Day 12 (July 30, 2012)

Today is my birthday! In Hungary! If I think in both Hungarian time AND Winnipeg time, I get to celebrate my birthday for extra long...haha :)

It was a bit more of a relaxing morning, as Rebecca wasn’t picking us up until 11am. But everyone was back at the training centre, so there were a lot of people. I enjoyed playing cards (a game called “Rage”) with Phil, Sabastian, Vicki, and Hannah. I think I won, but I can’t remember!

For lunch we went to an Italian place in Budapest called Marcello’s. It was really good - I had spaghetti with a white, cheesy sauce and mushrooms.

Rebecca & I at Marcello's

 Then Rebecca had to do a couple of errands and then we went to the Covered Market. The Covered Marked it kind of like the Forks here in Winnipeg, except bigger and filled with Hungarian stuff! It was awesome - I'd love to spend more time there!! After that we went to a cafe and had cake. I had this really good chocolate torte, as well as a chocolate ball covered in almond slivers and caramel. So good!

After that we went to Rebecca’s and watched some more Olympics. We had watermelon and popcorn. We went back to OM around 9:00, and Attila came by with his family to say goodbye to us. A nice surprise was that he handed me a Bibila (Hungarian Bible), and everyone signed it. I had been trying to get one while I was there, but couldn’t find any - I wanted to start collecting Bibles from each country I travel to for missions (in their language). Luckily, Alegria was sneaky and set the whole thing up with Attila! I am so blessed. :)

Anyway, off to bed! We are leaving at 4:30am to go to the airport!

Day 11 (July 29, 2012)

Today was a super awesome day! Being our first day off, we skipped church and spent the entire day touring Budapest with Meagan and John. They picked us up at 9:30 and we drove to the train station. We took the train to Budapest, and then got a bus pass for five people so that we could ride all of the buses, trams and subways all day. At the train station we had to go on this super long, scary escalator thing...I didn’t know it was coming up - I was just following my group - when they all stepped onto it and I came to a sudden stop right before stepping on. It was going so fast and I was so scared of falling! So I stood there watching my friends go down, down, down, and letting other people go on ahead of me. Finally I just took a deep breath and stepped on. Super scary! HAHA I know I’m a wimp! We had to go on them a bunch of times, and they were sooooo long. I couldn’t look up on the ones that were going up because they made me dizzy.

It was so neat walking around Budapest and seeing all of the buildings. I have never been to Europe, and I couldn’t believe I was seeing all of the architecture that I have only ever seen in movies! The buildings are so neat - they have so much detail and such neat colours. I took a lot of pictures of doors, because they were so neat! There were also lots of statues. One of them was of Zoltan Kodaly, so I (of course) took a million pictures with him.

There were also two guys with birds you could get your picture taken with - I’m not sure what the small bird was, but the other one was a hawk. I really wanted to do it, but it was 1600f and so I decided not to. We toured around the castle, which was really neat. You could even see the chunks out of the walls from the gunfire and canon balls.

The best part was when we came across a guy selling wooden flutes! He played all of them for us (I took videos, of course!), and ended up buying two! One is a traditional flute made out of wood, and one is a dual tone flute. If I could have, I would have bought one of everything!!

For lunch we stopped at a little restaurant and I had pasta & broccoli cheese soup. They don’t give out tap water at these restaurants (because that would be free), so I had to buy bottled water, which cost the same amount as buying pop.

We visited a church as well, and saw that there was going to be a Baroque recorder concert going on this evening. I SO wanted to go to that! I guess I will just have to come back to Hungary. :)

We also went to Hero Square, which was totally cool! I took lots of pictures! 

After that we rested in a little coffee shop (I had an awesome brownie!), and Ty did video interviews of us for OM Arts.

Then we took the subways and trains back home. There was a really good rain/wind/thunder and lightning storm this evening. We went to Meagan and John’s (and Rebecca’s) house where we hung out for the evening and watched some of the Olympics. Rebecca made me an awesome quesedia while the others had sausages. We came back to OM around 9pm to find all of our English camp friends back. I was so exhausted and fell right to sleep! It had been so hot today, and I think I didn’t stop sweating until we actually sat down at Rebecca’s.

It’s funny how you don’t realize that you are different from the rest of the world until you actually leave your home. I never realized how much I say “eh”...it has been pointed out to me many times...haha :) My apparent “Canadian accent” was also a source of laughter all day! And everyone was super confused when I said, “I was going to wear my runners but decided they would be too hot”. Apparently only Canadians call “sneakers” runners! :)

We also said goodbye to Ty before going to bed, as he was leaving at 4:00 in the morning to fly home. He hasn’t seen his family in 6 weeks!! We are going to miss him though! I have had so much fun hanging out/living with him and Alegria all week!

Day 10 (July 28, 2012)

 Today can be chalked up to one of the best days of my life. It was performance day! We started off by leaving at 8:00am with Attila and going to the OM office to print programs. Then we went to get the cast photos printed for the kids - a gift from Alegria, Ty and myself. For lunch we had Greek food - I had this awesome fried cheese patty...pretty much the best thing I’ve ever tasted. We met at the school at 12:00 to finish getting ready for the rehearsal at 2:00. Our run-through went really well, and then we gave the kids their pictures. I also gave Juli the letter I wrote her (I gave her my handwritten one, as well as Attila’s translation of it). She came up to me after to say how much she appreciated it, and to thank me for encouraging her. She just really touched me this week, and I wanted to let her know what I thought, and I wanted her to feel uplifted and to know that God is there for her.

