Life in Hungary

Sixteen Squared

2009-03-17T11:51:00Z

Basketball is now over. For how much I love basketball and enjoyed this season, I'm so glad for the break! I've been way behind in school work and feel like I'm never home on the weekends. The season ended on a high note. We were disappointed with our 3rd place finish at our tournament, but went to Salzburg the following weekend to play in another tournament. The guys went 6-0 and won the championship game by a convincing 18 points. Two of our players, a freshman and a junior, were voted by the coaches onto the All-Tournament team and the junior boy (known by many of you as the chicken dish boy or hitler in the WWII movies) won MVP of the tournament. All of the guys contributed and it was a really nice way to finish out the year. The girls team also went 6-0 with two players making the All-Tournament team to finish the season with only one loss.

The two guys who made all tournament team: Andrew is a freshman (left) and Ben is a junior (right).
Below is a picture of me pretending to coach.

This past weekend was a long one. We had Friday off. Saturday I woke up feeling absolutely miserable with aching muscles, zero energy, nausea and nausea's cousin that exits the body in a different fashion. Saturday and Sunday I pretty much didn't move and Monday I only moved to go to the bathroom.

Those of you who have been faithful blog readers know that I refuse to go #2 in our toilet at home because it is a ledge toilet. Until yesterday, I had only used a ledge toilet twice in the nearly two years that I've been in Hungary - once the second day we were here and once another time at a conference where I had no other choice. Yesterday I was in need of a toilet every 10 to 20 minutes, so, through much prayer, I faced my foe and have now increased my ledge toilet experience to 18 times (thus the title of this blog). Does this mean that when I have the urge to go on a Sunday that I will no longer walk across the street, unlock the school and deactivate the alarm system instead of merely walking upstairs in the comfort of my own home? Probably not. But now I have a new skill that may prove itself valuable sometime in the future where ledge toilets are the rule and not the exception.

Blogging skills

2009-02-27T04:49:00Z

The nice thing about waiting a few months between blog posts is that I now have something to blog about. Kristen can manage to find something everyday. Her life is way more interesting.

I'm glad I finally got on this blog site. I found a comment waiting for approval from a family friend back in NY. Thanks so much for the comment Mrs. Johnson! Of course we remember you. I hear updates from my parents frequently about you guys and your ever-growing family. I'd probably make more of an effort to write if I had known so many people actually read this blog. Kary Oberbrunner, a pastor/author/speaker and friend in Ohio, has been making a top 10 list why his blog stunk. I don't know if I could come up with 10, but I know a few reasons why my blog stunk and probably will continue to stink until I retire from blogging or some other internet craze is discovered that I turn my attention to.

1. I write sporatically (is that a word?)
2. I use words like "sporatically" when I don't know their meaning or spelling and am too lazy to use spell checker, which is one click away, or dictionary.com.
3. If my blog had a theme, it would probably be "poop and other bathroom tales"
4. It takes me a few years to approve comments.
5. My blog picture indicates that my face looks like that of a donkey.

I do suggest that if, despite these reasons, you want to read this blog when I write that you subscribe at the bottom left of the blog and then you will get email updates when I put up a new post. Or, add me to google reader if you use that like Kristen does. It's a pretty sweet tool if you are reading lots of different blogs.

Those of you who read Kristen's blog know that we've been "baby sitting" for the past 5ish weeks and haven't been in our home. I'm thrilled to be back at our house, where things are familiar and comfortable and Seth is in his element. I did, however, enjoy my time with the two families we watched. The Weirs have 2 kids, one in 10th grade and one in 7th. The Jacksons have 5 kids from a senior in HS to an 8 year old home schooler. I had a blast playing video games, watching TV, hanging out, playing cards, etc. with these families. The Jackson's hosted the shooting of the video "WW2 in 10 minutes" over the past weekend. This was a project for their history class. I linked the videos below so you can get a taste of what I get to deal with everyday at ICSB. The students here are really fun and quite creative.

