–Written by a Teacher in Hungary–
Good evening! It’s 6:30pm here, but probably only 11:30am to most people back home. We have all been extremely busy the past few weeks teaching our men, women, children, and staff classes basic English.
In the past couple weeks we’ve had opportunities to get to know the refugees on a more personal level. We’ve been able to invite some of the refugees down to the center square in town to have ice cream, dinner, or just to sit and talk by the fountain.
Here are some things we’ve been busy with since the last update:
VIENNA
We traveled to Vienna, Austria by train two weekends ago and met up with the two other teams teaching in Hungarian Refugee Camps. We all saw why Vienna is ranked as the world’s #1 best place to live. We stayed in a hostel overlooking the city with an amazing view. It was a great time to relax, regroup, and re-energize before the week of teaching again. It was great to share stories with the other teams of our camp adventures. We left feeling encouraged and that God gave us a renewed strength and positive outlook for the week ahead.
TEACHING
Our first few days of classes were hectic, exhausting, and very spontaneous. We came in not knowing what to expect – from how many would actually show up for class, if they would listen to us, or if they would understand anything we were trying to teach them, or if we could even know how to teach. God really taught us how to rely on Him and speak through us and to show Christ’s love in all of our actions.
ERIKA’S BIRTHDAY
Erika’s 22nd birthday was on Tuesday, July 14th. We were teaching all day and exhausted after the camp, but managed to get ready for a nice dinner at Palma’s – one of Debrecen’s nicest and oldest restaurants. We were blessed with great food and a light-hearted mood. After, we surprised her with a cake which we frosted with Nutella (the chocolate-peanut butter like topping) and candles in the shape of “22” which burned our hands as we tried to carry it in on a paper towel 
It’s been a quick year since we celebrated our birthday’s together last summer with a joint party back home.
COMPANY
Our friends from the other refugee camps came and stayed the weekend with us in Debrecen. We have extra beds in our dorms, so it worked out nicely. We met with our advisors from Budapest, Joe and Kathy Angi, and all had dinner together. It was wonderful to see them and talk with them about our experiences at the camp. They have been working with refugees in Hungary for 8 years now and know all the in’s and out’s.
View Company in Debrecen
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23 YEARS OLD
My 23rd birthday was on Saturday, July 18th. We planned on going to a castle, but had some miscommunication at the train station and ended up staying in Debrecen. So we went to a movie that was in English with Hungarian subtitles – Public Enemy with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale We went for dinner later at a beautiful restaurant in the park that the refugee camp staff had recommended. Guled, our friend from camp from Somalia, met us and ate dinner with us. He never ceases to amaze us – as a deaf man walked up to our table and was selling little animal keychains, Guled secretly bought one from the man and gave it to me for a birthday present.
THIS WEEK
We’ve been slowly but surely rationing out all of the stickers and supplies we brought over with us and we plan on showering the kids with gifts all next week. We’ve been teaching them very important topics such as: the birthday song, the hokey pokey, the “head-shoulders-knees-and toes” song, the “go bananas” cheer from high school football cheerleading, duck-duck goose, and thumbs up 7 up. We’ve somehow managed to squeeze in a few lessons on body parts, emotions, the weather, days of the week, months, colors, fruit, animals, and sports. Class time has been a great opportunity to encourage the kids and show interest in each one, as many are very neglected – this can be seen from their appearance (no shoes/shirts/sometimes even no pants), to their lack of self-esteem, to the way they deal with conflict by spitting, hitting, and swearing. God has given us a great challenge in our patience levels and how to maintain order and discipline in a Christ-like way. The kids excitement and continual enthusiasm makes up for every bad moment we experience. They still run up to us every day screaming all of our names and hugging and kissing us, while fighting over who gets to hold our hands. They are so in need of love and it is clear that the reason God put us here is solely to show Christ’s love to these neglected and mistreated people. We spend our Friday’s playing with the kids and not teaching, so that we can just spend time with them. That is what we will do tomorrow again.
