A Good Week in Hungary

October 17, 2014

Greetings from Hungary on a rainy day.

I’ve pretty decided that if I am to keep a blog going, I will have to keep a daily diary. In the course of a month or two, few daily occurrences, events or circumstances stand out. Therefore, I judge that I have nothing to share. Nevertheless, I understand that people don’t expect great things to happen all the time, but they are interested in normal everyday what’s-in-your-life-anyway sort of things. So with that, here I go again:

For three weeks, I am living in the outskirts of Budapest. In many ways, Budapest is typical of much of what I have experienced of other East European cities (and countries.) Whether my evaluations are correct or not, I do not know, but I feel that the people in Hungary are by some slight degree friendlier. (It’s just a feeling.) The church members certainly are.

The evangelism that I am doing in Hungary wouldn't fit the classic definition in the least. I've had to adapt like this twice before, both in Roatan, and in Ukraine, but it is good that I can. I am focusing more on practical Christianity than doctrinal dissertations. I am more and more convinced that people are dying for a want of seeing the cross and knowing how to relate to it. So, I preach Christ in the context of daily living. The meetings are going well, the people are appreciative and in spite of not addressing large crowds, I believe a targeted few will be well impacted.

The people I live with are wonderfully accommodating. They live in a beautiful house (more than a century old, renovated.) What’s interesting is that the owner, Andrash??, believes in having his yard as close to natural nature as possible. In a country of much rain, that idea leads to a house and property grown in like a jungle, with maple trees and every type of bush you can think of, with fruit trees and grape vines and flowers of all sorts etc. As is all other houses, the properties are surrounded with high fences, iron or brick or wooden walls. Without knowing for sure, I’d say there is a problem here with thievery. Even the gates to the fences are under lock and key.

After the first weekend, which we spent together, I was left alone because everyone went to work or school. I was given a key to the house and fence, in case I wanted to go for a walk, but no-one instructed me that the house door has a five-point security system and I couldn’t figure it out. (Which is good, otherwise a thief could too.) So I couldn’t go for a walk and leave the door unlocked. The next day, I was taught how to lock the door and the security code etc, but then someone forgot to leave me a key. So, I was locked in the yard. I could have jumped the fence, but the neighbors might have thought me a burgler and I would have had a tough time explaining seeing I don’t speak Hungarian. So, I stayed in. On the third day . . . I went for a walk.

On Sabbath last, we spotted a dentist office not four or five blocks for our house. I took it to be an opportunity. My right eye-tooth lost its hard shell on the back side, which was causing it to wear out from the back to the front. In Loveland, they want $1,100 to repair that one tooth. Seeing that I travel a lot, I figured it was just a matter of time and I’d find some less expensive dentist in another country. Voila, I found it in Hungary.  Szilard and I spent three hours with the dentist yesterday. For the same repair (a crown) it will cost me only $280. And, wouldn’t you know it, the dentist is an Adventist of only two years. I asked Szilard to see that she gets a set of the series I am currently preaching in the city.

I read 37 chapters in 1888 Materials by EGW in seven days. That's what you do when you have jet lag and can't sleep at midnight, or two, or three in the morning. I'm really getting a flavor for what the SDA Church went through shortly after the Minneapolis GC Conference in 1888. We've never recovered. What will it take? Who will it take? Lord help us.