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/