Heaven on Earth - Part I

Edith, Kathy and Mary Jill at Schipol airport in Amsterdam - we met here and made our way to Rotterdam by train.

We stayed in an interesting part of Rotterdam and took the bus to the conference venue, Ahoy, every morning. This is me, Mary Jill and Edith waiting for our bus...Kathy is taking the picture.

A small taste of the conference venue! We signed up for the leadership day, and so got to sit in prime seats...the white seats...thus having wonderful view of everything!

A small taste of the worship on Thursday night...brothers and sisters from ALL over the world! Definitely a small taste of what heaven will be like!

Thursday night, a Catholic priest from Holland stood up and prayed a prayer of repentance for the Catholic Church for all the ways they had sinned and contributed to division within the body of Christ! Definitely one of the most powerful moments in the conference. These white blocks have different denominations written on them and people came up and placed them at the foot of the cross...asking God for forgiveness for making denominational differences a divisive thing when the Father wants His children to be united in Jesus!

WOW! I'm not sure where to begin to try to encapsulate our four days in Rotterdam, Holland with between 6 and 8 thousand other people, worshiping the Lord! Messages from speakers were simple but extremely powerful, worship was like nothing I've ever experienced...even though I was surrounded by thousands, I felt at times like it was just me and the Lord! I'll just let these pictures do the talking for now until I can put more words to this blessing. I will be putting a 3 minute video from Saturday night's worship on Youtube soon, so stay tuned!

Change

How do you/we respond to change? Sometimes change comes upon us quite suddenly, like the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the sudden cancellation of something. At other times, change is slow...something is revealed inside of you and you must begin to change in order to move forward or grow, or even stay alive!
There are things that we can and must do to bring change in areas of our lives...however, as a follower of Jesus, true change comes only through absolute surrender to the Holy Spirit living within me. The question then becomes, am I willing to submit my stubborn flesh to His perfect, loving Spirit, who wants absolutely NOTHING but the best for me in every area of my life? Maybe the first step to change is reworking our view of God Himself. He may look too much like our earthly fathers for us to see Him as He truly is, the One who delights in us and only desires to pour out GOOD things into our lives...even though some of those good things mean change...to be continued...

Off to Holland!

Tomorrow morning bright and early, I and five wonderful friends will converge on Rotterdam, Holland for a conference where over 6000 people have already registered. www.trinevents.com is where you can get more information if you are interested! I'm sooooooooooo excited to see old friends, have old friends meet "newer" friends, and worship the KING together! I praise God that a break in school "just happened" to fall on this same weekend! Will post pix afterwards!

Some craziness at ICF

An American, a Hungarian, and two Swedes....yep, we do have fun here in Szeged! You have to CLICK on the TITLE of this blog: Some craziness at ICF to see the video!!!

ICF - Worship, Fun, Laughter, and Community

Ed and Mary Jill before ICF!

Edith, Erik, Sara, Arden, Judit, Sybil and Ed before ICF on Friday! Our faithful MJ took this picture!

Sybil giving testimony!

Our fellowship, raptly attentive to Ed teaching!

Ed Courtney teaching on "Why are we here?"

A little craziness! Arden and Aron jammin' to Hillsong!

God really blessed us on Friday evening this week with a visit from Ed and Sybil Courtney, pastors of the International Christian Fellowship in Debrecen! Sybil gave her testimony, Ed gave a message on "Why are we here?" (to be children of God!), while Erik led worship, and everyone enjoyed sweet fellowship! MJ and Edith also made the long trip from Debrecen, and along with some of our "regular" crowd, we had a new young lady, Sophie, from Atlanta, GA!!!

A number of us lingered long after 9 p.m....in fact, we left about 10:20 finally! This "after ICF time" was especially sweet with pockets of conversations happening in various parts of the room, and even some craziness going on listening to music...as you can see from the pictures above! Stay tuned as I will be giving you a link to a VERY funny video clip of me and Aron, above, as we listen to, "dance", and even sing to a Hillsong song on his ipod!

What a precious gift ICF is to all of us here in Szeged and we continue to pray that God will bring His children to this fellowship to be loved on, encouraged, challenged, and find a deeper walk with HIM!

Budapest 24/7 Prayer Room

I awakened today SOOOOOOO excited to go to Budapest to join others in worship and prayer at the 24/7 prayer room, modeled after IHOP in Kansas City. There were 7 of us from 8:30-10:30 worshipping and praying together and, well, let's just say the Lord showed up!!! Wow! These precious worship and prayer warriors have such a heart for Jesus and I am blessed to be able to join them as often as I can!

