Ladybugs and peacocks and cats, oh my!

So I've come to the conclusion that I'm really terrible at this whole blogging thing. But that's okay I guess. So where to begin? Well, today was the first day in about a week that the sun came out...for more than 30 minutes. I think the high for this week is 40 degrees. Yeah, all you people back home in the 70 degree weather can just get over yourselves. That's one thing I miss about Georgia. I can't wait to come home and enjoy the hot summer sun. 

Tonight was theme night for the weekend team. Every student is assigned a service job for which they must work eight hours each week. I am assigned to housekeeping. Others are assigned to working in the dining room, the library, laundry...and so on. Well, we aren't supposed to work our service hours on the weekends, so there is a schedule made for the "weekend team" who works in the dining room. I'm working this weekend along with 5 other people. Saturday nights are theme nights, and the weekend team gets to choose the theme. We chose animals. We played music, dressed up and made everyone make an animal noise before we served them their food. There were all kinds of people dressed up; zebras, a peacock, a ladybug (yours truly), a caterpillar, a cat, a dog and a few others. It was so much fun! 

Let there be hair.

God gave me a lot of hair. I don't know why. Tonight, Callie gave be big hair. Or, should I say, bigger hair. It was a party. We went to the coffee shop, sat in front of the fire, and then proceeded to act as the entertainment for the night. 

Now, the only question is, how the heck am I going to get it out? This should be interesting.

What's scratch?

 This used to be part of a sheep farm, but they moved all of the sheep :(

 Miriam made these from scratch. She was surprised when we told her that Americans make almost everything from a box mix.

 My backyard. 

 The Historical Library: my favorite room in the castle.

 Three flights of stairs. Basement to attic.

 It's all chocolate. I knew I liked Europe...

 Trying to figure out how to climb the tree... it didn't work. 

The Rotunda: where we have ballroom dancing lessons.  

The Pillar Room. This is where we have all of our classes. It was the Count's wife's bedroom. 

I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with this blog. So much happens everyday; I wish I had the time to type it all up! There are so many different personalities here, so something is always funny, or thought provoking or happy. We're like a giant family. Literally. The pastors all have kids, so they're always running around screaming. It's awesome. Last night was trivia night in the downstairs dining room. My team got extra points because we had two of the Foster kids at our table. One of the perks of working in the children's ministry. The married couples won, but we still had a great time. 

Every time I sit down to type, I get all scatterbrained and forget everything I want to say. Life here is so much fun; we have jokes, goof around, play games and take millions of pictures. I have to remind myself why I'm here sometimes. It's so cool to wake up and think, "Oh, I have Jeremiah and Romans today. Great!" Last semester it was, "...oh. I have math and world civilizations today. Great." This is such a wonderful opportunity. Every night the girls in my room sit on the floor and we pray together before we go to bed. Friday mornings I have a different prayer group that meets after our Evangelism and Discipleship class. Prayer is so important, and it's such a blessing to be able to walk up to any person in the castle and say, "Hey, can you pray with me about this?" Thank God.

Tesco: Europe's Walmart.

Happy Thursday! First week of classes is almost over. What have I learned? Bible college does not mean less work. At all. As of right now I have two papers to write before Wednesday of next week. I also have to read through the book of Joshua three times this semester in different translations. I have two book reports, two other papers that I can think of (as well as the weekly Devotionals paper), some tests, 8 hours of service work a week, and about four hundred other things. Not to mention my own private time with God that's completely unrelated to school. So whoever said that Bible college isn't "real college" is probably the most stupid person ever. I actually don't mind all of the work though. I mean, it's about God. I love Him! Why wouldn't I want to learn more about Him? And whenever I get stressed I just put my Bible down and pray. He makes all things new and His grace is so powerful. It's so great to be able to say, "God, this work is hard and frustrating and I have no idea how I'm going to get it all done. But it's about You. Change my heart. Give me focus." And He does! Every time. 

Today, a group of us went to the city to get our student visas. I'm so glad that I went with the people that I did. We had a great time and lots of laughs. Paula, from Colombia, is hilarious. She's like the fun aunt you always wanted but never had. And Callie and Autumn are so much fun. Autumn is my roomie and Callie is super sweet. She braids my hair for me. We "worked out" last night. If you call jump roping, talking, laughing and trying to do pull ups working out.

