Sunday

Well, I made it back to Austria without problems. On the train every time we crossed the Austrian - Hungarian boarder we had both sets of boarder guards check our passports. I did notice that this time that both sets of guards got off at the same stop, but that both groups kept to themselves. I was a little surprised at this. I would have thought that most of the guards that traveled this line would probably have known each other to some degree. But as we left the station they were going into the waiting building but each in their own groups. No one even tried to talk with someone in the other group.

Anyway, I'm back in Austria sleeping in my own bed again. Well at least my own bed here at the Haus.

I'm a little drained... teaching 4 weeks in 4 different countries in a 5 week period. Sometimes it seems like it's been 6 months ago that I was in Tallinn, but it was only 5 weeks ago that I was there.

Here are a couple of pictures of Sunday's service. Rob is back from being in the states for several weeks. Actually he and his wife Mary were at Mountain Christian just the Sunday before. Rob's mother lives in Bel Air and there are several people that both Rob and Mary know that go to MCC, so when Rob goes back to visit his mother and if he is there over the weekend, he comes to MCC. Rob is on the left playing the acoustic guitar. The second one is of him preaching.

Rob and Mary will be coming out tomorrow (Wednesday) to visit and have lunch with Pam and I. That should be very enjoyable.

John

HUNGARY PICTURES

Here are some pictures of my time in Hungary.

The first is of the building where I taught for the week. It's the Baptist Theological Seminary there in Budapest. The next two are the students and the students and Laszlo my interpreter.

Here are a couple of shots of the students working together planning a worship service for a class assignment. Just so you know that's Betty on the left and Mariam on the right with the Bible and computer.

The fist picture is of Kodaly's house. Then Hero's square and the last one... well I had to take this shot for Gary T. It's pretty self explanatory.

This is the Chinese Embassy building and then just a building downtown. If you look closely at the last shot way in the background in the middle you can see some mountains, that's actually Buda of Budapest. Buda was one city on one side of the Danube and Pest (which means plains) was on the other side. together they make Budapest.

Sorry that the pictures were so slow in getting posted. But I was finally able to upload them today. I hope you can now go back and when you read a story bout a student you can place a face with it.

John

UKRAINE PICTURES

Here are some pictures from when I was in Ukraine. The first 5 pictures are of students and the classroom where I taught.
The next picture is a picture of me holding the plate that the students gave me after the class had ended. It's a plate with the emblem of Kherson on it with the Ukrainian flag. It's very, very nice.

The next picture is of Zhenia, Vera and their daughter Anya who helped translate for us. After dinner we went for some sight seeing of Kherson. Here is a picture of a WW II monument of a memorial of Russian soldiers who died at this spot over looking a river. I guess it was a terrible battle and lots of Russians lost their lives at this spot.

The next pictures are of the church. The first one is the inside and then one of the outside entrance way. The building was an elementary school that the church purchased. It was built with an open court yard in the middle. The church closed the court yard in and made the sanctuary that you see. Also because this used to be an elementary school, it is in the middle of several apartment buildings. Here is a picture of one of the ones close by.

The last shot is of the cross over the entrance way into the church.

John

EXAM DAY

The EXAM at least that's what they call it. Everyone did very well... all A's. But then again, it was a very good class. They all went home with big smiles on their faces.
Laszlo and I still had papers to read and the test to grade. We finished all of that by about 12. So I decided to take a walk in Budapest. Today is another hot day, so it wasn't a long walk. I got back to the apartment about 2:30. Oh by the way, a gyro here is not the same as a gyro back home!!!!!
I took a walk down one of the main streets here Andrassy Ut. This time I went past the Burger King by a couple of more blocks. There were really no souvenir shops to speak of. Probably at the train station tomorrow I'll find something to bring home as a souvenir from my time here in Budapest. One artsy store I did enter had some incense that I thought was very interesting though. It was the smell of Hemp. I was tempted to by it as a joke, but then I thought that I probably wouldn't be able to get it past the dogs at security at the airport in Vienna for the trip back. That's also the store where I bought a gift for Pam, but don't tell her it's a necklace.
tomorrow back at Haus Edelweiss and a couple of days off, a couple of days of faculty meetings and then we head on home.
I know I'll reflect more on my time here after I get back to Austria. For know I'm going back to my apartment where it's a bit cooler and relax for awhile.
John

Thursday

Well we finished today. The last of the class notes were taken and all that is left is the review and the final exam tomorrow morning.

