Farewell to Sally

Our northern Irish granny - Sally - went home today. It wasn't easy to say goodbye as she has really brightened up our lives with her cheerful words of encouragement and songs of praise and her fervent prayers 'in the lovely name of Jesus'. Sally came to help Jill - who manages the building and cooks our main meal each day and does our laundry plus numerous other responsibilities with OM Hungary. With Sally here, instead of a free-for-all in the evenings and on weekends for meals, we had everything laid out for us and special things prepared that we might not have otherwise had. With Sally here, I woke up in the morning to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and went into the kitchen to the pleasant greeting 'Good mornin', Babs' in her Irish accent. She won a place in each of our hearts and now has returned to her own family and grandchildren to continue blessing their lives. Thank you, Sally - for everything. Sally and Victoria and I had a great time last Saturday in Budapest at the market and drinking tea in Hungarian cafes. Wasn't I blessed?

This has been a fairly intense week of lessons and assignments, especially as we prepare to do an open-air presentation in Budapest tomorrow. We will be working together with Youth With a Mission and presenting a drama, songs and a testimony as well as a brief gospel message in one of the main squares of Budapest. Guess who gets to do the gospel message? Right - me! Imagine! Me - a street preacher! Not exactly what I expected to be doing but I am always open to new experiences - ask me tomorrow whether I ever expect to do such a thing again. But when I look at the New Testament, the greatest saints (e.g. Paul, Peter) did open air street evangelism, preaching to whatever crowd happened to gather. So I'm in good company - just not anywhere near the same calibre of preaching. Please, please pray for me!!
Other than preparing for that and enjoying our daily classes, we have been working on this week's assignment - a religious background paper on the country to which we are going. Since Moldova is primarily an Orthodox country, I was especially interested in this afternoon's class when we learned about the history and beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox church. It was an excellent lesson and a real eye opener for me. Up till now I really knew nothing about Orthodoxy. Now I know about the first seven councils of the church and about the Great Schism of 1054 when the eastern and western churches excommunicated each other, and about the difference between Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox. It's all very interesting! Orthodox have another calendar, too (the Julian calendar) which means that I will be celebrating Christmas on January 7!
So, in case you think I'm doing nothing but play the tourist and socialize with all my new friends, remember that I am learning stuff and doing assignments too!