We stopped in at Tesco on the way back from getting our visas. It's kind of like a Walmart. Just less trashy. Sorry, America. I bought a bottle of tea, pringles, a chocolate bar and a box of cereal for about $5. What the heck. It's my new favorite place. We were talking about a lot of interesting stuff on the way back and someone mentioned a relative who is having some problems and has some issues with Christians; you could really tell that this person had a burden for this relative. So Paula just said, "Well, I think we should pray." "Right now?" "Right now." So we did. It was amazing. I realized that so often we just talk about stuff that needs to be prayed for, but we never really do anything about it right then and there. It really kind of slapped my in the face and made me realize just how vital prayer is in that moment.


Anyways, I'll put more pictures up soon, but I've just been way more busy than I thought I would be. But here's one for starters!

I miss you.

So everyone, this is my best friend. She's the pretty blonde one. I tried to find a nice picture of us, but I wasn't surprised when I found that I'm making a stupid face in pretty much all of our pictures together. Probably only 5% of our pictures are actually nice. It's a sign of affection I think. My thought process is something like, "Hey. You're cool and I love you so I'm going to make ugly faces." I'm not sure how it all connects in my brain. Maybe it doesn't. That's probably why. But anyways... Kelsey is my other half. My shorter, quieter, blonde, skinny other half. That would be weird. What if God made us to look like two completely different people at the same time? Dating would be interesting. "Oh, I like your right side, but your left side needs to do her eyebrows. Sorry...don't think it's going to work out." I think I'm going to have a chat with God in heaven. I check my facebook at least once a day and Kelsey faithfully leaves me lots of messages and informs me of all the shenanigans going on in Americaland. This morning she made me cry because she posted a link of all these "I  miss you" quotes to my wall. Well Kelsey, I read all of them and I miss you too Snugglebutt. Oh. Yeah. We also call each other embarrassing names. But who doesn't? Even if you don't know the person, just combine the first two words that come to mind and call him or her that. See what happens. It's not the best way to make friends; but if you're not interested in making friends, then what do you have to lose? So here's to you, Kelsey. I love you bes fran.

Cinderella, anyone?

Well, today was our first day of service jobs. Everyone in the castle has to serve at least eight hours a week, and we got our assignments yesterday. Guess who got housekeeping? Meee! I was not thrilled. I don't mind cleaning, but this is a BIG place and the idea of scrubbing baseboards or dusting 365 windows is not very appealing. Luckily, I don't have to do either of those. I get to clean bathrooms and hallways instead! Okay, so maybe I was a little frustrated. But when we were told to meet our cleaning-person-in-charge-person I actually got kind of excited. Marcsi is probably the sweetest person I have ever met. She plays the violin in worship and she is amazing. I'm actually pretty sure that she's in the Budapest symphony. She's so humble and her English isn't the best so she tends to speak simply. Marcsi chooses her words carefully and she speaks with a soft voice; it reminds me of my best friend, Kelsey. She was telling us how God used housekeeping to change her life. It's all about attitude. So I listened and decided that I wouldn't let this job get me down. Cleaning bathrooms isn't the best, but I'm not cleaning ones with showers, so it could be worse. Mopping the hallways is actually kind of fun. I just put my ipod in and start jamming away. Note: Dancing in flip flops while mopping a tile floor is not recommended for good health. But I'll be okay. It's just a small bruise. I kind of feel like Cinderella. We use old school mops and I think that the tile here is about the same color in the movie. I should watch that again... But not tonight because... WE'RE WATCHING THE SUPER BOWL. At first I was surprised, but then I remembered that most of the teachers and pastors here are American. Oh football.

Funny thing about the castle - everything echoes. Everything. For example: I just heard a bunch of people sing happy birthday to someone upstairs in the dining room and I'm in the basement on the other side of the castle. It's also kind of a bummer in the mornings when people get up really early and decide to have conversations with their friends directly outside of our door. But that's okay. It was a blessing this morning. I forgot to ask Autumn to wake me up today so I was almost late to breakfast. Then I had to sprint downstairs to shower before devotions. It was a rough morning. It's nice living in the same building as my classes, even if it is huge.

We have the "Welcome Dinner" tonight and we're supposed to dress up. I wish I had known about this before I got all nasty from cleaning. Oh well. I'm having so much fun here and I know it's going to be really hard to leave. I miss my family and friends, but this has already become a second home. It's so amazing to think that just 20 years ago all Christian literature was banned in Hungary. Now I'm attending a Bible College and it has the biggest library of Christian literature in the country. God is so good!

