June 2

Last weekend, 14 of the Hungarian teachers took a trip to the Czech Republic for canoeing purposes. We rented three cars, met downtown, returned to the flat in Kispest because I had forgotten my passport, and we were off. Eight hours later, we arrived in Cesky Krumlov, a lovely medieval town with a medieval castle and a medieval river and which is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. We met at a prearranged hostel with the Czech teachers, who had come down (the town is three hours south of Prague by bus, almost in Austria) earlier that day. It was an incredible blessing to see all of them, especially mike and brian, who are not only wonderful people but are (as you could probably tell from their names) GUYS, which are in short supply round these parts. So that Friday evening, we celebrated guy-ness by standing in the street and smoking a pipe that Neal had brought. I had never smoked a pipe before, and can't really say that I liked it the first time. I would probably only do it again if I was desperate to look dignified.

The next morning, we got up bright and early to go canoeing. I got up a bit brighter and earlier to spend some time reading in the town square, enjoying the sunshine and listening to the Czech language again.

We all got into the canoes in town, and began to float down the river. Last year, when we had gone on this trip, the river was quite a bit lower because last summer was a dry one. But there had been a lot of rain recently, and the water was rather high going through town. Now, in order to control the river, several wiers have been constructed for the water to flow down, with sluices in them for the benefit of those in canoes and rafts. At the beginning, we thought that the river would be too high to go down the first wier. So the first three or four canoes got out of the water and we started to lug them downriver a bit. But then two of us -- and I can't remember who it was -- decided to try going down through the sluice. And they made it all right, though they were quite waterlogged and had to pull aside later to bail out. But we all saw that it could be done. So, although our canoe was already out of the water, we put it back in and went down the sluice. We, also, had to pull aside and bail out. But at least we didn't shrink from the challenge of the sluice, and that's the important thing.

We went down the river for a few hours, chatting and tanning ourselves, with a brief stop for lunch. We pulled out at a town called Zlata Koruna (Gold Crown), and the canoe company came to take us and our canoes back to Cesky Krumlov.

During that afternoon, we all split up and chilled about town. In the evening, we all tramped up to a campfire to fry fat and drip it on pieces of bread (really. It's a Hungarian tradition). Then we put peppers and onions and cucumbers on it and ate it. But the most important thing is getting a lot of fat dripped on the bread.

That evening, we split up again for dinner. I ate with Amy, Abi, and Abi's friend from Scotland who was visiting for a while. Later on, I went with the boys to a pub to talk about important issues in life. Particularly girls. It was a great male bonding moment.

The next day, we all left at our own pace. After being briefly delayed by the fact that the police had put a wheel lock on our car because we were parked way illegally, we set off to some castle ruins just north of Cesky Krumlov. We hiked up to them, stopping on the way to eat lunch, and climbed about for a while. If castles are wonderful places, I might have to say that ruined castles are even better. There is something grand about standing on grass and looking up at huge walls -- and looking up some more into the sky. It is a marriage of man's work and nature that speaks to a person (well, me, anyway).

The rest of the trip home was not very eventful. We had some conversation in the car, but mostly there was just resting. And I started to read From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. Very interesting. Though I'm only 100 pages in at the time of writing. I'll let you know how it goes.

Monday we had off school, since it was a holiday. Tuesday and today went well -- this is the last week of school in which teaching is going on, so these two days have been filled mostly with final test-taking. And after school has been filled with grading. But it will all end on Friday...

June 10

I have now finished teaching. The end of teaching actually happened last Friday, but what with this and that, I have not been able to inform everyone.

Last Sunday and Monday, many of the teachers at Trefort went on the annual teacher trip to Slovakia. We all met at the school at 6:30 a.m., boarded a big bus, and got on the road. On the way, many of the teachers sang Hungarian songs in the back of the bus. It was interesting to see just how much teachers resemble students when they are in similar situations.

Our first stop in Slovakia was a castle, formerly owned by the Hungarian Andrassy family. Most of the sights that we saw on this trip, though in Slovakia, had some Hungarian significance. This came as no surprise, since we were with a bunch of Hungarians, and after all, Slovakia was part of Hungary for many years. The castle was set on the top of a hill (as many castles tend to be), and we took a tour. The tour was conducted in Hungarian by an unenthusiastic woman, and our English-speaking colleagues translated for us.

Our second stop was another castle formerly owned by the Andrassy family, except this one was more like a chateau set in the woods. The tour guide this time was more enthusiastic, and we again heard a whispered translation. Afterwards, we walked around the grounds for a while.

That night, we stayed at a campground in the woods. The experience reminded me of working at camp, and the nostalgic feeling it brought up was worth the experience of a cold night with mosquitoes. It was a fine evening, though several people were under the weather, and the night ended early for many of us. Some of our more energetic colleagues danced into the wee hours.