Dear Juli,
I have truly enjoyed working with you this week and watching your talents grow. You are a beautiful young lady with so much to offer those around you. Your calm, gentle spirit gives peace to all who know you, and you are so kind and sweet-hearted. I hope that you are proud of all that you have accomplished this week. I could not imagine myself doing what you have done, and I am very proud of you too! You have come so far, and learned so much. Your Heavenly Father is definitely smiling upon you. God does not give gifts by mistake, and He is thrilled to see you sharing your talents with us. When you are performing today, remember that God is right there with you, encouraging you and supporting you as you share the gifts He so deliberately gave you. We are all so very proud of you. I pray that you feel the encouragement from God, from your cast-mates and from your directors. I pray that you continue to use your gifts to learn, grow, and glorify God. You will always be an inspiration to me.
Much love,
Ashley

For the performance we set out about 50 chairs, and ended up having to set up more once people came! It was great to see so many of their family members and friends out to see them. The performance went so well! It was the best yet, and I felt so proud of them. Cinderella did very well to, and I was so happy for her. By the end of the show I was trying not to cry - I’m so sad that it is over!

It was amazing to see the transformation in the kids during the five days we worked with them. One went from being so shy and staring at the wall to performing on stage and speaking lines. Another had no idea why she was chosen to play Cinderella and ended up doing an amazing job! Still others were shy and quiet girls at the beginning of camp, and were able to get up on stage, project their lines, show excellent expression and have a ton of fun! After the show Juli came up to me and said, “I will never forget you.” I will never forget her either. She was so brave, and such an inspiration. Fanni also told me that this week was the best week of her whole summer. I am so happy the kids enjoyed it so much.

It is amazing to see how God works. I spent the last 13 summers working on musicals at CUC, and took this summer off so that I could do something different. And what happens? I end up in Hungary doing musical theatre as mission work. It was so neat to come here and help to create a similar environment - one of encouragement and creativity. Has God been preparing me for arts missions?

After we finished cleaning up the gym we went and got some food. Back at OM, Alegria went to sleep (she had stayed up until 5:30am working on the cast photos the night before), and Ty and I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail on his laptop. I will admit...it was pretty funny. :)

I still have so much more to say, but I am so tired and need more time to process.

Day 9 (July 27, 2012)

Today we started off with worship for our team at 8:00. When we were singing “Your Grace is Enough” I was caught by the line “You send the weak to lead the strong”. This always seems to be a recurring theme in the Christian life. Those who are sent always feel that they are weak or not good enough to be doing the job that God wants them to do. I have often thought, “Why would I ever be a missionary? I don’t know enough.” But it seems to be the way of God - to choose people who are “weak” in some form or other and give them a job to do. I feel that I have already grown so much more this week as a result of this work. God is so amazing.

At 8:30 we did warm-ups with the kids - I led some vocal warm-ups, Bananas, Show Us How to Get Down, and then taught them the Pony game. After that we cleared of the stage and set up the gym. We did a run-through on the stage for the morning, which went very well. Our biggest challenge is to get the kids to speak loudly. The Hungarian word for louder is “hangosabban” (pronounced hongawshob-bon), but I have been having trouble saying it and one time yelled out “hogwash!”. So now whenever I want them to be louder I say “HOGWASH”! :)

For lunch I had a nice vegetable soup (they had meat soup), and rice with large breaded mushrooms on the side (the kids had breaded chicken that was pounded flat). For dessert we had this bread that had jam on it and was rolled up like a cinnamon bun.

After lunch the kids got into their costumes and we did another run-through. They looked amazing!

Cinderella's slipper fits! :)

 Cinderella was having some difficulty with her song, so during our break I worked with her a bit more. Ilana asked her if her parents were proud of her and her face crumpled and she started to cry. I put my arm around her and cuddled her as she told us about how her father picks on everything she does. She said he points out everything she does wrong but never notices anything that she does well. She is worried that he is going to come to the performance and point out all of her mistakes. So I spoke with her a little bit, and told her that he must care about her a lot, and wants her to do well. I said that he might just be one of those people who shows his love that way - through trying to help you do better, and that maybe he has trouble showing his love in other ways. But I also told her that she is not doing this performance for him - she is doing it for herself. She has come so far and learned so much. I told her that God does not give gifts to her by accident. He gave her these wonderful talents so that she could use them, and even if she feels that her father is not proud of her, her Heavenly Father is most definitely proud of her and encouraging her all the way. I told her that everyone in the cast is also proud of her, and that I am so proud of all that she has done and the hard work she has put into learning this role. Some of the other girls had gathered around while we were talking, and echoed some encouraging words as well and had a little group hug. It was a really heartwarming moment. I pray that tomorrow she feels the encouragement of all of her cast-mates and production team, and that she knows that God is smiling on her. I also pray that her mother and father are inspired by her performance and let her know how proud they are of her work.

After our break, we did one more run-through. A couple of parents came to watch because they are not able to come tomorrow to the performance. The kids did extremely well - the best yet - and everyone was excited when we were finished. I think that Juli felt a lot better about her performance too. The kids decided that they wanted to do another dress rehearsal before the performance tomorrow, so we will be doing that at 2:00 (performance is at 4:00).

Our Cinderella invitation (made by Alegria - the kids made the title)

Attila took us out for Chinese food, and then we went back to the training centre. I was supposed to be making mouse ears, but was having such trouble making them. Plus I had a monster headache (probably from the unbearable heat yesterday!), so I decided to give up and go to bed. I will make them tomorrow morning. Time to turn out the lights!

Day 8 (July 26, 2012)

The Carriage during Bibiddy Bobiddy Boo

Today was a great day! Really productive! Although I have to say that today was my most tired day so far...I don’t think I got much energy going until after lunch.