Tojo is John - a student and bball player of mine
Hitler is Ben - a student and bball player of mine, who is known to many of you as chicken dish boy, one of the Jackson 5 that we house sat for
Churchhill is Robert H - a student I had last year and bball player of mine, he is great at editing film and very creative. He also managed to live stream our tournament games in the cafeteria this year for the bball tournament
The countries beat up by Hitler are Mason - the 10th grader we house sat for and a student I like to beat up in the hallways, similar to this video
Stalin is Robert M - a student of mine
Lady robbed by Stalin is Liz - the oldest of the Jackson 5. We like to make fun of her that she looked like a prostitute in the film. I think the boys did that on purpose
FDR is Jon - a student and bball player of mine
Pearl Harbor is Tina - a student of mine
Mussolini is Nicolas - always drawing on my whiteboard

It's 6:21 am. I woke up an hour ago not able to sleep anymore. Today is day 2 of our bball tournament. We are hosting teams from Budapest, Kiev, and Salzburg. We lost our first game by 1 to our rival school here in Budapest. We haven't beat that team since I've been here. So far we've lost to them by 18, 3, 1 and 1. We were down 10 last night in the 4th quarter and came back with a chance to win in the last second, but the shot just missed. It was really exciting and I am really proud of the guys for how hard they played. I hope we win both our games today so we get a chance at them in the championship on Saturday. We have a big game this morning against Kiev. So I'm off to get ready. I hope to blog again to update you on how the games went and brag about how fun Seth is and how much I love being a dad. Thanks so much for everyone's prayers and words of encouragement. It's fun to hear from you.

Five

2009-01-03T12:42:00Z

Today is our five year wedding anniversary. I've been thinking over the past week or so about how much has happened since we tied the knot on January 3, 2004. We were both unemployed and I was 3 credits away from my degree (which I finished that May). Our first apartment in Orchard Park, NY was a tiny one bedroom apartment that we kept at 58 degrees. We had a bed, couch and a TV - pretty much all you need when you are an unemployed newlywed.

Now we have furniture and appliances for two houses in two different countries. I've been hired for 9 different jobs; I'm not sure how many Kristen has worked. We've been through times when we needed $20 to pay our bills for the month and times when we've had more than we needed. Now we are living in Hungary with a one year old son who brings us constant joy and an ever-expanding ministry among the missionary and Hungarian community.

During my life with Kristen there have been a number of constants that I can rely on to be there. One of them has been the support of our families, both Kristen's and mine. They have helped us on so many occassions, either financially, or providing a place to stay or giving a listening ear or sending Reese's pieces and baby food.

The other two were brought to my mind when I was reading 1 Timothy. Kristen and I have been studying chapter 1 a little bit and today during open gym I was reading the text and I read these verses:

15Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

These verses are a great comfort and truth in my life when I think about God's mercy and how he is ready to take me back time and time again. The word that really struck me was "unlimited". That concept doesn't make sense - especially when it is tied to the word patience. To know that God has unlimited patience with me, even though I am nothing in comparison to him.

All that got me thinking about the third constant of these past 5 years, which is Kristen. If anyone can be a picture of God's unlimited patience, it would be her. She would be the first to say that she doesn't have unlimited patience, but she has put up with my laziness, sarcasm, grumpiness, thoughtlessness, and countless failures ever since she met me. Not only has she put up with them, but she loves me through those times and continues to build me up.

If this much can happen over 5 years, I can't wait to see what will happen by year 10. I bet we'll have 6 kids and be living in an igloo in Canada.

Break, basketball and baby boy Seth

2008-12-27T14:10:00Z

Yes, I'll admit. I'm playing a lot of madden 2008 on the computer. I've missed mindlessly playing video games from time to time and I found out that you can buy some EA sports games online. Now that I've led the team to two Super Bowls, Kristen is an MVP quarterback and Seth an MVP running back, I think I've had my fill of fantasy football.

Break has been wonderfully relaxing and it has been great spending so much time at home. Seth is at a really fun age where he is walking everywhere and actually playing with toys instead of just throwing them or sucking on them.

