Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Putting the Lug in Luggage

After two months of wandering from Korea to parents homes, to Gyor and then Budapest, our family has finally nestled into our new little apartment here on the walking street of Kalocsa, Hungary.  We arrived a week ago Sunday, and have been busy making this old apartment our new home.  It is a small town, but not too small, and weather has been consistently somewhere between hot and muggy.  Washington rain is sounding alright for the first time in a long time.  Calvin and Muriel are in their first week of total emersion school, and seem to be doing well.  It is a big challenge to be the new kids in school, especially when you can’t understand anything that’s being said and I’m sure I am not nearly sympathetic enough.  Please keep them in your prayers.  I think the biggest challenge our family faces together is slowing down.  Heidi and I feel like we are on activity detox, and are again realizing what life can be like if you don’t have something going every minute of every day.  We had to remind ourselves this week that we have only been here seven days, and while God created the universe in that time, he does not expect us to.  In fact, we are finding joy in waiting on Him, knowing that he has plans for our family this year, and taking time to pray for the people we are encountering here.
Probably my biggest highlight is that our eight pieces of luggage are unpacked, and put away.  At the beginning of our journey to Hungary, we quickly realized the challenge of fitting our stuff in eight containers all weighing fifty pounds or less.  We spent hours, filling, weighing, shifting, re-weighing, re-shifting, tossing, thrice-weighing, until we could not place a feather on them lest we go over our weight limit.  Then we got to the airport only to find that all our carry-on luggage was all overweight by about twenty-three kilos total (which ways approximately fifty pounds).  So we did the mad-scramble repack, exposing all our underwear to all of SeaTac airport.  In my mind, I was cursing the airline company (using only Free-Methodist approved words of course) for their weight restrictions.  But we managed to get on the plane, and land safely in Hungary with almost two hours of sleep and no ulcers. 

We then arrived at the airport and managed to fit all our luggage, our family, Larry Winkles and Paul Mathewson in the mission mini-van.  It was quite the feat.  We hauled our luggage into the Winkle’s (our Free-Methodist missionaries here in Budapest) apartment.  Later, after a trip to Gyor to visit friends, we hauled it all back down to the street, and re-packed it to take to the hostel where we were staying for a week.  I hauled it piece by exactly 50 pound piece up to our room, up a flight of stairs, down a flight of stairs, down a long corridor and up another flight of stairs.  I had training for my English program in Budapest for a week, then with the help of our new friends from Kalocsa, we hauled our luggage back out and fit it all in a little car.  (Another great feat.)  We then arrived in Kalocsa to an apartment on the third floor with no elevator.  As you can imagine, by this point, I was quite grateful for the airline’s strict weight policy on checked baggage.  It may just have saved my back.  It also got me to thinking, that sometimes we don’t like God’s restrictions on what we can do.  “Why won’t God allow me to do this or that” we think?  Maybe the thing we are angry with God today, we praise Him for tomorrow.

In the few short days we have been in Hungary, we have seen God continue to both provide for us, and stretch us.  We are so thankful for all the support we have received from our family and friends.  Without our loved ones back home we could not have embarked on this journey, and so we continue to ask that you lift our family in prayer.

In Christ,
Eric

1 comment:

  1. Love that technology allows us to feel not nearly so far away!!! loved the video tour of your place.

    Aunt Lisa

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