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!