Seth has shown a great interest in sports, tv and eating - three very manly things. Yesterday we enjoyed a bag of microwave popcorn and watched tv. He's a natural at shoving too much food in his face. He also received a present from our friends Zsolt and Gabi. They stopped by just to give him a Christmas gift.

This one is my favorite.

Today was the annual alumni basketball game where the alumni that are home for Christmas play the boys Varsity basketball team. We, the varsity team, won 34 - 30. The game is for fun, but both teams want to win, so I was happy for the victory. I think the guys were glad to win, too.

I recently discovered the blog club trillion last week. It's a blog by Mark Titus, the 12th man of the OSU basketball team. It's pretty hilarious and he always has a youtube video at the end. He has some pretty good ones. Here is one of my favorites. Enjoy!

Walk this way

2008-12-08T19:47:00Z

You're welcome world. I've been sparing you from my thoughts for the past few months. Those of you who read Kristen's blog are aware of most of my activities since I last wrote. From teaching to fathering to husbanding to dancing to volleyball to basketball to traveling, etc. I finally looked at the calendar and saw it is now December. Crazy pants.

Excuse me while I sneeze boogers out of my mouth. I've been sick for nearly a week. The good news is that I sound like a man for once. I remember back in middle school some weird people coming into our classroom and talking about something called puberty. Maybe that is finally happening to me. I haven't squeaked this much in over 10 years.

I digress. The reason I got on to blog was to post of video of Seth walking. Thanksgiving day, when he was 367 days old, he decided it's time to stop crawling around and began taking steps from chair to chair. Now he is walking across the room when he wants to. So this is for the grandparents and anyone else who wants to see little Seth attempt to put one foot in front of the other. Kristen still sometimes struggles to figure that out.

The Happenings of ICSB

2008-09-30T04:35:00Z

Jo Reggelt. It's 6:39 am and that's all the Hungarian I really know. Some idiot (excuse the language, but it's appropriate here) went driving by a minute ago honking his horn pointlessly. Now Seth is awake. Yeah. I guess honking your horn as you drive by someone's flat or house transcends culture. I should be used to it. If you base popularity on the number of drive-by honkings, our neighbors where I grew up in NY were as well known as the pope or Hannah Montana.

I just got back from a 2.21 day leadership conference here in Budapest. It's put on by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) every year for Christian student leaders across Europe and even parts of Asia. Most of the schools were from Romania and Hungary, but there were others from Norway, Spain, Ukraine, Serbia, Germany, Czech Republic and more. I was the male chaperone for the 3 boys that went from our school. We also had 5 girls there as well. It was a really great conference. I got to meet people from all over the world and it was fun coming together under one roof to worship the one true God. The speaker was challenging in his messages, but also evangelistic in that 16 or so students accepted Christ. The theme was "Change My Heart O God". I really feel like I gained a lot personally from the 2.21 days to be fed and focus on God's Word. I definitely wasn't a fan of the plum filled chicken we had for dinner the first night there. I'm glad the food was lucious the other meals. Also, I pooped on a ledge toilet for the first time in over a year (and hopefully the last).

A big thing happening at ICSB is street evangelism. Many students who went on mission trips this summer came back excited about the "Everything" skit they did as street evangelism in Mexico City. Some of you may have seen this skit on youtube. The students decided in their outreach team to try doing this skit on the streets of Budapest. A teacher here at the school had some experience and connections at Budapest from the things she did this summer, so she is heading up the group. The students performed it in chapel, which in turn hooked about 30 kids to want to learn the drama, and even more who want to go along and be the people on the sidelines witnessing, sharing their faith and explaining the drama. It has been fun to watch the students get excited about this and boldly go out to Budapest to share Christ.

This is just one of the videos on youtube. You can see related videos there also that are of the skit and some of the kids talking to people on the streets. I'm super proud of the students at ICSB. They are the main reason I love teaching here so much. We would love your prayer support as the passion in these students grows for reaching the lost. We have our high school retreat this weekend and this is a great time for the students to get even closer as a school.