This was the smallest class I have taught, but it was nice to just have the three students and get to know them a little better.

Betty is the wife of a minister here in Budapest and has two children 12 and 10. They have been at this church now for the past 2 years.

Gabor has a little 18 month old baby boy. He plays keyboards and does some arranging for the church where he attends. He uses Sibelius for a notation program. I told him I wanted to learn it, so after lunch he showed me some shortcuts in Sibelius to write music without using a keyboard. He was fast! I use Finale and I have to use the keyboard because using the qwerty keyboard is way to slow for me.

Mariam has a class full of students come the fall!!!

Now let me tell you about Laszlo my interpreter. Laszlo had been teaching and interpreting for quite some time now, he is 77 now! When Billy Graham would come to Hungary to have is Crusades, Laszlo would be his interpreter. He has written over 800 hymns (words and some music) for the church here. I picked up the new Baptist Hymnal (copyright 2003) and he must have about 30 songs printed in it. The first time I ever taught a class using an interpreter, it was Laszlo. I was spoiled! So needless to say, this week had very little problems with words or thoughts not being translated correctly. Laszlo is somewhat of a fixture here in the Baptist church in Budapest and all of Hungary. To show you the kind of person he is, when we had our discussion about Copyright material, he mentioned that he has never asked for any money in return for his hymn writing, but that he is always getting checks for his songs. Later on in class he mentioned something that kind of told me that the money he receives from the hymns he gives away to charity.
We all went to a little cafeteria just down at the end of the block for lunch today. I wanted to try some Hungarian food, so I picked out what I though was Hungarian food. After I got the plate in front of me Gabor tells me that what I have is Mexican food. If you know me well, you know that I like a lot of different foods but Mexican is the one that I really don't have a preference for! But I ate it anyway. Most of the conversation was in Hungarian, but every once in a while they asked me a question. Sometimes it was a guessing match as to what they were asking and where the question was going, but it was fun and we did manage to have a good conversation. Between the three of them they got all the words out close enough for me to understand them. Actually it was easy... I taught Junior High for 10 years so I'm used to hearing broken sentences!


Well that's about it. This happens to be the last class I had to teach this summer with TCMI. Next week I go back to Haus Edelweiss and go to some faculty meetings before Pam and I head on home to the states.

Wednesday

Again class went well. With only three people in it there's a lot of time for me to explain a little more in detail and give extra explanation to different issues that come up in class.

Everyday for lunch everyone seemed to be going their own way. I would go down the street to a little grocery store and by a sandwich, come back to my apartment and eat by myself. Today as the students were breaking for lunch one of the students mentioned that she was going to Burger King. So to make a long story short....

Mariam and I walk several blocks down to Burger King. (Past Kodaly's house again, and past the Liszt Music Academy.) Mariam has been teaching school for 2 years now. She teachers what we would call middle school students. She teaches, History, 2 dimensional art, and one other subject. As you can guess she is extremely busy. Plus she must be about 5' (she said that she is 153 centimeters) so a lot of the older students are bigger than she is. (yes, even me) When I asked about if any of the boys gave her a hard time, she just looked up and smiled at me and finally nodded her head. She said that sometimes it's quite hard. She also works with the youth in her church.

She lives in a small town near the Romanian border. She is Hungarian although she was born in Romania and lived there until she was about 11. Then her family moved to a town near the Ukraine border. Now while she is taking the class here in budapest she is living with her parents in a town about 50 Kilometers away, and takes the train back and forth. She is a very sweet girl.

When I do get pictures up you may have to go back several posts to put faces and stories together. Sorry about that.