At one point as we were in prayer, I opened my eyes and the picture above of 5 people on their knees in prayer and two of us at two corners of the room just struck me as being a powerful image of the body of Christ coming together in the name of Jesus to intercede for the nations.

Djembe lessons!!!!

Ok, I'm letting the secret out. I'm taking djembe lessons! I snuck this picture of about 1/2 the class last night! It's a blast!

Bilingual Seniors

Wednesday this week was my last lesson with this group pictured above! I've taught these precious ones for FOUR years! They are a bilingual class, which means they've learned subjects like biology, math, history and civilization IN ENGLISH! Of course in the last lesson we just talked and sang some songs and of course I sang a "goodbye" song for them. I will miss this group...as one of the girls said, we had our good times and our challenging times, but in the end, it was a GREAT four years together! They gave me the coolest gift...I'll have to take a picture of it, although I've "pulled it apart". It was a "flower" in which the florist carefully placed different make-ups...eye shadow, mascara, eye-liner, lip gloss, etc. Very creative group...you all get a 5 for that one! hahahahahhaha!!!!

Ladies in Lavender

I watched an interesting film the other night. "Ladies in Lavender". At the end, I didn't think much of it...it was nice, but nothing special. Then, as usual, the Holy Spirit started pointing out some things 'relevant to life'.

To briefly summarize the story, two elderly sisters, who live near the ocean shore in Great Britain, see a young man who has washed up onto shore and is nearly dead. They nurse him back to life and health, and it turns out he is Polish and a gifted violinist. These ladies pour their hearts and lives into this young man, giving him everything he needs to start life over...and then he is whisked away to London, without even having an opportunity to give them a proper "goodbye". Needless to say, the sisters are devastated by his hasty and seemingly heartless departure. Later, however, they learn that he will be the soloist at a philharmonic orchestral concert. The two sisters travel to London and surprise him after the concert! Of course the reunion is sweet, but oh, so short-lived as the three of them have about 2 minutes together before he is whisked off to meet "very important people."

The sisters watch him walk away, turn to each other and decide to leave, rather than wait to see him again. We don't know if they ever meet again.

We, like these sisters, in a moment may be called to "breathe" life into someone, nurture that person, love that person, give that person everything he or she needs, and quite suddenly, that person could be taken out of our lives for whatever reason. In this film, we see that the seeds they planted into his life were for a greater harvest...his musical talents "ministering" to hundreds if not thousands. The sisters, of course, would have loved to have kept the boy around, but we can say the Lord had greater plans for him. Letting go is often very challenging, but when we see the blessing, as these sisters got to see when they saw him perform, the sacrifice is worth it all.

Simon's big night out!

As the days grow longer, my cats want to stay out later in the yard. Simon has mastered tree climbing and terrorizing the neighbor's cats. Last night, it was well after dark when I called for both Toby and Simon to come inside. Toby came and Simon remained perched on the 14 foot wall between our yards. I finally went to bed, but did not put my earplugs in, hoping I would eventually hear his cries to come inside. At 1:30 a.m., after having slept VERY little, I decided to put the earplugs in and hope Simon would be found alive in the morning. I awoke to find him curled up at the bottom of my bed...he'd awakened my neighbor at 4 a.m. with his cries.

So, what did Simon do all day? He slept! Along with his mom, who was home sick today with a bad sore throat and aches. Funny, even when Simon was let out today into the yard, he didn't venture up the tree to the neighbor's roof...in fact, when we called them in, Simon came racing in first...I think maybe his big night out may have been a bit chilly and lonely!

ICF - Open Microphone Night!

Csilla and Eszter sing a traditional Hungarian Christmas carol!

Erin Barrett came from Budapest and blessed us with her voice!

Erin accompanies Tiana Person as she sings "Lord Reign in Me".

Cathy Williamson sings "El Shaddai".

ICF-ers getting ready for Sara's fun, all-inclusive Swedish song about frogs with no ears and tails!

What a FUN evening we had at ICF this past Friday! It was "Open Mic Night" and about 15 of us demonstrated various talents from drama to singing to dancing to making animal balloons to group activities! It was GREAT relationship building time as people learned a lot about other people's and nation's talents, interests, and skills.

More cathedral pix....