And that's how I got to Hungary. Amen.

So here I am, sitting on my bed in the servants' quarters in the basement of the Zichy Kastely in Vajta, Hungary. It's pretty cool. 

In the summer of 2010, I went on my first overseas mission trip to Haiti and I was immediately hooked. The different culture, languages, smells, people and food all hit me like a freight train and I wanted more. We were given the opportunity to serve a local ministry in Port-Au-Prince and it was when our bus crossed the Haitian border that I decided I wanted to be a missionary of some kind. Well, summer ended and my first semester of college was starting. Moving away from home wasn't too bad, seeing as home was only an hour away from school. I love my college and I made some absolutely wonderful friends; but something was tugging on my heart and no matter what I said to myself, that feeling wouldn't go away. I felt out of place and spiritually stifled. My friends were awesome and I was making straight A's, but I was getting frustrated. How many Americans sit in church every Sunday morning and listen to their pastors talk about "the mission field" and "Who will go? Who will go to the jungles of South America and the plains of Africa to spread the gospel?" Everyone gets fired up, says amen, goes out to eat and then forgets everything the pastor says as they start mentally preparing for the hectic work week that will once again consume their lives. Africa and South America will just have to wait until next week. Don't get me wrong, I'm an all American girl and I'm from the south; I like my fried okra and sweet tea in mass amounts please and thank you. The reason I went to such a close college is because I hate being away from home. I admit that my view of the world pretty much consisted of my school, my family, my friends and my country. How stereotypically American. I kept praying that God would put me where He wanted me and that if there was something, anything better out there, that He would give me the opportunity to taste and see. Well, be careful what you pray for because you might just end up going to a Bible college in a castle too. 

After a few weeks of praying, more like complaining, to God, my band student teacher from my Junior year of high school "randomly" sent me a message on facebook telling me that she and her husband were attending Calvary Chapel Bible College in Hungary. I read the message, closed my eyes and told God that if that was His idea of a joke He had a lot of work to do because there was no way I was about to interrupt my college education and leave everything familiar to me just to start over in a foreign country. I knew I asked God to use me and the idea of going somewhere else in the world to be a missionary sounded awesome and “spiritual” or whatever, but I didn’t actually think that He would ask me to do something like that. Well, I’m not in Georgia anymore, I can tell you that much. I still don’t know if I’m called to be a missionary outside of the US, but I do feel called to women’s ministry and I’ll joyfully serve in whatever country God decides to put me. But for now I’m studying to be a missionary in a castle-turned-Bible College with about 50 other people in the beautiful country of Hungary. There are over 13 countries represented here; I’m rooming with two other Americans, a Hungarian, an Australian, and a Russian. And they’re all awesome. The school is roughly 40% American, 40% Hungarian and then 20% everywhere else. Classes start tomorrow and I am so excited. I’m taking Romans, Apologetics, Joshua, Missions Class and Evangelism and Discipleship.

This place is so awesome. I mean first of all, it’s a castle. With all the trimmings. But the people are so wonderful. We’re all here on common ground; we love the Lord. It’s so cool whenever we all get together for chapel or meetings because everything has to be translated into Hungarian, and during worship we’ll usually switch around from English to Hungarian. I can’t believe how close minded I was. I woke up every morning and lived my life not giving any attention to the fact that there are so many different cultures around the world loving God and serving Him. I mean, I knew about it; I’m not that ignorant. But it’s like one of those things where someone might hear of a plane crashing and they say, “Oh, that’s terrible!” But they never really think about it.

 It’s such a powerful experience singing to my God in a different language, knowing He understands every word. This morning I was standing next to Paula, from Columbia, and she was singing in Spanish while I was singing in English while the band was singing in Hungarian. What a chorus we must have been. Or tonight when we had our dorm meeting. Marcsi would translate into Hungarian while Lori was speaking, and then someone else would come up and translate into Hungarian while Marcsi was speaking to us in English. How does that joke go? What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American. Most people here speak more than one language. It’s so cool. And I’m not trying to hate on Americans. I’m one of you. Us. But I just feel like everyone is so selfish and coming and living in a different country has shown that. Bottom line: I prayed for God to show me what He wants me to do, and He delivered. Why? Because He’s faithful.