John

Tuesday

I'm still trying to post pictures but I still seem to be having a problem.
Today was a hot day and Gabor wasn't feeling well, so he only made to class for about half the day. With Laszlo being so good an interpreter he really doesn't have to clarify much of what he says, so class is moving right along. Because of this, and the fact that Gabor was not here, I decided to end class a little earlier tonight.
Both Betty and Mariam and pretty quiet, so there is not a lot of discussion in class.
Betty is the wife of a minister here in Budapest and Mariam works with a church here also.
So, so far there are not a lot of stories to tell about the students.
I did take a walk earlier today and walked past Zolton Kodaly's house. Pam and I had been here once before and went to see the house. Ask a music teacher! There's a great little restaurant just opposite the house, great food - cheap price!
The Baptist Seminary here is only two blocks away from Hero's Square and two of Budapest's art museum's, but I doubt that I will have any time to go and see the art work. It's also right in the next to a lot of foreign embassy's. Although I haven't seen the US's yet. We are just across the street from the British embassy and the Chinese embassy is right down the block.
Yes, I did take pictures of the class and when I can figure out what the problem is I'll send the rest of the Ukraine pictures along with this weeks pictures.

pictures

I am having problems with uploading pictures to the blog site. There is no toolbar for uploading pictures so I can't do that. Add to that the fact that I am tzping on a kezboard that has 44 characters and some letters are in different spots. Like the letter z. See waht I mean everztime I want to spell a with the letter z (y) in it the z comes up. also the ' is in a different spot. Hereás what comes up...á.
until I figure out how to get pictures up it will just be words for now.

Monday

Hungary
It’s Monday and we finished the first day of class. There are three students in the class, so it’s pretty easy to learn each ones name, Miriam, Gabor, and Betty. Laszlo is my interpreter again. It really is easy to teach with a good interpreter. This year and in fact in all of my classes I’ve had a great person right besides me translating and interpreting what I am teaching.
Today went well. Yesterday….. Well let’s say it was quite an experience.
Got the train and left Vienna on time (11:52) with no problems. Crossed the boarder with no problems. Got to the Budapest train station (3:10) with no problems. When I got there, no Laszlo to pick me up. Little problem. After two hours it started to become a bigger problem (plus it was HOT). Then in addition to this I couldn’t call the Haus to let them know what was happening, because Sunday afternoon was their outing to Baden, so I knew most everyone would not be around to answer the phone. I had to wait until after 5:00 to make sure someone would be there. So I found a travelers aid and purchased a phone card. By the time I finally got the card to work thanks to the help of a shop keeper nearby who spoke a little English, it was close to 6:00. I called and explained that what I really needed was the address of the Baptist Theological Seminary where I would be staying and teaching. I had a key to get into the place thanks to Jim North who had been here the week before. So I figured I could take a taxi to the place and then get in and get settled. I told them that I would call back in about 30 minutes for that information. Again with phone problems it was close to 7:00 before I finally got through. Then I asked the kind shop keeper where I could catch a taxi. He called one for me and the guy came to me and picked up my bag and we left. Got here and sure enough the keys opened the huge door to the entrance. Once inside none of the other keys worked in any of the doors. So I’m inside the courtyard but not inside a building. There are several building here.
I left (locked the door behind me) and walked down the street and found a hotel, and booked a room for the night. I called the Haus and told them what I was doing and that if Laszlo came looking for me where I would be.
We met this morning and had a great day! I found out later that Laszlo was at a different station waiting for me. It’s still HOT here!
John