The day started with going to the OM office with Attila to print off the invitations to the show. Then I led more warm-ups with the kids, starting with “Reach For the Sun”, then “Bananas”. Then Ty led “Making Melodies In My Heart For the King of Kings” again - the kids love that one...so do I! Then I taught them the song the kids on Andros Island had taught us “I’ve got the spirit in my _____ (ie. hands) and it’s keepin’ me alive...Jesus is keepin’ me alive”.

Then we started into the rehearsals - we finished blocking and choreographing the rest of the show and ran through the whole thing. Rebecca talked to them a bit about how important each of them were for the play. She told them that it says in the Bible that we are all part of one body, and if one part decides not to work, the rest of the body can’t work to the best of its ability. It’s the same in a musical - every part of the body is important to the whole. 

For lunch we had this amazing cauliflower soup - SOOOOOO GOOOOOOD! Then the kids had this cabbage & meat stuff, while I had a thick green bean soup, which was also really good. Dessert was this cherry (or apple, depending on which you got) cake thing. Also sooooo goood!

After lunch Rebecca, Meagan and I went upstairs to the costume room and pulled out a bunch of costumes for all of the characters - they will get to use them tomorrow. Tomorrow is also our first time using the stage -the kids will be so excited!

Then we ran through some more things, and after than everyone went down to do art. I worked with Juli (Cinderella) for about half an hour on her songs. She is really, really nervous, and worries that she’s going to ruin the whole show. The problem is, she’s amazing, so...that’s not going to happen! haha :) But she’s really nervous about the songs, so we just kept doing them over and over - every time I asked her if she wanted to stop she’d say, “No - again.” But she’s doing really well. She’s more comfortable if I am in front of her, conducting - so I told her I would do that during the show as well. Then, with the help of Anna translating, I talked to her a bit about not being afraid to make a mistake, and that a mistake very well could happen, but nobody would know but her. I told her what a gift she has, and that she is doing so well. She is having a difficult time, as her father will not let her practice at home - if he hears her practicing he gets angry. She was in tears yesterday. It must be awful to have such a gift and not be encouraged to use it. So I’m so grateful that I have been able to spend time with her during these days and encourage her in her singing.

At 4:00 we did another run-through and got through the whole show in 40 minutes! And they did sooooo well!! I’m really excited for tomorrow when we use costumes and the stage!

Afterwards we went to Attila’s for dinner. He picked up pizzas, which were the hugest pizzas I have ever seen in my entire life!

It was such a nice evening, getting to know his wife and having his four children play around us. One of them plays the violin and played for us. He was so cute! His oldest daughter is excited to come and see Cinderella because she loves musicals, so I showed her some of our CUC musicals  on YouTube. She was glued to the computer screen, and did not want to stop watching Honk when it was time for us to leave. Attila also took out his box of maps (he has a ton!) and got each of us to show his children where we are from.

I pretty much conked out when we got home!

It is so wonderful seeing each of the kids own talents and gifts unfold, right before our eyes. Many of them don’t experience any encouragement (especially in the area of the arts) at home. Most Hungarian schools also don’t have music or arts programs, and if they do it’s very minimal. This is such a wonderful opportunity for them to find their talents and to realize that they can be powerful and important. The families pay a small fee to enter the camp, but the majority of the cost is covered by the funds each of us raised before we came. So, in essence, all of you who helped by donating, coming to the concert, etc. have made it possible for each of these children to attend this camp.

I’m really starting to understand what we are doing here. At first I was starting to think, “What am I doing here? How is this mission work?” But through the days I’ve been starting to understand. It can be difficult to break into people’s lives with just our faith. We’ve been told that Europeans are especially difficult to hook unless you use another medium to get to know them and show your own faith and beliefs through your actions and words as you go along. I am so grateful for the opportunity to act as a role model for these kids, and to share my faith with them. I’ve had several opportunities to talk to them about various aspects of my life. One of them even commented on my t-shirts and said, “You have a lot of spiritual t-shirts. Why do you wear them?” That was an opportunity for me to share about how you can spread the Word through lots of different ways, other than just speaking out loud.

I have started reading a book from the OM bookstore here at the training centre called “Europe: Restoring Hope”. It is really ... so far. I’m sure many people, including myself, think, “Why would Europe need missionaries?” This book has some great facts in it. I’ve included a couple of quotes from the introduction below:

“Although Europe played a crucial role in spreading and recovering the biblical gospel as a home of the Reformation and great missionary movements, today it’s the greatest global exporter of secularism, atheism and ideologies hostile to Christianity and the Church. In fact, atheism and agnosticism comprise the fastest-growing religion in Europe, increasing from 1.7 million to 130 million people over the last century.”

“Very few would consider European people as being part of the ‘unreached groups’ who govern the agenda of foreign missions today. But due to the very low concentration of churches in Europe that reach out to their communities and the very few people who actively follow Jesus Christ, most of Europe is also out of reach of the true gospel, with Jesus Christ working through the lives of His followers.”

“9 out of the 12 top atheist/agnostic countries in the world are in Europe
Out of 731 million Europeans, less than 2% actively follow Jesus Christ
The countries with the highest suicide rates in the world are in Europe: Belarus, Lithuania and Russia”

It is no wonder there are so many missionaries in Europe. I hope I can participate more with OM missions - there is already talk about doing this camp again next summer, in which case I would definitely come again!

Day 7 (July 25, 2012)

Today was probably the most exhausting day yet. I feel like I can hardly remember what happened! But I’ll try!

It started with my alarm going off at 6:00am and me pressing the snooze button about 4 times. Finally I got up and had my shower and tea, and then we left with Attila. We did another worship session when we got to the school and then got into our prayer groups and did a little prayer with each other about our day.

