We're Here! (in Mikepercs)

Sorry if this blog seems incoherent. We're sleepy and have zero train of thought.

After a 10 hour flight from LAX to Amsterdam on Monday the 5th, a 2 hour layover in Amsterdam on the 6th, as well as a 2 hour flight into Budapest on the 6th, we were picked up by Dr. Gabor Gyori and his daughter, Estie. Dr Gyori gave us a very thorough car tour of Budapest and we even got to see Kat's old house and hangouts, which was great. We then spent the rest of the night at the Gyori's house with Dr. & Mrs. Gyori and their three daughters, and enjoyed a wonderful goulash dinner and some recooperation from our travels.

On Wednesday morning we were able to sleep in and then Mrs. Gyori treated us to a wonderful homemade brunch, which was followed by a trip to the bank to exchange our U.S. Dollars into Hungarian Forint, which was quite a process. We packed up and bundled up back at the Gyori's house and then headed to the train station where we said our goodbye's to the Gyori's then rode through snow covered fields for two hours into the city of Miskolcs, where we finally met Russell Chun and one of Good Sports' volunteers, Joe. We met up with some orphans and some of the translators at a restaurant for dinner, followed by the regular Wednesday night Bible Study for the guys while the girls conducted a meet and greet. The team then made their way, along with Russell and Joe, back to Russell and Trudy's home in Mikepercs and then to our panzio (lodging) for the night.

This morning (Thursday) we were up at 7:00am to prepare for teaching English at the Mikepercs elementary school with Russell and Trudy. We taught English for a 5th and 8th grade class, which was a great experience getting to finally interact with kids in a small group setting. Their English was fairly basic but a lot of them were excited to meet us and they were enthusiastically trying to communicate with us, looking through textbooks to find questions to ask us.

Tomorrow we get to go back to those same two classrooms, plus a 6th grade classroom, which will be a good chance to build relationships with the kids from today.

We've seen a lot of snow covering the ground and had a small amount of snow fall. It seems that we've arrived in one of the coldest weeks of the coldest winter Hungary has had in years. We haven't been able to check on the temperature but at one point last night, it was -4 C and that seems to be fairly common.

The Handful along with Russell are going to coach baseball with some of the kids from the elementary school, so our update (along with prayer requests) will be continued later.

- The Handful in Hungary