The next day, we went to tour the house of Imre Madach, a famous Hungarian poet and playwright whose most well-known work is a play called "The Tragedy of Man." After the tour, we walked out to where he is buried and Tamas, a German teacher, read some of his work aloud to us.

That evening, we ate dinner and explored the nearby town. It is interesting to note that the towns which used to be part of Hungary are still known to Hungarians by their old Hungarian names. It may have been known by a Slovakian name for the past 85 years, and ethnic Hungarians may be a minority in that town, but Hungarians will always know it by its old name, and nothing else. I did not know the Slovakian name for the town until I saw a map by the side of the road. Now, of course, I have forgotten both names.

The teacher trip was great for getting to hang out with our colleagues outside of school. A big part of working with ESI is building relationships with students, but sometimes a bigger part is the co-workers. It may be difficult to establish good friendships with students because of language or the teacher-student relationship, but we have much more in common with those we teach with day in and day out. We were all able to bond further with our Hungarian friends this weekend, and have some great conversations.

On Tuesday, we had grading conferences until the early afternoon, and thus ended all school responsibilities aside from conducting end-of-year tests. We had dinner (for almost four hours!) with four of our English-speaking colleagues that night at a restaurant near our flat. I love all of them, and am saddened at leaving them. However, I still do not believe that deciding to leave was a mistake. I do hope and pray that the effects of this year, and the seeds that have been planted, will bear fruit someday.

June 24

I have now arrived safely back in America. On June 22, after having stayed up most of the night packing and cleaning the flat, I said goodbye to Tracy and Annika (Neal had already left, on the 17th) at 6 a.m., and headed off in a taxi to the airport. The father of one of my students is a taxi driver, and he was kind enough to give me a good price. On the way to the airport, we talked a little bit, but mostly I was lost in thoughts about the year and about leaving. This year was a good one, as far as teaching and community went. I enjoyed teaching, most of my classes were well-behaved, and we were able to talk at times about important issues that shape their views of life and the world. I could not have asked for a better group of people to teach with than Neal, Tracy and Annika. They are amazing people, and amazing Christians, and I have learned so much from them. Also, our Hungarian colleagues, with whom we shared an office, were wonderful. They all had great senses of humor, and truly cared about teaching and about their kids. I also learned so much from them, about teaching and about being a Hungarian.

In some ways, though, this year was a real struggle. I was tempted so many times toward bitterness, hatred, pride, lust, and depression that it seemed sometimes that I could hardly keep my head above water. I would like to think that I encountered so much opposition because I was making an impact on students and others around me. I can only pray, at the end of the year, that God's power can be manifest in my weakness and inconstancy. If any good has been accomplished this year, the glory goes to him.

The flight home was relatively uneventful. On the flight from Budapest to Prague, I was able to see Kispest one last time, and Sportliget, where we had played so many softball and football games. We often saw planes flying overhead as we played, and now I was in one of them. We also flew over the downtown area, and I could see the castle and the Chain Bridge.

The next flight was from Prague (where I lived last year) to New York. It was a relatively uneventful flight; I sat next to a Polish woman who did not speak much English. The movie was Le Divorce, and I wasn't too interested in it. For much of the flight, I read The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, about God's great love for and pursuit of us.

When I arrived in New York, I went through immigration and customs, and got all of my bags. Then I rushed over to another terminal, because my next flight, to Raleigh, was on a different airline. Fortunately, I made it in time. This time, I sat near a Russian family. I eavesdropped on their conversation a little bit, to see if I could understand it after not having studied Russian for three years. I could get a little bit, but I was not confident enough in my abilities to strike up a conversation with them.

My dad picked me up at the airport in Raleigh. I was amazed, even in the airport (and in the New York airport as well) just how many choices there were as to things to buy. This will be a thing that will take some getting used to as I adjust back to American life. I saw a water fountain for the first time in nearly a year; I'd almost forgotten that there was such a thing. Overall, I was sad to leave Budapest (I will miss not so much the city, but the people that I knew there), but happy to be back home and able to visit family again.

Here are my plans for the immediate future: I will stay here in Hope Mills, NC, with my dad. I will also spend plenty of time with my mom, who lives in Clinton, NC, and with my brother and sister-in-law and their baby, who live in Charlotte, NC. I will spend a week in Michigan in late July, and about a week in the Richmond/Washington D.C. area, probably a bit before that. I will be at ESI training in Pasadena, CA from July 29-August 7. Then, after a week or so, I will move to Vancouver, BC, to start seminary at Regent College.

Thanks to all of you for reading my accounts of this year. I wish that I could have posted more updates, so that you could have been more well-informed, but I believe that the broad strokes of the year were intelligible from the things I wrote on the web site. Be sure to check back again in the next few weeks, as I hope to post several pictures from the year.