I was leading the warm-ups today, so I started with “Reach for the Sun” because everyone was looking a little groggy. Then we did Bananas (of course!), and then Ty led a super fun song called “Making Melodies In My Heart”. Then Rebecca led some games about power on stage that were really cool. First she gave 9 kids a number between 1 and 9. If they had a 9 it meant they would be the most powerful and if they were a 1 they were the least powerful. They all walked around in silence, but demonstrating their level of power by the way they walked, looked and interacted with others. Then all of the kids watching had to put them the order they thought they went in. They did a pretty good job - it was a neat exercise - really effective! For the other power game the kids each stood in a square tile on the floor with some free tiles around them. They each had to choose a number between 1 and 5, with 5 being the most powerful. They had to walk nonstop from square to square, using 3 steps forward, 2 steps sideways, 3 steps forward, 2 steps sideways, and so on. BUT, if they encountered someone who wanted to get onto the same square as the same time, you had to do whatever your power position would do (ie. stare the other person down until they move, get out of the way, etc.).

After that we started working on the musical from the beginning, blocking and choreographing as we went along. We almost got to the end of the play today! It was so crazy - the kids worked so hard - everybody, including us, was “on” all day. Those kids are amazing for practicing this musical non-stop, 8 hours a day! I couldn’t imagine learning a musical in Hungarian in 5 days and performing it!

I also got to pull out kids to work on singing which I loved - totally my area! I worked with Juli, the girl playing Cinderella, and helped her with breath support and getting to those high notes. We also worked on phrasing and relaxing the body. I also worked with the mice, which was fun, because they are super cute and excited!

Our lunch today was vegetable soup, then pasta (mine was this curly pasta with mushrooms, white sauce, and some seasonings - it was sooooo good!). Dessert was this chocolately mint cake thing that was also really good. It was so funny because one girl (named Zsusko) couldn’t get over the fact that I’m a vegetarian. She asked question after question, sometimes repeating the same questions over. We all had a good laugh :)

I was so exhausted by the end of the day. Probably part of the reason is that I cannot stop sweating. I don’t think there was one single moment of the day where I was not wet with sweat! It must be a Canadian thing or something. Ha!

On the way home we found out that today was Attila’s wife’s birthday, so we made him stop and buy flowers. When we got home, we cooked some frozen pizza, showered off, and now we’re just hanging out doing our work. I finished typing up the script (finally!), and Alegria and Ty are working on the invitations and programs. It’s only 8:00, so I’m trying to keep myself awake until at least 9:00. Attila is picking us up at 7:20 tomorrow morning, so I won’t really have a snooze button option! :)

Oh wait! I just realized I didn’t share one of the funny stories from dinner at the restaurant last night! At one point we were talking about customs in other countries (it started by becoming aware that the word “bus” is a swear word here), and Attila was talking about how there are a lot of places where the left hand is considered unclean because it is used to do “bathroom things”. We all understood that he meant it was used for wiping your bum...except for Alegria, who says, “Well at least people who are left handed would be really good toilet cleaners because it’s their stronger hand!” We all laughed for a LOOOOOOONG time about that one!

p.s. It seems that everywhere we go we either have to climb uphill or climb up stairs. And in the OM Training Centre there are 42 stairs to get to and from our bedroom. I counted. I’m going to have buns of steel when I get back. Just saying.

Day 6 (July 24, 2012)

Today we met at 8:00 at the ICSB and did a bit of worship together as a team. Then, after the kids arrived at 8:30, we started off with some more games to get us going. We did the Banana game again, as well as the name game where you have to attach an action to your name, and then the person next to you says your name with your action, and then their name with their action, and so on, until the last person in the circle has to do everybody’s names. After that we did a game where we were in two circles, holding hands, with a hula hoop over the arms of one pair. We had to pass the hula hoop around the circle by passing it over our arms and putting our bodies through so that it made one complete round of the circle, and then back in the opposite direction. After a couple of practices, we did it as a competition, and my team won! ;) We also played the game “What Is That”, where one person was holding a stick and another person comes up to them and says, “What is that?” They say something like “It’s a guitar” and pretend to play it. The other person says, “No it’s not! That’s a toothbrush” and pretends to brush their teeth with it. Then another person says “What is that?”, and so on.
After that I taught them the song “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes”, because we were planning to pull kids out individually later to audition them for roles and wanted to hear them sing Cinderella’s solo song. We also worked on “The Work Song” that the mice sing.

Next we split up into two groups again, one for music/drama and one for art. Downstairs they worked on designing and painting some set pieces. Upstairs we did some characterization activities with voice and movement. They had to act as mice, and then again as the evil stepmother. We did a scenario where I was a jeweler, and they each had to take turns improvising as the evil stepmother (or as a King if they were a boy) coming in to buy a bracelet. It was so much fun and the kids were so creative and hilarious! We also did The Human Machine Game, to prepare the kids for making Cinderella’s carriage out of their own bodies - it was really fun. Then we switched groups and did the same with the other group.

After that, all of the kids went down to art, and we pulled them out one at a time to sing and read for us. During lunch we did the practically impossible task of casting all of these 17 lovelies into 18 parts.

For lunch there was meat soup again, but the chef made me a fruit soup (served cold). It was neat - it tasted kind of like apple crisp). Then we had rice with chicken and vegetables (mine was just vegetables in it), and then a pink cake thing for dessert. This is probably one of the only mission trips where someone comes home weighing more than when they left...just saying!