It's 6:58 am now so I better get ready for work. I want to thank all of you who pray for us as we seek a closer walk with him through all of life's ups and downs.

Wait for the LORD
       and keep his way.
       He will exalt you to inherit the land;
       when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.
Psalm 37:34

Last minute

2008-09-14T12:17:00Z

The last video I posted (actually Kristen posted it for me because I ran out of time and had to go to the staff retreat) cut out the last minute of the video. I think photobucket wouldn't accept the entire video because it was too long. So I remade the last minute and am posting it below. It has some of my favorite footage of Seth running away from his father and then getting pummeled by a pillow.

The staff retreat was pretty fun. We had a lot of free time for sports and game time with our colleagues. I am exhausted though from lack of sleep, watching the Buckeyes get crushed and being so active. It was nice to come home and be greeted by my beautiful wife and smiling child !

Blog revived

2008-09-12T06:53:00Z

So I need to pack for the staff retreat in the next 27 minutes. I realize I haven't blogged in a long time. It's not because I haven't anything to share or intentions to blog, I've just found that it takes 5 clicks on the mouse to get to this blog and that's way too many. It's too exhausting to blog.

Instead of catching up and sharing my many inspirational and disturbing commentaries on day to day life, I'm going to say nothing. I decided to share a video of Seth we took this morning. Kristen and I have a lot of fun with Seth and he is pretty funny in the morning. He likes to wrestle, talk, beg for food, be chased, play with his toys, crawl around and get into everything. He makes us laugh. Therefore, I made this video this morning for family and friends that care to see him in his element.

Warning: It's a 6 minute video. If you are bored with baby videos like I typically am, you might want to spend your 6 minutes doing something useful that has eternal rewards, like searching for videos on youtube, check your facebook page or online gaming.

I love basketball

2008-07-24T12:40:00Z

Today we received a package from grandma and grandpa Yaiko. It's always fun getting something in the mail.

Seth loved the crystal light...

his fancy baby food...

the book...

his outfits...

and most of all, his basketball!

He laughs whenever we say "ball" and was carrying that thing around all morning.

We had an early appointment at immigration this morning and now are legal in Hungary for another year. I'm also trying to find a program still for a Master's in Math Education. I just got a call from one university wondering why I never started. I can't wait to call them and tell them it's because they turned me down. Dummies.

Currently, everyone is passed out from all of the excitement.

Man Points

2008-07-22T17:26:00Z

As Seth grows into a little man I find it imperative that he do manly things. I have been mentally keeping track of his man points vs. whiny/baby/momma's boy points. Being a Yaiko and one of my offspring it's pretty much inevitable that Seth will dominate all other boys, regardless of age. Recently we have been working on "a pile drive to the face...a punch to the face".

Here's a small list of things Seth has been doing lately:
1. Waking up at 4:30 am (whiny points)
2. Waking up at 4:30 am to watch the Indians whoop the Angels (man points)
3. Discovered that he is a male (man points)
4. Rediscovers that he is a male daily (man points)
5. Remarkable interest and conceptual understanding of pi (man points)

6. Trying to eat pi (whiny points)

7. Flirting with women wherever we go (man points)
8. Flirting with his own mother (whiny points)
9. Farting in the tub (man points)
10. Wearing "I love mommy" bibs (or bibs at all) and crying for food (whiny points)

Kristen and I have been working in my classroom to get it ready for next year. After 5 minutes of decorating it looked better than it did all last year. Seth has been playing on the floor. He likes to be chased, bang his head against the desks and smash the computer keyboard.

This is after he knocked the keyboard on the floor.

Books

2008-07-21T04:10:00Z

I'm reading books. Even fiction girly books. This is what lack of TV does to people.

