Love from the States!

Today is St. Patrick's Day!  And although we are not Catholic, I think it is a fun holiday to celebrate as far as the festivities.  I LOVE green!!! Apparently it's the color of the spring season in the states, so I've heard.  So today I am head-to-toe in green clothes from my ponytail holder to my shoes that Susan got for me.  Usually I make green pancakes and green eggs to celebrate the event, but we do not have any food coloring.  I have collected 4-leaf clovers since I was little.  I have jewelry(the ring Adam got me in 2002, and the necklace and earrings my mom got from Japan) and towels and clothes.  Some might think that it is paganistic for me to do such a thing...4-leaf clovers...isn't that believing in luck?  Well, I would like to say that to me, 4-leaf clovers represent the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and God's grace.  I think it is an opportunity to share the gospel.  It's by grace that we are saved, through faith and not by works. Anyway, I would also like to take this time to point out that in the Bible, Peter did not want anyone to bow down to him in person, so why would we bow down to his statue??...tangent, I know but still relevant on this day.

This week (it's only Tuesday) has been a week that we have been showered with gifts from home.  A dear friend of ours who sang in our wedding, Julie, sent us a care package with lots of goodies in it including pancake and biscuit mix and the coveted syrup.  Also included were three issues of The World of Gospel magazine.  This is a fairly new magazine that is circulated in the River Valley area.  Well it just so happened that Lydia Joseph-George, the editor/creator, was dropping some off at the post office so Julie put some in there.  Lydia told Julie to have me e-mail her to see what I thought of it.  So I e-mailed Lydia yesterday to tell her what I thought.  She was sooo nice! She is a former 5News anchor and reporter, so I told her how I always wanted to take my passion for news and meld it together with my passion for getting the "good news" out there.   She told me that she would be interested in having me write some stories maybe every 2-3 months.  Of course I'm thrilled.  I would love to communicate what is going on in the world through my missionary eyes.  So that is a praise for me!  

Also this morning, a package arrived from my mom, dad and brother.  In it was Valentine's candy and brownie mix and Skittles and green St. Paddy's Day dish towels to name a few.  She also got Nic the green goblin ...so now he has the villain!  Yay, now we get to fight the bad guy all over the house. At this moment, he is whining because the tiny yellow ball that the goblin throws won't stay in his hand.  This should be fun. Anyway, we greatly appreciate people thinking about us and sending us pkgs.  I almost feel spoiled.  Really we can make it just fine in a foreign country without syrup and pancake mix and comforts from home.  We are fine without all that.  But it sure helps the mood around here.   

Well that's all for now.   Just wanted to update.  Thanks for all the love!!!

Our Fam

Here is a recent photo of our family!

Growing up!