Thursday - Friday

Thursday/Friday
It occurred to me after reading yesterdays blog that I failed to mention Sergri, Sergii, Sergy, and of course Sergey. There were 5 guys named Sergey, or Sergei or how ever it is spelled.
Thursday was the last day of class work. This was the day that the students broke up into small groups and planned a worship service based on any and all of the topics and ideas that we discussed in class. I wasn’t as much interested in the style of format of music they used as much as I was interested in the creativity in which they used it.
One of the Sergei’s brought up a point about why they do things the way they do and don’t see a need for change or even be creative when it comes to the structure of the worship service. He mentioned that under the communist rule they were told what to do and how to do it. Ira supported this thought by telling us that in her readings it was the communist that told the churches that there had to be two sermons. And then she brought up the point that when the communists took a preacher away the congregation was supposed to form a group within themselves and pick their own leader. Since most Christians were also denied the right to go to college let alone a bible college (if one existed) those congregations didn’t have a minister/pastor/leader to guide them. So they formed a structure of worship service that fit there needs. It worked for all those years so his question now is, since it worked for all those years why change it. We spent some time in good discussions about the fact that it’s not the change we want, it the freshness, it’s a new way of looking at the Word, the way we come to God, what happens when we meet on Sunday (or any other day of the week that we might meet), all of this to help the worshippers sense and experience in a new way the closeness of God when we meet corporately.
Friday came around and so did the heat! It was an extremely hot day (and continued into the night).
We did a review took a break. When we came back from the break for the final exam the students gave me and Yuri gifts for being here this week with them. I received (i before e except after c!) a beautiful plate that has the Kherson city logo on it along with the Ukrainian flag. What a wonderful gift! Now to get it home in one piece! They also made a video of pictures they had been taking all week long. It is GREAT! They poke fun at me just at the right times. If I ever want to remember what this class was really like all I have to do is watch the video again.
They were very anxious about their exams, but they all did well. Everyone passed and everyone passed the class. Almost all with A’s.
I went to Zhenia and Vera’s for dinner on Friday night. We all had a great time. I say all, because all their family was there. The three older boys are married and out of the house, but they were there last night with their wives. Sergie, and his wife Yulia and their three week old baby girl (Yulia) were there and one of the other sons and his wife are expecting this September. Then add to the that the other 5 kids and you can’t forget Dema. He’s 4 and they adopted him, so how many does that make….including me, Zhenia, Vera and the baby 16. It was fun just to watch the family act and inter act with each other. Passing the baby around so others could hold her (and some for the first time). The food was wonderful but not as wonderful as the fellowship we all had together. Sergie, was hired on to be the worship minister there at the church where Zhenia is the preacher. Sergei’s wife Yulia was my interpreter when I was here before back in 2003, so it was good to see her again. And while we are talking about the name Yulia, one of the daughter-in-laws is also named Yulia.

Wednesday

Wednesday
Here are some pictures of the class. The internet is slow here so I really can’t upload a lot of pictures to the blogsite. I’ll do what I can each day.
Wednesday went well. Again we had a lot of discussion, about why change at all. If it has been working why do we need to change it. From the very beginning of class it’s been me saying, “I’m not telling you, you have to change. What I am saying is make worship fresh and renewed and make it an adventure. Help your people in a new way experience the presence of God in your corporate worship” Little by little I think we are all beginning to understand each other better. And in my teaching them I am learning a lot about the Ukrainian culture also. And I thought Italians could have a loud discussion… wow, these Ukrainian’s can hold their own!! It’s actually fun to watch and listen and learn!
Andrew who is very inquisitive, Sergey who needs to ask “why” in order for him to get a deeper understanding of what is being said, Sasha who has wisdom with age, Misha the youngster who is anxious to try new things, and is very passionate about bringing worship to another level in all of Ukraine. Ira, and Olena who are the only 2 ladies in the class taking it for credit, I can go on and name the rest of the class too, they all make this class unique and exciting for me, and yes challenging… but in a good way. I am learning everyday also!
Zhenia the TCMI National Director for Ukraine and his wife Vera took me out tonight for dinner. It was a nice little quite place. And then they showed me around. Ayna their daughter came along to help translate for us. He took me to a site where during WWII a lot of Russian soldiers died during a battle with the Germans. The Ukrainians erected a monument in honor of their lives.
Sorry no pictures today. They won't upload. I'll try again tomorrow.
John

Monday-Tuesday

Monday
Only one thing to say about last night’s sleep or lack there of… mosquitoes!!!
Class went well today. We had more discussion in class today then I remember having in quite some time. Now that I think of it last time I was here we had a lot of discussion also. My translator, Yuri is also a professor at TCI. It’s a Bible College here in Kherson. As you can tell by the picture there are 15 in the class. Yuri is in the second row second from left. He does do a good job and sometimes he explains it so much that when I’m making my next point of explanation he’s already said it. I can say three words, and he’s off and running with a translation and an interpretation of what I said. I think he’s actually telling stories about me without me knowing what he saying! J.
The only chance I can get to got on the internet and blog is right after lunch for about 45 minutes before I have to be back in class. They have a nice computer room of about 10 computers all connected to the Internet.

