Tuesday, April 10, 2012

He is Home!

One of my favorite teachers in Bible School (and ever) went home to be with the Lord last night.

He had been battling with cancer for a while. He is truly one of the most influential teachers and men of God I have ever met.
He is from Ireland and I always enjoyed his accent in class :)

Some of my favorite quotes from him are as follows:
                        oOoOoOoOo
"It`s not about you! This is about God, and what He wants to do in you, and through you!"
                               oOo
"Save the squirrel!" (meaning, watch your attitude) :)
                               oOo
"God will do this by hoop or by croop."

:) Looking forward to meeting again soon!!
Prayers with his wife, Lisa, and his kids, and with all the family!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Just some random thoughts......

We have been enjoying extraordinarily warm (hot) days lately in West Michigan. We are breaking a record, as I hear.
As I look around, I see the daffodils, hyacinths and other beautiful spring flowers and my heart is so full of gratitude. What a beautiful place we live in! We have so much! Lots of food, a house where we can live in peace, loving family and friends around us, a church family who is always there, we are healthy and happy....
God has blessed us with an abundance here in America.
It would be sooo selfish to just sit around in my whole life and enjoy myself. How would I be able to give an account to God???
In most of the world people are suffering, starving, dying in wars and diseases. Why am I different? Why am I here enjoying all that there is to enjoy, peace, abundance, love?
The answer: I am no special. God loves his children the same way whether they are suffering or not, hungry or not. I have a special responsibility to share the boon around. To give back. To give as much of my time and myself as I can.
I wanna be SALT. I wanna flavor people`s lives. I wanna show them Christ. I wanna be LIGHT. I wanna reflect His light. With every one of my breath I wanna live to represent Christ to the people I meet. So that they will know that in Christ we have EVERYTHING. We have SALVATION, we have the LOVE OF GOD, we have ETERNAL LIFE, the HOLY SPIRIT is within us.....

Thank you Lord!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Edina at the lady`s retreat :)

Hi!
I really gotta pick it up and update our blog more often. It has been like a month and a half. 
No excuses though!
I (Edina) had a magnificent weekend. I went to a lady`s retreat with 32 other ladies from our church. Seems like I had been too full of myself to humbly give lady`s retreats a chance in the past. I always avoided them thinking "too many women, loud, crowded, intense, fluffy" etc. But I can say now that the first lady`s retreat of my life proved me utterly wrong!
Some amazing ladies put together a completely relaxing and meaningful couple of days at a sumptuous hotel. 
Friday night we had a toothsome dinner buffet with fried perch and lemon tartar sauce, kielbasa and saurkraut with an unbelievable carraway seed sauce, beef steak and baked mac-n-cheese with imported cheeses, blue cheese-spinach salad with raspberry dressing, dreamy soft and crunchy breadrolls and apple pie with cherry jubilee. I mean talk about being full... 
So with full stomacks we were ready for a nap. Instead we started a 7 part DVD teaching series by best-selling author Elizabeth George. Let me tell you it was 100 times worth it to stay awake for it. Throughout the series she shared 7 of her "favorite" life-changing verses from the Scriptures and how they effected her life. 
I took notes faster than ever not wanting to miss a word. During the two days of teaching I got so much "meat to chew", so many things to bring before my Father one-by-one to pray and think about.  I am planning to share some of those thoughts here soon. 


The never-run-out freshly squeezed lemonade in our crystal glasses and the unlimited Starbucks coffee-bar was a nice feature I thought. *Even though I dont drink coffee myself I do enjoy the smell.... :)
We also had several drawings for prizes throughout the weekend. How fun! I actually won the very last drawing! :)


Also have to mention Lori Schaeffer`s truly fascinating presentation on how to put together   cute little spring plant and flower compositions. Even me ("The PlantKiller") thought Wow that actually looks easy enough that maybe even I could do it. Thanks Lori!!!

And on Saturday after the last teaching and wrap-up session we had the utter pleasure to browse the famous Twelve Oaks Mall for a few hours. Had the chance to go to Hennes & Mauritz (AKA H&M) this lovely Swedish clothing store.... I know I know... here comes the European talk again bla bla bla...but I truly love European fashion! :) LoL. Naturally! 
Thank you Marsha, Diane, Val and everyone else! :) 
Here are some pics.
our sumptuous dinner
Large and beautiful fireplace in the lobby
My roomies
Marsha on my left
Elizabeth George, our speaker
beautiful plant compositions
the terrarium, I totally want to make one
Plants in a shoes. Table center piece
Hennes & Mauritz and ME



Friday, January 27, 2012

Canada trip

We are back from Canada! What a great trip we had!

We took off last Friday, in the morning. It wouldn`t be our family if the car didn`t give us some trouble last minute. The gas pipe started dripping. Scott quick patched it up, it wasn`t really serious.
Our ride was pretty smooth. We got the the border, the lady was curiously checking out my Hungarian passport. It is probably not something that she sees every day.
When we got over to Canada, we decided to take a half hour break in Sarnia and let Benjamin run around  a little bit in Walmart.