After lunch we announced the parts, and the kids were excited to get started. We did a full read-through of the script and music first. Then we kept the kids involved in Bibiddy Bobiddi Boo upstairs while the rest went downstairs to paint. We practiced the song and taught the choreography. We also built the human carriage, with the mice becoming horses, coachmen, etc. It looks really good! We performed it for the other group when they came up. After than we worked as a whole group on the opening number, seeing how well they improvised with making a town scene. We will work on it more tomorrow, and then just keep plugging away at the rest of the play.

When the day was done we had a quick wrap-up meeting and prayer, and then Alegria, Ty, Attila and I went to Tesco (that’s the name I couldn’t remember in the other entry) and picked up a few things. And of course we grabbed some more chocolate! And guess what I found?! It’s a chocolate bar with POPCORN in it?! WHY do we not have this in CANADA? I haven’t had a chance to taste it yet, but I’m sure it’s good. How could it not be?

Then the four of us met Rebecca and Meaghan for dinner at a restaurant. I had pizza with peas, corn, broccoli and mushrooms on it. The funny thing was that when I got it, each of the for toppings were separate (they each made up 1/4 of the pizza). The mushroom and corn sections were the best...I didn’t like the peas on my pizza very much! For dessert Meaghan and I shared this crepe with walnut spread in the middle and chocolate sauce on top. We all had a really good time together, laughing lots! Ty makes fun of the fact that I say “eh” quite frequently. I have never noticed HOW MUCH I use that word until I came here! Haha. He told me a good joke about how Canada was named. He said they put all of the consonants in a hat and pulled them out one at a time. First they pulled out a C and said, “eh?”, then N, “eh?”, D, “eh”? I laughed pretty hard about that one. I also got lectured by the whole group because I have never seen Monty Python.

It was 9:00 when we finally got home (after leaving the training centre at 7:45 in the morning), so we decided just to go to bed. I think I’m the only one still awake at the moment.

I had some good conversation with Rebecca at dinner too. I was asking why we weren’t doing a Christian themed play if we are a Christian organization trying to evangelize. She talked about how a Christian play would draw in the “church kids”, but probably wouldn’t be very inviting for non-Christian kids. For example, if we advertised that we were doing the story of “Joseph”, unbelievers might have no idea who that was. But advertising “Cinderella”, is opening it up to a wider population. She also talked about how it is easier to reach unbelievers through non-Christian activities (such as a secular musical, baseball, English classes, etc.). For many of them, this might be the only way to come into contact with Christians and hear the word.

One really neat success story of the camp so far is about a young boy named Huba. He does not speak any English, and is really shy. He did not want to be here at all. He spent a lot of the morning standing looking at the wall. Rebecca talked with him a bit about how she used to be very shy and that God helped her to become less shy. We prayed for him at the end of the first day, asking God to help him feel safe and included, and continued our prayers for him every day. Each day so far Huba has been coming out of his shell more and more. He is participating in everything now, and having a good time. It was really amazing to see the huge results of our prayers for Huba!

Day 5 (July 23, 2012)

Today was the first day of camp! I got up at 6:30, got ready and then had some tea and a couple of the sugar-free, whole wheat, flax cookies my mom sent with me. Attila picked us up at 7:45 in the rickety OM van (it blows out black smoke) and we went to ICSB. Once there we starting setting up tables and chairs in the cafeteria for lunch and for art. We blew up balloons for a name game we were playing, as well as a whole bunch of water balloons. Kids started coming at 8:30. As they came in they wrote their name on an air-filled balloon. Then Rebecca introduced the camp, our team and brainstormed with the kids a little bit about what it takes to make a musical. Next we started games.

First was the name game. All of the balloons were in the middle of the circle - we had to run into the middle, grab a balloon, and find the person whose name was on it. With our parters, we had to find out each others favourite colour, favourite food, and something about our family and pets (pets was my addition...haha). Then we had to introduce our partner to the group stating these three answers (in English). Next I introduced the banana game, which we did a couple of times and will continue to do all week as an energizer. Then we did the game Zip, Zap, Boing, which the kids really liked. We also did the Atom Game, and Body Part Partners (you walk around and then have to find your partner when they call out 2 body parts. When you find your partner, you have to touch those 2 body parts together. Ex. Elbow to nose, or ear to foot, etc.). Then we learned the first song in the show (The Tale of Cinderella). It’s a smaller group (approx 20) but they sound great! Next, Alegria, Meaghan and myself acted out a scene between the 2 stepsisters and the stepmother for the kids. Then we showed it to them with a few different emotions. Then we split the kids up into 2 groups. One group went to the art room with Alegria. They were working on word art and designing a logo for the Cinderella programs. Upstairs we were working on acting. The kids were put into groups of 3, and did the same scene we had performed for them, each rotating through the parts so that they got to play all three. As they did this, they also cycled through working with myself, Meaghan and Rebecca. Then they went downstairs to do art and the other group came up, doing the same activity. Once we were all back together again, each group performed the scene for everybody. They did such a wonderful job! All of the girls loved playing the stepsisters! And they did very well with their English!

Lunch is being provided by a local restaurant. It’s crazy. When I think of camp food, I think of sandwiches and chips. But not here. In Hungary lunch is the main meal of the day, and dinner is more of the sandwich time. The first course (I KNOW!) was a meat soup (so I ate a granola bar, not knowing there was more to come!). Next were cubed potatoes with butter and seasonings, pickles and stuffed meat of some sort (I had potatoes and pickles). AND THEN we had these little layered cake things that were really good for dessert! DESSERT! 

After lunch we headed outside to play a game of water balloon volleyball on the court. I have never heard of this and it was SOOOOO much fun! On each side of the net their are sets of partners, each holding one side of a towel. One set of partners would get a water balloon in their towel, and had to fling it across to the other side of the net. Another pair on the other team had to try and catch it in their towel. Needless to say, there were a lot of burst water balloons. But everybody got the hang of it and were doing pretty well by the end! My partner, a sweet little shy girl who doesn’t really speak any English got a water balloon right on her when we were trying to catch it with the towel, and was soaked from head to toe. We had a good laugh about that!

