A story to tell our grandkids...

Last evening was one of those experiences that you never forget.

It was a beautiful St. Stephen's Day in Budapest. With the summmer sun shining, we made our way to the city center to Horizont Mozi, an old cinema that has been converted into a very comfortable space for Calvary Chapel Budapest to meet. Great worship and rich teaching. Pastor Greg Opean teaches in English, and as he teaches it is translated into Hungarian.

After church we had lunch at Dennis' flat and then headed back into the city on public transport to take in the festivities along the banks of the Danube, including a Red Bull airplane race over the river. If you've ever heard of the "Blue Danube Waltz" by Strauss, this may come as a shock to you and I'm sorry...

The Danube is not blue. It's muddy brown. Always has been. Always will be.

From what I understand, it was a joke that Strauss named it "Blue".

For the evening fireworks show, which is shot from two bridges over the Danube and from nearby Gelart Hill, the bridges are closed to both motor and foot traffic. We needed to get to the other side. BTW - if you never knew this -- Budapest is one city formed from two. Buda is on the West side of the river and Pest one the East. We were in Buda, heading for Pest.

Once in the city center on the Pest side of the river, we found a nice little Italian restaurant called Replay Cafe. This is apparently a chain, kind of like we have in the states with TGI Friday's or Olive Garden.

Then we headed back to the riverfront to stake out a spot from which to watch the fireworks. We found a place on the Metro rail tracks at about 8 pm. The fireworks were slated to begin at 9 and go until 9:30. The crowd continued to grow until by 9 about 1 million people were lining either side of the Danube.

As I was shooting video of the castle on the Buda side of the river, I noticed lightning behind the Castle. The Castle sits atop a hill that extends north to the bend in the river and south to Gelart hill. The lightning became more numerous and I got some really great footage.

The fireworks began with a bang (Ha) right at 9:00 and we immediately become enthralled. At 9:10 the rain started lightly falling and I thought, "Oh this may not be so bad." HA!

At 9:15 I looked across at the Castle to see it becoming enshrouded in heavy rain, giving it an earie, ghostly appearance. I turned to say, "Look how cool the Castle looks," turned back toward the river and WHAM -- the rain and wind hit us full force. Shrieks went up from the crown around us and people began to huddle together in their own little groups. When the intensity increased, there were more shrieks.

It soon became apparent that this was no small rain storm. The crowd turned from the river and began to surge back in to the city streets. There was a metal rail fence about 12 feet behind where we had been standing. It took us about 3 or 4 minutes to get to that fence, which we had to climb over to get out of rail right-of-way and towards the Marriott Hotel, where friends of Dennis were staying.

Beth's glasses were worthless in the driving rain and her vision is very poor without them, so for all intents and purpose, she was blind. By this time, we were soaked through to the skin and with each wave of rain came more shrieks from the crowd around us. People were pressing in on every side, scrambling to escape the storm. Then we were pelted with either sleet or small hail and the crowd once again screamed.

Once we got over the fence, we joined the river of people streaming away from the waterfront. All the while the fireworks were still going off. The Marriott was a mere 50 yards away, but we had to go across the flow of people to get to it. We formed a human chain and made our way through the masses.

Earlier in the day, the hotel had placed a fence around its property to keep the crowd out. By now the fence had several breaches and people were streaming into the restaurant. On the terrace outside the hotel, broken plates and glasses were crunching under our feet. It was actually a humurous site to see people, who had just moments bfore had been enjoying a quiet dinner, now watching as hoards of dripping wet people made there way through the restaurant.

In the lobby, the floors were puddled and the hotel staff was scrambling to control the crowd. We could still hear the fireworks exploding and looked to see a live broadcast of the them on the TV in the bar.

We were safe.

It didn't take long for the hotel to send out housekeeping staff with towels and sheets to hand out to their uninvited guests. There was announcement over the loud speaker in broken English which went something like, "We are having an emergency situation. Please to stay on the hotel until the thunderstorm ends. And please be a little quieter."

We hung out at the hotel in the room where Dennis' friends were staying for awhile and after finding out that traffic was not moving at all out of the city, we decided to walk to the metro (subway). We took two trains and a bus and ended up in the Dennis' neighborhood. From there we walked home.

The fireworks stared at 9.

We arrived home at midnight.

God's protection was with us. We found out later that 2 people were killed when a tree fell on them at the riverfront and two are missing from two boats that collided on the river.

