November 16

It has been a while. It has always been a while, it seems; I'm just not as faithful in giving you guys news as I would like to be. The point of this news update will be to tell you all about the remainder of Fall Break, which I promised to do some time ago. Tomorrow, or some other time this week, I hope to tell you about what has been going on since then. 

When last we left our heroes, they were on their way to Krakow for a couple of days. Well, we made it to Krakow early Thursday morning, about 5:30. We had some directions to the flat we were going to stay in, so we made our way there. It was an amazing place: furnished, centrally located, with several beds and a kitchen. We all took naps and then spent the rest of the day looking around the city, seeing the old town and Wawel Castle and the old Jewish district. For lunch we had some traditional Polish food in a traditional Polish restaurant that I'd eaten at the year before. With every meal, they serve a loaf of bread with some cream cheese and a CUP FULL OF COOKING GREASE WITH CORN AND BACON CHUNKS IN IT. It tastes OK for a while, but then you can feel your arteries clogging and that mars the culinary experience somewhat. 

In the evening, back at the flat, the girls decided that they wanted to wrestle. I'm not sure where this idea came from, but it came, and it was acted upon. So they spread out a mat on the floor and went at it. Really, I'm not making this up at all.

The next day, everyone except me went to visit Auschwitz. I elected not to go, because I had gone six months before. Instead, I wandered around town, spent some time in churches, and generally had a rich time with God.

That evening, I met with them for dinner, and our train for Budapest left at 10:20 or so. 

On the train, we all sat together in the same cold compartment and idled the time away by watching a long-haired man in a shabby suit ramble up and down the hallway. He seemed a little creepy, but this is not unusual on night trains. Soon, the conductor came by to tell us that there were heated compartments farther down the train. So we packed up and left. Amy and Laura found one place, and Tracy, Annika and I found another. But this one wasn’t warm either. So the girls moved to a third compartment, and I moved to one farther down in the same car.

At about 3:30, I woke up with a dry mouth and wanted to fetch a water bottle from the girls’ compartment. I went into the hallway, and encountered the man in the shabby suit arguing with another, shorter man in a red jacket. When I came out of my compartment, the man in the red jacket made an exasperated gesture and walked down to the end of the car and looked out of the window, opposite where the girls’ compartment was. Since that was my destination, I followed him. When I got close, he made another exasperated gesture and left the car.

Having not found my water bottle, I was walking back to my compartment when the shabby man leaned out of his compartment and asked, “Do you speak English?” A little startled, I said yes, but kept my distance. He said, “come closer.” I inched over and he told me that the man he had been arguing with was a gypsy thief. He waits until people are asleep, then goes into their compartments and steals their things. I asked him how he knew this, and he said that he was a Hungarian who lived in Krakow, and had been taking that train for many years. He had had his wallet stolen eight years ago. Whenever I seemed surprised at anything he said, he responded, by way of explanation, “This is Slovakia.”

“Listen,” he said. “That man wanted to beat me up, but now you are here. He won’t attack us now, because now we are two. I will go into this compartment to wake these girls up and tell them, and you stay here.” So I stayed there while he woke some girls up. And I stayed in the hallway for a while and talked to him, making sure that the man in the red jacket didn’t go into any compartments. After a half hour or so, the man told me that the man in the red jacket would probably get off at the next stop. It was the last stop in Slovakia, and there would be officials on the train when it crossed the border. Also, the sun would be coming up. We waited, and just before the train started again, the man got off the other end of the train. But he wasn’t carrying anything.

This experience was an exciting one; I couldn’t believe that it was happening while it was happening. But I did take away a lesson from it that I should have learned a long time ago. I’d judged the man in the shabby suit by his appearance (and to a certain extent by his actions, because he had been wandering up and down the train himself), and would not trust him at first. It turned out he was a very sincere, very sensitive man. Should I have given him the benefit of the doubt? Looking back on it, I think so. But on the other hand, as he said himself, “This is Slovakia.”

November 23

These last few weeks have been pretty normal. We have had two English clubs since the break, and both have gone well. The first one was our Halloween party, and lots of students came. We couldn't find any pumpkins to carve, and so we made jack-o-lanterns out of squashes. We also bobbed for apples, ate food, watched a video that a group of students had made, and played basketball.

The second one, which was just two days ago, was a photo scavenger hunt. There were 11 of us, including the teachers, and we divided into two teams and scavenged all over Kispest. The list of items included: a pumpkin, a bus/metro/tram driver, an english book in a bookstore, a dog, everyone on a slide, everyone underneath a Trabant (a car made in Communist East Germany that has a lot of... er, character), everyone with an American car, two people in a dumpster, someone eating an ice cream cone, people kissing, and one of us proposing to a stranger. 

There is not a wide variety of students who come to English club. All of them are 10s, in fact. Since the same ones come every week, we have gotten to know them quite a lot better than we would have if English club were a revolving door. Most of the time we play games with them, and there are not too many serious conversations, but they are really good kids and I'm glad to see that we are becoming friends with them.

November 25

The leaves are nearly off the trees here in Budapest, but the unseasonably warm weather continues. I thought for sure that I'd be wearing my puffy brown winter jacket that makes me look like a burnt marshmallow every day by now, but here I am, November 25, wearing my trusty Richmond rain jacket.

These last few days have been very good. I've been learning mostly to be content. Around this time in the school year, and even earlier, some teachers get antsy about teaching. They start to wonder about whether it is the thing that they ought to be doing. They wonder how they're going to put up with those snotty kids until june. They wonder if their colleagues would be mad at them if they called in sick just one day this week. And I've been tempted to feel that way as well. Some days, I do. But then God reminds me that he has me here for a reason, and that I am to work faithfully for him here until he calls me to another place. Suddenly, when I am told that, not spending time planning quality lessons suddenly sounds like a waste of time. I've also been convicted about grading. In the past, I've been notoriously bad about getting papers back to students in a timely manner, e.g. before they graduate. But what kind of attitude toward them am I showing if I don't take time to grade papers and make comments? I am not loving people if I neglect my duties toward them, and it doesn't matter if I read the Bible all day and tend to the sick instead of grading papers. If it's my responsibility, and I'm not doing it, it's sin.

This week, events are accelerating in anticipation of Christmas. Every year, the Hungary ESI teachers perform an original Christmas play in December, and this week we rehearse for the first time. Katie Ammerman is in charge of it all, and I helped out a little by typing up the ideas she had in script form. The premise is as follows: three groups of people are participating in a competition to portray the true meaning of Christmas for cash and prizes. Each group has their own theory on what Christmas is all about (parties, gifts, decorations), and perform songs and skits in support of that view. Before a winner can be chosen, though, some disgusted person breaks into the action and tells us what Christmas is all about. I will put that script on the Web site soon so you can all look at it. I'm also in charge of assembling the ESI Hungary newsletter every month, and I'll try to put the ones I have made online soon as well. Anything for more content. Got to give you your money's worth, right?

Also this week, all of the ESI teachers will be hopping on a bus together for a road trip to the Czech Republic to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Czech teachers. We'll get a chance to spend time with one another, eat Thanksgiving dinner, play football, sing, and display our talents (or what passes for them on short notice) in a talent show. It should be a lot of fun.

If you pray for me, please pray that I'll have the discipline to do the work in front of me to the best of my ability and to the glory of God, and not look around for other things or wish I were somewhere else.