Tuesday
I’ll have to wait until Wednesday to get this out. The room where the computers are was very busy today with some other students. So tomorrow I’ll go up a little earlier and get a computer to work on.
They gave me this device to plug into the electrical socket and told me that it would keep the mosquitoes away. It was wonderful. No smell, no noise and no bugs!

Ilkhom and Tamina Abudkarimov. He is from Uzbekistan, and works in the biggest evangelical church in Uzbekistan 2,500 members. Even though it is registered with the state and still they are growing. I think I might be able to shed some light on their growth. Several times a year the pastors of the some of churches in Uzbekistan go to a retreat center and there they have a 5 day spiritual retreat. They sing, they pray, they discuss the fate of the church there in Uzbekistan, and they fast… for 5 days! They are there to listen to God speak to them. They are there to listen to God’s plan for the church. The church is only 20 years old. They have 4 worship services. One services is in Uzbekistan the other three are in Russian. He is here with his wife. Here is a picture of them. Oh yeah... They have been married just under 4 months now!
He also knows of some house churches there. He told me that from time to time throughout the year these house churches plan a gathering where a large number of churches get together for fellowship.

Sunday

Right now I’m sitting in the small international section of the airport. I’ve been in this place before, in fact several times. There are ticket counters that show where each door leads to. They are going to Istanbul, Kharkov (Krakow), Cairo, Zagreb, Dnepropetrovsk, Zurich. They are going to Turkey, Poland, Egypt, Hungarian, Dnipropetrovs’k (the other spelling), Switzerland. But not just planes going to these places, people. People of all nationalities. People speaking all kinds of languages. Families, young couples, older couples, single. Children running around. Mothers pushing children in strollers, hoping beyond hope that they would start getting tired so that they might fall asleep on the plane. Some are going home, some are going on a vacation, (you can tell by the way they are dressed), some are business people. They all have a purpose for traveling, they all know where they are going, but I wonder how many know truth, the Truth? I can’t really say, but I know a good majority probably don’t know Christ. They not only don’t know Him as Savior, but probably don’t know that He even lived and died... for them.
By the time I got on line for the plane I met some American’s who were going to Cimmerian peninsula to teach English. I knew my ride from Odessa to Kherson was going to be about 3 hours, but their ride was going to be even longer. They were from Minnesota.
When we got to Odessa I was very surprised by the terminal there. It was really nice on the inside. Of course after you went through passport control and then picked up your luggage, when you walked into the waiting room you were bombarded by, “Taxi, Taxi, you need taxi?” from about 30 guys. That was the same as it was 4 years ago when I was here.
Anatoly and his 20 year old daughter Yulia picked me up. Are all the girls here named Yulia? They were very nice. It was a long and bumpy ride but we made it safe and sound.
I’m in the same room I was last time. It’s nice to have familiar surroundings.
Dinner is in about 15 minutes so I better get cleaned up and ready.
Pictures will come either later today or tomorrow.
John
PS I'm in the computer lab of the school here and everything is in Russian, so it's a bit hard to maneuver around.

Saturday morning

I have a little time before lunch so I thought I would post some more pictures of the buildings on campus.

1. The pond out front

2. Pond again

3. Leadership Training Center. This houses the short term works and some the the long and mid term workers. It also has a large room in the basement that is used for large group instruction and also for the Sunday worship services.

4. This is a new addition added to the Big Haus several years ago. The bottom floor has a mid-sized classroom called the Patio Classroom. Above it is where the professors stay while here. This is where Pam and I are staying this year also.

5. The back of the Big Haus.

Friday

Even though it's only 2:10 PM here I thought I would start today's blog.

The Short Term Workers started to arrive today. Everyone will be here by about 7:30 tonight. Tomorrow they get right into information meetings and then right to work. These wonderful people (this session has 18 STW's from all over America) are here for just over two weeks. They help in maintenance and upkeep both inside and out. They help in the kitchen preparing food, and also do general house cleaning, washing sheets and towels. Some will be cleaning the rooms where the students stay for the two weeks they are here. In short (no pun intended) they help make Haus Edelweiss a place where the students can come and go to classes, learn and have some time to relax. The staff and the short term works try and make this place a little home away from home for the students. And because of where we are in Austria it is also just a wonderful place for a time of refreshment for the students also.