Now it's warm and cozy and looks like another beautiful day.

Looking back, looking forward...

We are now in Budapest at my brother Dennis' flat. The train ride from Sopron yesterday was interesting. It was a rather hot day -- somewhere in the 30's (that's the 90's for those of us in the States). The train had no airconditioning and the windows were spring loaded so that some didn't want to stay open. With some creative engineering using belts and scarves we were able to rig a couple of the more troublesome windows so that they remained open, thus providing us with a good breeze as we traveled.

We had several people, on and off, sharing our compartment -- none of which spoke any English. We were able to say "Good morning", and "Goodbye", and that was about it for our conversations; although with one older couple there was a fair amount of non-verbal conversation which was fun.

Looking forward to the next several days with Dennis, his girlfriend Judit and Vivi, Judit's 12-yr-old daughter. Today we will take a bit of a road trip to a couple of towns that I can't spell or pronounce yet. I'll get to that later.

Looking back on this past week in Sopron, I can honestly say that I wish we were still there ministering in leading worship, but also really glad that we're done with it. It was such a wonderful experience, but so much work. By the end, we were all three exhausted. I thought for sure we would sleep most of the train ride to Budapest, but we ended up traveling with our good friends, Frank and Andrea Zauflik along with several others that we had met at Conference, and ended up talking the whole time.

To encapsulate what Conference was for us, I'd say it was about -- encouragement, challenge, faith-building, relationships, connections. Being basically thrust into the spotlight, we were warmly and graciously received, and lovingly cared for. We were blessed to be able to serve our fellow missionaries in this way.

So now we have a few days in Budapest and surrounding environs. Tomorrow is Stephen's Day. Stephen was the first true king of Hungary and his day is much like our Fourth of July. We will be attending Golgota Budapest (that's Calvary Chapel) in the morning. Frank and Andrea and another couple we know who work with GEM in Budapest may join us for church. Dennis, et al, will be going with us and then we will hang out in the city until the evening's fireworks display over the Danube.

Gotta go for now...

Hard work - Big payoff

It's early morning and I'm sitting in our hotel room in Sopron writing as Beth and Molly continue to sleep. We were all really exhausted last night.

Conference is an interesting mix of really hard work and wonderful blessings. But that's the way ministry is. My experience over the past 16 years has shown me that. God desires to bless us in many ways, but he doesn't want us to grow lazy or complacent. In Luke 9 Jesus compares the ministry to a farmer in the field guiding a plow. Now that's hard work! But work that pays off in the end.

We have really enjoyed getting to know other missionaries -- to hear their stories; their triumphs, their foibles, their joys, their frustrations. Leading worship for this group is so easy. You see, through the year, most of these people never have a chance to engage in corporate worship in their own heart language of English. This is the one week that they can do this and they are hungry for it. All we have to do is get it started and it takes off from there. In fact there was a point in last night's worship set where I was going to end a song and they kept going! It was great!

Molly is doing such a wonderful job running sound. She is very serious about it and works very hard to make sure that everything runs seemlessly -- which isn't easy when you have wireless microphones that decide to not do what they are supposed to and we have to (as descretely as possible) sneak up to the stage and trade out the wireless microphone with a wired one so that the person talking can continue.

One of the great blessings is our Service Team. This is a group of volunteers that are not GEM missionaries, but volunteers who devote a week every year serving GEM at conference, taking care of everything from childcare to room setup to serving cookies in the evenings.

Sopron is an interesting city. It's kind of difficult as an American to get my mind around the fact that there has been a city here since ancient times. In fact, you can see part of a Roman road and ruins of dwellings. Most of the buildings in the City Center date from the Baroque period when the city was destroyed by fire in 1676, but you can find older, Medieval buildings as well, sometimes built upon Roman foundations. In the US, if you find a structure built 200 years ago, you think that's old, but it's really nothing.

Today, Sopron is surrounded on three sides by Austria. In the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, four western Hungarian counties were awarded to Austria, but Sopron remained Hungarian. It is called "The Most Loyal City" to this day.

Well, I must get a shower and get ready for the day.

More later...

Arriving Sopron...

It's 6:30 AM here in Sopron Hungary, whic means it's 11:30 PM yesterday back home. Had a little trouble sleeping through the night, but I feel well rested now. Beth and Molly are still sacked out.

I suppose yesterday's travel could have been rather exciting, had we even known that there was anything going on. We didn't find out about all the activity at Heathrow until we met our party in Vienna.