Parenting is very dynamic. The first few weeks I spent wondering what this screaming, whiny alien covered in hair was trying to communicate to me. Then Seth turned into this miracle baby that slept 12 hours at night with a couple of naps that only cried in predictable patterns of hunger and sleep. More recently Seth is introducing a little more self will, especially during nap and bed times. Last week he mutated into this crying momma's boy, but over the past few days he is returning to normal. Last night he persistantly pursued Nusi's (our Hungarian friend) beer, which made me very proud and gained him some important man points.

If I haven't mentioned before, Nusi is the girl Kristen stayed with 10 years ago when she first came to Hungary on an exchange program. They have been in contact ever since and we are so excited to spend time with Nusi whenever we can. She is fluent in English, so it is easy for us to talk with her. Last night she and her boyfriend came over for pizza. We had a nice time.

Seth is also extremely mobile. He is crawling everywhere, including up stairs and under furniture.

Here he was chasing a water bottle and managed to get stuck under a chair. He loves to pull himself up on things and look around to see who is applauding him. Notice in the picture below that I am there spotting him. I put that for the benefit our certain family members that think I endanger my son

We have also been enjoying the freedom of having wheels. Say hello to the newest addition to our family. Her name is Felicia. I didn't name her, it's written on the back of the car. It's a 1996 Skoda Felicia. A family in our mission who moved back to the US sold the car to us. Now I can mingle amongst the crazy Hungarian drivers and motorcyclists whenever I'm inclined.

4x4

2008-07-07T06:09:00Z

Hello blog readers. I hope you have been keeping up with Kristen's blog as I am not going to attempt to retell the story she told on her blog. The riot was one of my favorite memories so far in Budapest though. Click here to read about it if you haven't yet. I will add that it was my first experience being tear gased and that was cool. It really does burn the nose and eyes.

I'm sitting in a flat in Prague as I write this. The Dunham family (not my wife's, but a missionary couple that live in Prague) have graciously allowed us to use their flat while they are in the United States. We are super excited to see the sights here for the next 2 days.

Yesterday I traveled through 4 capitals in 4 different countries. First I took the principal of ICSB and his family to the airport as they are returning to the United States after over 8 years of missionary service in Budapest. Then I went home to pick up the family and we drove to Vienna, Austria. We managed to quickly get lost in Vienna, but used our sense of direction to find a parking space that turned out to be off the main road just a few steps away from the shopping streets that led to the city center and St. Stephen's Cathedral. That evening we left for Prague. We took the google map way, which had us backtracking a little, and went through Bratislava, Slovakia, our third country and capital city of the day. At around 8:30 pm we arrived in Prague, Czech Republic, welcomed by heavy traffic and downpouring rain. I'm proud to say that with Kristen and Doug giving directions, we only made one wrong turn, quickly corrected it, and made it safely to where we are staying.

The only snafu was finding the gentlemen who was staying in the flat and was letting us in. Our cell phone doesn't work outside of Hungary, so we found a random stranger (who had actually helped us earlier) that let us borrow his cell phone to call Marian who was stuck in traffic and coming to meet us. In the everything worked out, we met some nice people here in the Czech Republic, I got to drive through 4 countries and tried 3 different beers - one Austrian and two Czech. Delicious!!

Young Seth

2008-06-24T17:57:00Z

A couple videos as promised...

1st: If you have been following this blog over its existence you will remember a controversial slide show of Seth on our new couch sometime in January. I forgot that in addition to pictures, I took video of Seth in each position. Now all of you worrywarts can look carefully and see Kristen standing nearby.

2nd: Our camcorder uses tapes so when a tape is complete (60 minutes worth of video) I download it to our computer. Now I'm sorting through these videos and picking out my favorite clips. Yesterday's video had clips from our most recent tape, and this one comes from one of our oldest.

A couple words of commentary...Make sure the volume is loud, but not too loud as Seth may blow out your speakers one minute into the film (and no special effects have been added this time). Also, growing up I was always told that babies like kisses. Please watch for concrete evidence that refutes this theory and confirms my theory that they tolerate kisses due to the inability to move their arms.