Here are some more pictures of the staff and also some pictures of the campus here.
1, Jim Meyer

2. Dottie Meyer

3. Tom Virgin

4. Cathy Kissling. Cathy is the Registar for TCMI

5. Haus Edelweiss. It's called the Big Haus. This building has the kitchen, and food prep area, several dinning halls, 3 apartments, and 2 classrooms.

6. Here is a close up of the trim on the Big Haus.

7. The Cow Barn. It's been cleaned up for quite a LONG while now and it has student rooms and an apartment.

8. A close up of the Gate House. It has an apartment also.

9. Horse Barn (It was refurbished a long number of years ago. It now holds the Library, staff offices and the maintenance complex. It also has student rooms) You can see each of the three sections of the Library. The last one, just completed this year will be the last extension they can build. Notice how they kept the same type of construction for the whole building. Because the complex here is so old it's on the Austrian National Landmark records. So anything they build first has to be approved and then it has to fit the decor of the existing building. The complex here has one of the Bavarian style houses. It's one of a few in the area. It's fun to watch these big tour buses drive past and slow down so the tour guide can talk about the decor of the buildings.

All the aparments are for the Long term and Mid-term workers here.

There are a couple of more sights and buildings to post. I'll try and do that tomorrow.

John

Thursday

Just in case you are thinking that all I'm doing is working on this blog site this week... here's what I'm working on for my next two weeks out.



*A new class outline to hand out (copies made here to bring in-country)
*Restructured and rearranged my class notes to make the class move along more smoothly and have a better flow to it. The rearranging of my class notes meant I had to rearrange my PowerPoint presentation also.
*I also made a new PowerPoint presentation just for class review purposes. I took out all the videos, picture slides, etc.
*I created a Worship Resources student folder... the class review ppt, a worship web site list, a short bibliography of books on worship. I have it on a memory stick that will be just for the students if they would like this information electronically. The bibliography and the worship web sites are also printed out in hard copy to bring with me in-country.
*Then I had to save all this data in three different places, my computer, my memory stick and the student memory stick. Then of course I would always find some new item to add or something to change so.... all three places had to be updated again, and again, and again, and again. As you can tell, I'm not very organized. Good thing I married a Librarian!!!
And I'm still working on a list of Worship books that are written in or have been translated into languages other then English.


Oh, yeah... here are some more pictures for you.
1. The Breakfast Club. The Thursday before the next class session the 'guys' all get together for breakfast. They go to Merkur in Baden 18 kilometers up the road. It's a grocery store that also has a food court. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese on a hard roll (simmel, pronounced zimmel) OJ and coffee all for 2.70 Euro - not too bad. And yep, it's the same Baden where Beethoven stayed and finished writing his Missa Solemnis. Actually, Schubert, Mahler, Beethoven all roamed around the woods here. Mozart wrote his Alleluia for a church in Baden. And from what I understand Schubert wrote an organ piece and played it on the organ in the monastery 1 kilometer up the road from here.
You'd think all that creative music stuff would have rubbed off by now, but nope....
2. Nancy Virgin. Nancy and Tom her husband come over for three months in the summer to work.
3. Dick Brown
4. Ruth Brown. Dick and Ruth also come over for three months at a time to work. Sometimes they are here a little longer too.
5. Patty Crull. Patty, Mike and their three boys live here all year 'round. Patty helps with keeping up with flower beds, and all-around cleaning when and where ever needed.

Oh, you want to know who's around the table at breakfast?

Starting from the front left going down the table and back up the right side:
Mike Crull
Jim Poer
Dick Brown
Robert Torres
(back up the right side)
Jim Meyer
Paul Kissling
Tom Virgin
Arlen Ahl


John

Tuesday - Wednesday

Here are some more photos of the staff here at Haus Edelweiss. Haus Edelweiss is the main campus for TCMI.
1. Debbie Poer. Debbie is the European General Manager
2. Robert Torres. Robert and Sunny both work in Food Services
3. Sunny Torres
4. Paul Kissling. Paul is the Professor of Old Testament for TCMI, and is also the Research Director.
5. Mike Crull. Mike is the European Vice President and Director of Church Planting and Leadership Formation Center. Besides all that he also the Associate Professor of Discipleship
course here.
More pictures to come.
John