The drive to Sopron was a wild ride. Our Hungarian driver, who spoke no English, but was able to somewhat communicate with our fellow missionary from Germany seemed to be a hurry after having to wait for us due to our hour-and-a-half delay leaving Paris (which may have been due to the crisis in the UK).

We didn't see much of Sopron as we drove in , but what we saw was intriguing. A few modern buildings, including several modern gas station/convenience stores were mixed in with very old residences and commercial buildings. We also drove past some apartment blocks with distictive Soviet architechture.

The Hotel Fagus, where we ar staying is very new and quite comfortable. "How can a bunch of missionaries afford to stay in such a place?" you ask. It's simply a matter of GEM finding a hotel during the off-season and getting a really good deal for hosting it's Annual Conference.

It was good to reconnect with some friends at dinner last evening. Looking forward to doing more of that through the week as well as developing new friendships.

Today, we set up the sound and technical systems and hopefully have a chance to explore a bit.

The next step...

So here we are, ready to embark on our first, really "official" ministry trip with GEM. The way this trip came about is rather remarkable.

Beth and I had it in our heads that, since we now had a new direction in our ministry and we were going to be able to begin sooner than expected, we wondered if it would be possible to attend GEM's Annual Conference (AC). This gathering of all the missionaries and staff persons in Europe is a time of teaching, fellowship, encouragement and vision casting. This year it takes place in Sopron Hungary.

Since we are still only "appointees" (in our fundraising phase) and not yet commissioned as full-time missionaries, we humbly asked our field director if it would be possible to attend AC this year. His response was, in essence, "Well as a matter of fact, I was just yesterday speaking with Durand Robinson (who oversees the technical aspects of the conference). He won't be able to attend this year and wondered if you might be available to go and run sound. I have also heard from Craig Collier, the conference director, and he is also needing help with leading worship, so maybe the scope of opportunity is even wider." We also talked about maybe setting up an extended trip to Ireland following AC. Phil's only reservation was that August is the time when most Irish are on holiday and he felt that it would be better to wait until closer to September. Hmmm.

I took it upon myself to contact Craig, and in our conversation, he asked if Beth and I would be willing to lead/coordinate worship for the entire conference! Silly question, duh! But that still left nobody to run sound. This was Thursday morning (the date is unimportant).

I immediately emailed my brother, Dennis who lives and works in Budapest, Hungary to see if he would be around the week following conference, so that we could visit him in Buda, which we have not been able to do since he moved there 5 years ago. He said, "We'll be here. Come on!" (The "we" is him and his girlfriend, Judit, who is a native Hungarian.) The other advantage to this is that it fills another week to get our start time in Ireland closer to September. Please don't misunderstand, our time in Buda is NOT filler. Dennis and I have only had about 5 days together in the past 7 years. This is important time!

Friday evening, Molly and I were eating out together and Molly said, "So, will I be able to go to Hungary with you and Mom?" I told her that if we could work out the financial aspect of it that we would love to have her come with us. She has wanted to visit Hungary since Dennis moved there. Since she will be starting her fall semester at University of West Florida at the end of August, she wouldn't be able to go to Ireland with us on this trip.

In the midst of our conversation about Hungary, I got my foot in good position to slip right into my mouth and said, "How would you like to run sound for us at conference?" She loved the idea. I did, too, because not only would it give her something to do that week, her expenses could come out of our expense account! So now I had to contact Craig about this, not knowing at all whether he would go for it or not. His response was swift, to the point and unmistakable.

"That would be such an answer to prayer! Are you sure?" Once again, silly question, duh.

So a week from tomorrow, we set out for Sopron (pronounced show-prone) for a week at AC, a week with Dennis and Judit (pronounced "You-dit", as in "You-dit what? You-dit not!") and two-and-a-half weeks in Ireland to return to the States September 11. That's right, 9/11. We figure it's either the worst day of the year to travel or the best. Haven't decided which.

Our time in Ireland will be spent meeting with pastors, worship leaders and others, learning about their needs and how our ministry can best benefit them. We also have some worship workshops set up with worship bands in several local fellowships and hope for a couple of other events to come together. We plan to be based in Dublin and visit Shannon, Cork, Roscrae and several other places to be determined as our plans solidify over the next few weeks.

We will be posting often while in Europe, so check back. Our website should be launched this week and will also have much info during our trip.

The adventure continues...