Summertime

2008-06-23T22:19:00Z

Summer break is in full swing and time is flying by quickly! I can't believe June is almost over. I know back in New York school is just letting out, but here we are starting school again really early this August so summer for me is nearly half over. I feel like I've accomplished nothing, but looking back I have gotten quite a few things done. I've written unit plans, been leading a summer fitness program for a few boys at school, made numerous trips to the airport dropping people off and saying goodbye, moved out all of the furniture of the last tenants and bought some of our own, helped two families move, read half of two novels, researched lesson plans for next year, bought a car, etc.

In my spare time I've been taking naps, hanging out with the few people still around Diosd in the summer, playing ball, reading the aforementioned books and have been spending lots of time with the family. I have also slowly been learning how to use our video editing program and how transfer video from our camera to the computer. It has been a steep learning curve, interupted with computer crashes, bad software and a European electric current that differs from that in the US. I make no promises, but expect a new blog post every few days with some "new" video. I say "new" because some of the video goes way back before we got here in Hungary, but I haven't been able to download it until now. If all goes according to plan the videos should continue to improve as I learn new editing tricks. I need to go to bed so I can get up in time to give the ACT tomorrow. Enjoy!!

Block...

2008-06-05T15:59:00Z

Watch this...

I feel like I just blogged yesterday but I guess it has been a few weeks. Yesterday was our last father/son Wednesday of the year and Seth and I only had a half day because we went to visit Kristen at her class for the second half. (There are pictures of her ELI class on her blog.) So we didn't do much, just "played" around with pillows and blocks. That was fun enough though as Seth is really giggling a lot more and is so good natured (as you see very soon).

Playing with Seth often deterioates into seeing how much his father can pick on him before he cries. The thing is he never cries, which makes him pretty fun to pick on. In fact, recently he has been laughing at the majority of the abuse.

Below you can watch a video I made of clips from our evening together. It includes the above video, plus great footage of Seth's smoker's cough, his flinching when he knows something is about to hit him and one giggle. Enjoy!

Strolling in Diosd

2008-05-21T18:27:00Z

After listening to Speak the Hungarian rapper to pump us up, Seth and I decided to wander about Diosd. I was hoping to find a playground to push him down a slide, but my main reason in venturing out was to keep Seth occupied so he wouldn't realize how tired and hungry he gets around 7:30 pm. Since he won't take a bottle now and mom is at school until 8:00 pm (in theory, although she strolled home today past 8:15 pm), I have to creatively keep his mind off sleep and boobs.

The first thing I did was fake kick Seth in the face with my shoes. He thought it was funny everytime I said shoe so I took a video...(by the way, he was filling his diaper for as soon as I shut off the camera he proceeded to launch a series of explosions that registered on the richter scale)

Since I thought Seth might be running around at a playground, I put him in his sweet Nikes.

Our fun was limited today because little Seth fell asleep within minutes of being in the stroller. I figured that was probably a good thing so I didn't wake him up, but walked about looking at the different houses and streets and small children peeing in bushes (literally).

I took pictures of one of my favorite streets in Diosd. The street really has all of the characteristics of what you would typically find when you drive around. Potholes and narrow lanes that you approach with no visibility as to who is coming. Since Seth was fast asleep I put him in the middle of the road.

We then stopped over at school and called grandma Yaiko. Seth chilled in the stroller until he realized he was hungry and my feeble attempts to distract his mind were wearing off.

Whiny Wednesday

2008-05-14T18:06:00Z

Seth didn't eat well before ELI today so his moments of being cheery were limited. Regardless, I took photos of our evening together. Most of it was routine and what we traditionally do. The part that I enjoyed most Kristen won't let me post pictures of.

We usually start Wednesday evenings with jumping on the bed...

followed by wrestling...

followed by changing his poo filled diaper.

Then I make dinner

while Seth plays on the floor.

If you look back at my blog called "Yih, C'mom" about Speak the Hungarian Rapper, you will see that I received a new comment from someone who did a podcast on Speak. Go back and listen to it if you get the chance. Seth and I celebrated by watching Speak's video "Hold On".