After taking a group picture outside, we headed in to get more work done. We did a whole group exercise, practicing moving around like different characters (ie. a king, a mouse, etc.). Then we split up again (music/drama and art). In art they began working on designing a castle for the set. Upstairs we did more acting work, such as the game Who Am I? (each person got a type of person written on a piece of paper and had to walk across the room acting it out with no words our sounds, and everyone had to guess. Some examples were: cowboy, teacher, soccer goalie, police officer, doctor, etc.). Then I taught them the song Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, which is a pretty difficult song! Especially because half of these “English” words aren’t really words! But the kids are very dedicated and learned the song very well! We rotated groups again, and did the same activities with the second group, while ours went to art.

At the end of the day, our team met to debrief, and then we went home. Ty made the three of us grilled cheese sandwiches (such a gentleman!), and we sat around and chatted.

Ty cooking dinner for us girls!

I also looked around in the library at our training centre and pulled out a bunch of books I want to buy. I'm trying to narrow them down! After that I started typing out the script for Cinderella (we are projecting both the English and Hungarian translations at the performance on Saturday. I was super tired, and called it a night at 10:00pm.

Day 4 (July 22, 2012)

I had such a good sleep last night. I slept in later and woke up at 7:30 this time. After my shower I went downstairs and had some tea while I wrote my Day 3 blog (yes...these are all written the morning after the actual day). Then I had a granola bar for breakfast and Alegria and I headed outside to wait for Rebecca - she was picking us up at 9:00 to take us to her church. The service was completely in Hungarian. The service started with worship music - all of the songs were unfamiliar melodies and had Hungarian lyrics, but I was able to follow along a little (the words were projected on the wall). I was having trouble keeping my eyes open during the sermon (not because it was boring or because I didn’t understand...just because I was sitting, which always makes me nod off!!). Luckily, another guy that’s affiliated with OM came over to myself and Alegria and translated the whole sermon for us. That was awesome! It was also neat to the on the “other side”...to be the one needing the translator...a different perspective! The church was pretty small, but really neat looking. It had an interesting architectural design (as do many buildings in Hungary!), and the Baptismal pool took up most of the front of the church and was decorated like an outdoor pond with rocks and trees around it. After church one of the older men kept trying to say something to Alegria and myself, but neither of us could understand...and I’m not sure if he realized that we couldn’t understand him or not!

Rebecca's Church

Then we went out for Chinese food (haha...I KNOW!). I had rice because everything else had meat in it. I also had a Kinley (gingerale...but the BEST gingerale I’ve ever tasted!!! Totally not as sweet as our gingerale). After lunch we went to this bakery/ice-cream place and got ice cream cones (which are also WAY better and less sweet than ice-cream in Canada!). Alegria, Rebecca and I had some really nice conversation about our faith walks outside at a table while we ate.

Next we went back to Rebecca’s house, where we met the rest of the team (her daughter-in-law Meaghan, a student of hers named Ana, Attila, our other volunteer who just arrived this morning - Ty, and another lady who works with OM Hungary, but whose name I can’t remember at the moment!). We spent the afternoon planning the first day of camp. It’s going to be awesome! We are starting off with a name game, then I’m leading “Bananas”, then doing some other games like Zip Zap Boing, etc. for the first hour. Then for the next 2 hours we will split up and half will do art with Alegria and half will do music and drama with Rebecca, Meaghan and myself for the first hour, then they switch. The afternoon is basically more art and drama games in order to help us figure out where each camper’s strength lies. By the end of the day we want to be able to cast the show based on the movement, singing and speaking we have observed throughout the day. Tuesday morning will start right in with putting the play together and making sets. I am SO excited. I felt like it was Christmas Eve! It just goes to show how amazing God is! I took this summer off from doing the musical at church, only to find my gifts useful in another country to do the same!

We also discussed our goals of the camp, and beside teaching English and a bit about music, art and drama, the main goal is to be examples of Godly men and women for these teens. Hopefully we will have a lot of opportunities to share our stories and stories about Jesus with them, and we also hope He shines through what we do.

After the planning session Alegria, Rebecca and I went to a store...I forget what it’s called, but apparently it’s all over Europe and England and it’s like Walmart...starts with a T and ends with an O...that’s all I can remember! Ha! We picked up a bunch of supplies for the camp, as well as a few Hungarian chocolate bars, and snacks for us to try. I also grabbed a large bottle of that Kinley gingerale! ;)

The next thing is super funny, but needs some back story. Last night (Saturday), us girls were fed up with our puny fan that sounded like a train. When we were lying in bed Alma wondered out loud, “I wonder if the ‘Arts Guy’ room has any fans...” Alegria and I thought she was brilliant, and got out of bed to check. It turned out there was a tall, quiet fan in there, so we grabbed it and (giggling...) replaced it with our noisy one. It was then the joke of the evening. Ty arrived at about 8:30 this morning and went to sleep. When we saw him at our meeting in the afternoon, we let him in on the joke. Now to the funny part...Ty did not come with us to the store, so he was home for quite awhile before us. We got in to find him reading at a table in the great room. We decided to head upstairs and have our showers. When we entered our room we burst out laughing...because there were 7 fans blowing around in our room! I, of course, took a picture!

7 fans in our room (from Ty)

After our showers Ty, Alegria and I ate dinner together (more of the “whatever you can find in the kitchen” kind of dinner...mine was cheese, popcorn, and bread with hazelnut chocolate spread - the dinner of champions!). We sat for a few hours chatting about our experiences and lives. It was a really nice time together. It is just the three of us all week, as all of the others left for camp in a different part of Hungary this afternoon.

