palm trees and people sized aloe vera plants, the architecture, the sights and the sun and for the first time in months were able to really relax.

What a blessing!

On our way back to Hungary we made a stop at a fabulous national park in Croatia called Plitvica Lakes. A series of lakes draining into each other with waterfalls and streams.

Absolutely gorgeous!

Yield, no life beyond this point?

2006-09-12T16:27:00.000+02:00

We would like to hear from you (at least all of you who live outside of Europe). Please send us your comments on the meaning behind this sign. We will post the five funniest responses we receive.

trying something new

2006-09-12T16:04:00.000+02:00

Here we are trying to keep up with the world around us, and thus trying something new. re: a blog site. We do not know very much about them but have seen that they are an advantage to some of our other missionary friends. So please bear with us as we attempt to figure out how this works. Hopefully this means that we will be able to share with you all more pictures from the ministry here in Hungary without having to send you email with large attachments. We hope that it will be a blessing both to you all and to us as we will also be able to receive you comments on the material that we are sending out.