Nic & Nyle are growing up fast!   When we got here Nic could barely reach the lightswitch in his room and was still in pull-ups.  Now he's a big boy, wearing big boy underwear and doesn't need our help to make his room... which he refers to as a dark, scary cave... light again.  He has also been consistent going pee pee in the potty.  We are still working on #2.  He's had some accidents.  I've done some reading and it talked  about expecting a setback when there has been something traumatic in a child's life such as a "big move."  Well poor Nic has been though a lot.  He has lived in 5 places in the last year.  The other day he said  "after we live in this house, then we'll move to a new house."  He just expects it.  The kid has no stability.  BUT he does have stability in knowing that his parents will be there for him and the Bible is our foundation for everything we do.  Little Nyle..."Baba Nyle" is what we call him now...has developed so much.  He is pulling himself all around the house, making his way from room to room.  He HAS officially crawled, but he really just likes sliding.  Then when he gets where he wants to be (usually the bathroom for some reason, I don't know maybe he wants to be potty trained) he pulls up on everything to stand up.  He really prefers to stand.  He does the yoga move downward dog a lot trying to stand up on his own.  So most the time if he's fussy we'll just prop him up next to the couch and he is fine on his feet.  I think he will walk early.  Nic just breaks my heart though.  He has such an imagination.  He'll pretend MeMe and PaPa are here.  He'll go to the door, let them in and then show them his room.  I'll be playing with him and he'll say "tickle me, Vow" (Vow is my mom)  I'll tickle him and play "boo" like Vow does, and he'll keep calling me Vow.  Sometimes Nic will say that he's going to get on the airplane and fly home.  It's just so sad.  He's even had me pretend that I'm Mylo and he is Otis.  You know it's bad if he misses the cats.  But I am so thankful for Skype and that we can talk to and see our relatives on a pretty regular basis.  I'm also so SO thankful for the generous packages sent to us here.  We've had a couple people from church send us our "want" and "we miss"  items.  They definitely help.  We feel loved and supported...and frankly it just makes us feel better to have tortillas and peanut butter on hand.  Of course my mom and dad (Tim & Donnetta) and in-laws Rick & Cynthia have also sent things for the boys and for us.  But prayer is the most important thing we can ask for.  Just because we are m's doesn't mean we are immune to problems.  Our geography just changed.  In fact, can you imagine spending all day every day with your spouse?  Some might say, "oh how wonderful."  For the most part it is great, especially to have Adam help with the boys, BUT it's good to have time away to re-charge.  It does get stressful here with language learning.  We have private lessons every morning for 2 hours (1 hr. each for now till Nic gets to go to school).  I get worked up about it because I just want to do my best.  Hungarian is very difficult.  The nationals even say it is.   Anyway, we have spent a lot of time reading our Bibles.  When we went to Budapest, Larry & Melinda, a couple serving on our team, gave us each The Daily Walk Bible.  It has been soooo good.  The translation is just so understandable and it takes you through the whole Bible day by day.  I have never read through the Bible.  Right now I am reading through the Old Testament.  It has brought about so many questions that I have.  I am keeping a journal of my thoughts about it.   It definitely makes me that much more thankful that Jesus came to earth.  Adam has been getting involved with playing basketball here and running with our language teacher's boyfriend.  I am still working on getting together with some people.  It's tough to work around nap times.  We all look forward to the warm weather, which should be here in a month or 2.  Our Hungarian friends say that we can go camping sometime when it gets warm.  We tried to explain to them Smores, well first we had to explain marshmallow...but they look forward to it and so do we!   I have had so many thoughts in my head and I really just love typing because I'm so much faster at it than writing in my journal.  Blogging is new to me, so I hope to get up to speed on all this.

Life Moves Pretty Fast!

So I know this blog has taken forever to create.  This is Jennah typing now, and I will probably be the one who keeps it up-to-date most of the time.  We have lived in Hungary for a little more than two months now.  We've had mixed feelings about it as far as if we're being used to our full potential.  But we are glad that we are here.  We felt God calling us to missions.  Too many people get caught up in the "American dream" ...the house, the kids, the pets, the friends, the cars, the school...we were willing to give all that up to see what God can do through our lives.  It's not that having all those things is bad.  I just think that we need to be open to what God would have us do for Him.  And if we are bogged down by materials, and those are preventing us from being free to just pick up and go when the Spirit leads, then it's time to re-evaluate.  I am not at all trying to put ourselves on a pedistool(sp?) by any means.  But I am saying that we should always be prepared when God wants us to do something, and not be like...whoa, wait a minute God I've got this car payment, or I really wanted my child to stay with his classmates and start T-ball.  I'm not gonna lie.  This has been a tough transition.  It is not easy to sell most everything you own, narrow it down to about 15 bins.  But if we never made the move then we would always wonder, "what if?"  When I get frustrated living in a foreign country or burned out because I have not had a break from my kids except to walk to the store and back, or simply get overloaded with learning the language and need a break...I will think of why we came.  It isn't for our own comfort, it's definitely not a vacation (vacations you usually go home after a week or so) we learned that pretty fast...it is so God will be glorified.  God does not need us here.  It's not like we showed up to Magyarorszag shouting "salvation is here!"  No.  We are simply willing.  I am the messenger.  Really the pressure and burden is off of us.  We know that it is God's job to soften the peoples' hearts here.  He will prick their hearts when He calls them to himself.  We just need to stay in the word and be obedient and be ready for opportunities when they arise.