                                        
 Then we drove to Woodbridge, Ontario, which is basically on the outskirt of Toronto.
We stayed with the Pusok family. Daniel, Adina, Salome and Deborah. What a nice family, they fed us and hosted us all weekend.
We had a nice Hungarian dinner on Friday night. Next day, Pastor Daniel took us sightseeing in Toronto.
It was really great, we walked on the streets, saw the skyscrapers, went up to the CN Tower, ate hotdog from the street vendor.... it was all really great.
With Pastor Pusok and his family
Benjamin with the two little girls, Salome and Debike

Nice Hungarian style breakfast
at the CN Tower, Toronto, Canada
with a Canadian moose
Benjamin has no fear looking down
Coming to the city
Walking in Toronto

At the CN Tower
Great view from the tower
Say "kimchi"

Waiting for our hotdogs
Yumm it was good
Benjamin devouring his hotdog
On Saturday night we had a Marrieds get together at somebody`s house. It was so nice to meet Hungarians finally and speak in Hungarian. They asked us to share our story, how we met with Scott and how the Lord worked in our marriage. It was good to share and to hear others share too. 

Food. Always. 
Marrieds. 
Next day, Sunday we spent the day in church. We  were guests at the First Hungarian Baptist Church of Toronto. We had a morning service at 11. Scott and I both shared our testimonies and how the Lord led us to missions. 
After the service we had lunch. Everybody brought their own lunch and sat together as a family. We sat and ate with the Pastors family. But we got invited to several tables, and because I initially thought that we would all eat together, I willingly said yes to all the invitations. Then I had to explain why I changed my mind. :)
After lunch we had the afternoon service at 3PM. The service was very typical Hungarian. Usually many people participates with sings, testimonies, poems, music, choir and other things. Like a program. 
Then we had the message from the Scripture. Scott was teaching and Pastor Pusok interpreted. Most people speak both Hungarian and English in the church but there are a few people who just arrived to Canada recently and their English is not great yet. 
We also talked about New Tribes Mission and about tribal missions in general. I think it was a great challenge to many of them as they came up to us afterwards to thank us for coming and sharing about our ministry. 
I also met several people whom I actually met in the past. What a small world!! 

For example: 20 years ago we had a girl, Ibolya, from Transylvania spend 2 weeks with our family back in Hungary through an exchange program in our churches. Her family then came to visit us, then we went to visit them in their tiny little village in Romania. 
It turns out her 2 sisters moved to Canada and they were members of the church. And we actually remembered each other!! Out of all places we meet again in Canada after 20 years! :) That was amazing! 
Thank you God for preparing that reunion! What a joy!!!

I also met a Hungarian girl there, whose grandfather was a pastor and he baptized my mom back in 1969!

Or another lady, who turned out to be the daughter of our former pastor in the church where I grew up, and he actually dedicated me in the church when I was born. Pretty cool, eh?

with Pastor Pusok and his family
us
Sharing my testimony 
Scott teaching with an interpreter at the afternoon service
Hanging out with people
 at the church
lunch
youth group singing 
waiting for our food
On Monday morning Adina (Pastor`s wife) took us to the Hungarian shop. It is in Toronto, not very far from their house. I was absolutely thrilled to be there and shop for some goodies from Hungary. 
Among other things I got elder syrup, rosehip tea, different paprika products (would be hard to explain to an American :), black cherry soda, candies, soup noodles and smoked sausage.

salamis and sausages
horseradish paste and garlic paste
Then Scott graciously agreed to take me to IKEA. IKEA is only my favourite shop on Earth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next stop: DURHAM, Ontario. We visited the Canadian New Tribes Missionary Training Center and a lot of friends. We stayed at a guest room which was very nice and comfortable. Jeremy and Melody Penner fed us while we were there. Great friends! :)
on Tuesday night Scott spoke at Chapel. It was a great encouragement about God`s faithfulness! 
Scott speaking at Chapel

Scott chatting with the guys
Our trip was still not over. Now we were heading to Guelph, Ontario, where we met up our good friend, Barney Cserepka and his family. We had a great meal together (Thanks Barney for the amazing LecsoGulyasChili!!! :) 
Ruben, Benjamin and I
Jessie, Scott and I
The man himself. Barney. Son of a blessed Hungarian missionary couple who served in Bolivia.
We left Guelph at around 8PM. After about 30 seconds on the road Benjamin announced that he needed to go potty. Okay, Scott pulled in the first gas station only to realize that the gas pipe was dripping again. He got under the car and patched it up again. We prayed that God would take us home safely. 
And He did! Praise Him!!! There was no more troubles all the way home. 

I have to mention a couple of funny stories here. 
We got to the border, we were soooo tired... it was after midnight. Scott accidentally pulled in to the lane reserved for trucks. So we had to pull off the road, get out of the car, go inside and wait while they processed our paperwork for about half an hour. 

When we were released, we could finally cross the border. Back in the United States again! :)
We needed gas so we pulled in to a gas station. We also got some fries and chocolate shake at McD so we could stay awake. As we were just about to get back on the highway, a police car shows up behind us and puts on his siren. Of course we pull over, it is 1:30 in the morning WHAT NOW? The officer comes over and asks Scott if he had anything to drink tonight because he was driving a little wavy on the road. Scott hesitantly raised his chocolate shake. The officer just smiled and told us to drive more intentionally. 
It was funny, because years ago his dad was ALSO pulled over once by the police when he was drinking a chocolate shake in the car and swerved a little.  

We got home after 3AM totally exhausted. 
Thank you all who prayed for this trip!!! God truly blessed our time in Canada. It was an encouragement for us and hopefully for many more.