Now I’m just lying in bed typing this...Alegria is scratching her itchy legs. I have no mosquito bites, and she has about 17 of them all over her arms and legs. Plus one bite on her knee that keeps oozing. I told her she probably has leprosy.

Ok...I’d better get some sleep before we start with the kids tomorrow! SO EXCITED!!

Day 3 (July 21, 2012)

I had a really good sleep last night! I was out by 10:30 and slept right through until about 6:30am. I woke up to about 25 texts from Sarah wishing me a good day! :) Thanks Sarah! I was so hot and sweaty in our room, but I made some tea and headed outside where it was so nice and cool! Everyone is up now (it’s 8:30am and just finishing up breakfast and all that morning stuff). At 9:00 we have Bible study and then a meeting about our work as well as Hungarian culture and language. More to come later!!

Later...

This morning Attila spoke with us about the history or OM. It began as a smuggling organization (smuggling Bibles into countries, including Hungary). They would make vehicles with hidden compartments underneath and fill them full of Bibles in order to get them into countries where Bibles were not allowed to be sold (and sometimes even owned). Hungary is approximately 3-5% Evangelical with about 10% of the population being church goers. The basic idea of OM is to be “mobilizers” - to share the Word through action...under the guise of “other” activities (ie. baseball camp, English camp, arts camp, etc.).

For the afternoon all of the English camp workers went for lunch and then spent the afternoon & evening going through the curriculum and planning. Allegria and I left with Rebecca (the head of our arts camp). We went to the International Christian School (ICSB) and she showed us around. The gym has a good-sized stage with a backstage area and a curtain that moves electronically. The rehearsals will take place in the music room, and the art will be done in the cafeteria. We’ll move onto the stage on Friday and perform on Saturday. The best part is that we are doing the musical Cinderella (the Disney Kids version). It will be “extreme musical week”, as we have to have Hungarian teens ages 13-17 ready to perform the musical, all in English, in 5 days. SO excited!

International Christian School

Then we went to the grocery store and got some things for lunch. I picked up 6 HUGE bottles of water - probably about 2 liters each), 2 turo ??, and a pack of 4 yogurt and it only cost about 4000 forents. SO CHEAP! Especially when you consider how much water is at home! Then we went to Rebecca’s house and had lunch. I had frozen pizza (no one had told her that I was a vegetarian, so we picked one up while we were at the store) and they had sausages in buns.

After lunch we started planning a bit for the musical. Then Rebecca had to go keep score at a baseball game. Allegria went with her and did some of her art planning while she was there, and I stayed at the house and went through the music and script and made lists of games and improv we can do on the first day. When they got back we had a very quick dinner (I had the rest of my pizza). Rebecca had arranged for us to go to a concert! But not just any concert!! There is a huge mansion that belonged to a family who were friends with Beethoven. It is now a Beethoven museum, and they built a theatre on an island by the house where they perform only Beethoven’s music. We went in the museum, but only for a couple of minutes. I wish we could have stayed longer - it was awesome! Then we walked across a long bridge and got to the theatre. It’s uncovered, but right in amidst a whole forest of trees, so there were leaves all above us. On the stage there was a huge busk of Beethoven, surrounded by the orchestra and choir. They performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. It was so amazing. I loved how when the singers would stop abruptly the sky actually rang with echoes. I almost cried. It was the best night EVER!

The Beethoven Museum

 Allegria and I were so tired when we got home. Everyone else had gone to bed, so we each had a quick snack and then joined them. But around 10:45 we started to hear all of this banging coming from downstairs (we are up on the 3rd floor). It wouldn’t stop, and then we remembered that there was a group of Germans coming from the airport at some point. So, of course, we had to joke around a bit and say, “The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!”. But the banking continued and we realized they must not be able to get in. Nobody would come downstairs with me, so I snuck down the 2 flights of stairs with my flashlight, hoping it actually was the Germans and not some scary killers or something! Ha! But as I came into the great room I saw a flashlight shining in the window and about 25 teens banging on the glass doors. I figured they were safe and let them in - they had been outside the doors for about 15 minutes! We didn’t know there wouldn’t be anyone with them to let them in (it is only the visitors that stay at the training centre - not the people that work here). So I helped them find beds and fell asleep pretty quickly after that.

Pics are also up from day 3 (and some from day 4): http://www.flickr.com/photos/musiclover81/sets/72157630695835622/

Day 2 (July 20, 2013)

I didn’t get a lot of sleep on the plane - I didn’t think it would be a problem, but it’s a lot harder than I thought! It’s tricky when you’re trying not to bump the person beside you when you’re trying to get all comfortable, and the pillows kept sliding all over the wall (I had a window seat).

They came around and served breakfast - some kind of little muffin, yogurt, and a sandwich with cheese and ham (which, of course, I didn’t eat), and also served tea and coffee. There was so much cloud cover that it looked like we were flying over the arctic rather than the Atlantic Ocean (as well as frost on the window), and there was SO much turbulence once we started flying lower through all of that cloud to prepare for landing!

The Vienna airport was huge, but I was quite proud of myself for figuring out where to go! The plane to Budapest was one of those small ones where you get onto it outside via the stairs of the plane. The view from my window was the propeller.

After landing in Budapest a shuttle bus took us from the plane to the baggage claim. While waiting for my red suitcase with the pink hula girl tag I had those few moments of worry that perhaps my suitcase didn’t make it with me from Winnipeg to Toronto to Vienna and then to Budapest, but then it appeared and I had a final sigh of relief that everything had gone well throughout my travels!