Here are more pictures from the lights and music evening in the cathedral!

Just imagine the lights illuminating and fading and changing in sync with the monastic music playing! Even our "party-animal" kids said to me, "Can we just stay here for a couple of hours? It's so incredibly peaceful!" Go God!

European Classes

TV news show!

Yes, the Russian space shuttle was being transported up the Rhine River to a museum and WE got to see it. I learned, as it was passing by, that it was NEVER in space.

Our shopping afternoon in Koblenz.

They had a festival of lights in the gothic cathedral in Oberwesel and it was FABULOUS! TF would have LOVED it!!!

The EU Council of Ministers meetings on the last day! Students represented their own countries, plus the UK, Czech Republic, Ireland, and Holland.

A friend of mine asked me, "So what exactly were you doing in Germany? What is european classes?" Sorry for not explaining. The goal is to have "mock" european union "meetings" and take part in a "mock" 'Council of Ministers' meeting, to give high school kids an opportunity to see what being a diplomat in the EU might be like. Plus, it's an opportunity for students to meet other students from other nations and discuss issues that are relevant to all.

So, in the mornings, students from one school would read out their papers they'd written on such topics as 'abortion', 'labeling people', 'reusable plastics', recognition of smaller european nations', etc. Then groups would gather....see picture in blog below...and discuss one of these 'reports' for an hour an a half, giving opinions, perspectives, etc.

There were other activities, get to know you games, putting together a TV news show, etc. Then on the last day, the "formal" council of ministers meeting took place where every nation presented a resolution to be voted upon, discussed, amended and revoted upon by EU nations! So, fun mixed with work.

Germany!!!! Part - IV

Morning discussion groups with representatives from each nation.

The view out the hallway window of our accomodations!
Zsolti, Valeria, and Bence...at the start of our 6 km. hike!

About 3 km. into our hike...yes, in the distance at the top of the picture, is our castle!

And the wonder continues........

Germany Pictures - Part III

Signs of spring...and looking toward the GORGEOUS hotel, just opposite our accomodations, also a part of this 11th century castle!

The students from Romania, introducing their school!

The Danish students introducing their school.

Our Hungarian students watching our own power point program, introducing our school!

The students from Germany, giving their introductions!

...And the pictures keep coming!

Oberwesel, Germany - Part II pix

The first night of "getting to know you" activities.

The Hungarians came up with a great "get to know you game" which is being carried out in this picture!

Breakfast the morning of our first FULL day...really yummy food!!!

Our "humble" accomodations...my room is third from the left on the brown and white level.
Yes, we stayed in an 11th century castle!!!! And yes, the weather was cold, foggy, a bit rainy, except for one afternoon. Oh well.

Here are more pix from our trip to Oberwesel, Germany for European Classes!

Pictures from trip to Germany - Part I

Arden and Valeria, one of the students, on the train.

Bence and Laci, my colleague, on the train.

On the train to Oberwesel.

Arriving in Oberwesel after a 17 hour journey.

Here are the first pix from my trip to Germany!

Week in Germany

Pictures will follow in subsequent blogs, but just wanted to give you a brief overview of my 5 days spent in Oberwesel, Germany with 10 students and 1 colleague at a seminar called "European Classes"! It was a great week, meeting wonderful fellow teachers from Romania, Denmark and Germany, and watching all the students from the various countries interact with one another throughout the week! We stayed in a castle...very cool...ate wonderful food...went on hikes...great to be in a mountainous region...rode on a boat on the Rhine River...visited Koblenz and shopped...fun...experienced a rich and wonderful "festival of lights" program in the Oberwesel church...slept some...laughed some...learned a lot about other nations...and travelled MANY hours on trains, buses and in cars! It was GREAT to get away, even though sleep was minimal...GREAT to get to know these Hungarian students better...just GREAT all the way around! Stay tuned for pictures forthcoming!!!!

Friday at 7 - ICF

Fellowship time around the chocolate chip cookie and other treats table!
Markus from Germany and Judit, a Hungarian from Serbia, enjoy chatting!
Yes, we ARE lost without Jesus, aren't we?
Some of the girls: Sara (Sweden), Arden (American), Judit (Hungarian), Becky and Mary Jill (Americans)

Once again, blessings abounded at ICF this past Friday night! Erik shared from John 7:13-24 which led to some exellent discussion from a number of people in the group; worship was wonderful and some even said, "Let's just keep worshipping!" and of course fellowship was sweet!