Next we usually look for some mischief, which usually means we play on furniture

Seth was checking out the new TV and TV stand

Then we played in the box of toys until he started whining

Seth is really getting more and more active. Currently he is into grabbing everything and playing with toys. He also loves to walk. If mommy or daddy keep him steady he will take steps towards where he wants to go. He also is starting to immitate sounds with the mouth and stick out his tongue. It's a lot of fun (as you can tell from the above picture).

Wednesdays with dad

2008-05-08T11:52:00Z

Wednesday night is father/son time as Kristen is teaching ELI. It has been over a month since our last Wednesday together so I decided to show Seth around my classroom.

Seth got to sit behind the desk and fling papers around and play on the calculator.

He already has the authoritative look down that demands fear and respect. After playing in the classroom Seth watched half an hour of volleyball in the gym. He loves watching a ball get tossed about. By then we were both exhausted, me from being out in the sun all day and Seth from being a huge whiny baby.

Teacher Appreciation Week

2008-04-15T12:06:00Z

This week is teacher appreciation week at our school. As a child I would complain that there isn't a children's day so why do I have to celebrate Mother's or Father's Day? The standard reply I received was, "Everyday is kid's day." Now that the annoyingness of that reply has worn off, I have adopted it to respond to the whining student that believes they need a student appreciation week. "If there weren't any students there wouldn't be any teachers," they so cleverly argue. I wholeheartedly agree and so often wish that were the case.

There are probably 100 posters throughout the school to encourage the teachers. Each teacher has one with his or her name on it and the students decorated them and wrote messages. It was fun to go around and read the posters. I think it's cool to see that the students genuinely appreciate the teachers who come here. It definitely boosted my spirits and probably saved a few student's lives.

Scratch your head and you might get splinters

2008-04-14T12:26:00Z

Yes, it has been a long time since my last entry. I'm sorry to disappoint both of my faithful readers. You may know that I have been separated from myself (two become one, right?) for the past two weeks or so as my good half left me and took our son with her, and now I'm alone wallowing in my incompetencies. From what I hear she is enjoying her time in the states with family and family is enjoying Seth and Seth's mom.

I am thankful that last week was super busy and I have not had much time at home to sit alone and stare at our blank, white walls or walk by Seth's drool stained crib. Between small group, planning and teaching ELI, planning and teaching my math classes, making pizza for 10 hungry JV bball players and partying like it's 1999, officiating, chaperoning and participating in a dodge ball tournament, dominating in poker at a coffee house, proctoring the ACT, organizing an offseason athletic program and attending a dinner party I haven't had much time to be lonely nor sit down to blog about everything. I am glad to be so busy, but that led to Sunday being a day where I crashed and spent time being an introvert.

This week is busy as well, but not in comparison to the insanity of last week. The big event is the orphanage trip this Friday through Sunday. I have been asked to chaperone the trip where we take a ton of high school students to the same orphanage we went to in the fall - except this time we stay nearby in a hostel for 2 nights. I honestly don't know why the school allows me to chaperone. Those of you who know me understand my bewilderment. Common sense says that the maturity level of the "adult" should exceed that of the students under his care. But I'm glad to go. The orphanage kids are needy and enjoy it when we come. I pretty much play sports with them all day and smile like a dummy as they speak to me in Hungarian. Last time I made a friend with one boy and we threw a football for 3 hours or so. I also like to see the students here at ICSB in a ministry opportunity and watch them step up and allow themselves to be used by God. Really the best part of this job is being around these students. Sure, sometimes the staff and students need a break from each other, but overall I love my time with the students.

Anyway, that is a prayer request, that the trip goes well and the orphans have a good time. As I blogged about before, last time one of the kids accepted Christ, so pray that the message of the gospel would be clear in our words and in our actions so that a bunch of kids find their heavenly Father.

Also, our friend Audrey Ooms that we met at PFO arrives in two days. Yeah!

I started this 3 hours ago so I'm just going to quit.