I exited the baggage claim to find a huge line-up of people holding signs. Right away I saw a little 6 year old boy holding one that said “OM Hungary”. He was with his dad (Atilla) who works for OM Hungary all year round and his little sister (3 years old). We drove from Budapest to Erd in a tiny little white car with the OM logo - the drive took about 45 minutes, as traffic was quite backed up. The scenery didn’t look that different from Canadian prairie scenery (with the exception of some different kinds of greenery) until we got into Erd. The OM Training Centre is on a huge hill, and the view from the training centre is more hills with houses decorating them. I felt like a dork being so fascinated with hills, but when all you ever see is flat land right to the horizon, seeing a very hilly landscape dotted with homes is quite exciting.

OM Training Center Hungary

I arrived at OM just in time to head out for lunch with Jill (another OM Hungary worker) and some of the team from the English camp that will be going on at the same time. We went to a little restaurant where everyone had Goulash and I had onion soup (which was really good!). My stomach was bothering me all day, so I thought a light lunch would be best! After that Jill and Anna (a teacher from Taiwan) went to the airport to meet another family coming in, while myself and a family from Calgary (Michelle, Phil and their children Stella (11), Emily (6) and Sabastian (12)) and I went to the park. Michelle and I chatted while Phil and the kids played. Then we went to an ice cream place and, after some trickiness trying to order Hungarian-named ice cream from Hungarian-speaking people, had some really delicious ice cream!

Once we got back to the training center, I laid down for about an hour. My bedroom has 4 bunk beds (8 beds altogether). I’m on a top bunk. When I got up it was almost time for dinner. We just waited a bit for the other team members to arrive. A new family came, from England (Vicki - a religions teacher in a private school, her husband David, and their two children Meaghan and Hannah), as well as a girl from Australia (Roweena). We all ate dinner together (dinner at OM is make-your-own sandwich from whatever is in the fridge) and then played a get to know you game (although by then we already knew each other pretty well!). After that we headed outside and set up a ping-pong table. There were many a great matches (although I lost every time I played which, I have to admit, was against one of the children every time).

Ping Pong Fun! :)

During the evening another girl from Finland arrived (Alma and her daughter Elsa) as well as a girl from Ohio (Allegria). Allegria will be working at the arts camp with me, while all the rest of my new friends will be leaving on Sunday for another area of Hungary for the English camp. I think it will be strange having just the two of us here in this big place!


Once it got too dark to play ping pong we all headed inside and got ready for bed. There is no air conditioning in Hungary, so it was quite hot in our room (especially with 7 of us in there!). But I fell asleep quickly and stayed asleep until 6:30 this morning (Day 3).

One interesting thing about Hungary is that practically everyone (at least in Erd, anyway) has a dog! But the dogs are more outside pets than inside - used as guard dogs for the yard. So all day and all night long you are constantly hearing dogs barking throughout the hills.

Here's the link to see more pictures!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musiclover81/sets/72157630679123418/

Day 1 (July 19, 2012)

My day started at 6:30am as I finished packing up my stuff for Hungary. As you all know, I have a really hard time with packing lightly. Luckily, my suitcase DID NOT get the “Heavy Load” sticker put on it this time! Haha :)

I thought I was doing pretty good, but when it was time to say goodbye to my mom and dad I got a little teary. But I held it together quite well, I must say! Especially for a “Mommy’s girl”! Ha! Going through security was easy and the flight from Winnipeg to Toronto was good! Air Canada is pretty awesome...each seat had its own tv screen and you could choose whatever you wanted to watch. There were a whole bunch of choices for movies and shows. I watched “Mirror, Mirror”, which was really good. It kept me occupied for the whole flight.

I was a little confused at the Toronto airport, and it took me awhile to figure out where I was going. But with the help of some maps and the person at the Travelex centre I figured out where I was going. The Toronto airport is like a shopping mall - so many stores! But I was worried about missing my flight, so I didn’t do any browsing. I just got a bagel (and a maple dip doughnut) from Tim’s and went to my gate to wait.

The plane to Vienna was through Austrian Airlines. No individual TVs this time. But to my pleasant surprise, there was dinner on this flight! AND there was a vegetarian option, so I had this really good mushroom ravioli, a brownie and then some tea. I also used an airplane bathroom for the very first time in my life. It was not as bad or as scary as I thought it would be. :) After dinner I dozed on and off. The setting sun made the sky pink-ish and it looked so beautiful! The picture taken with my phone doesn't do it justice! :)

The Adventure Begins

Hey there friends! I haven't left yet, but I wanted to start off this blog in the hopes that there will be opportunity for me to update you on how things are going in Hungary. I'm not sure if I will have access to a computer at all, but if I do I'll try to post stuff here!

So...as I start on my adventure, thank you to all of you who have been so supportive of this mission. So many of you helped with the fundraiser and/or offered your support in a variety of ways. I am so grateful! Below is a link to some pictures from the evening (taken by the lovely Sarah!) if you'd like to see. The videos are also posted on my YouTube Channel in the Hungary Fundraiser playlist (also see link below).

Ashley's Hungary Photo Page

AshleyQueenMusic YouTube Channel

I will miss everyone while I am away, but you will continue to be in my prayers. And I would love to be in yours too!! If you're wondering how you can pray for me, I have a few prayer requests...

1) That I am able to bring the love of Christ to these young people through both words, my actions and my friendship
2) That I will learn plenty from those around me, especially the more experienced missionaries, as well as from the youth themselves.
3) That I will stay healthy for the duration of the trip so that I can give all my energies to the work God has sent me to do!

Thanks so much for your support, and I look forward to keeping in touch (fingers crossed) over the next couple of weeks!