Savior?

Is it me, or is this just straight up blasphemy?
Painter Michael D'Antuono is going to unveil his new painting of Barack Obama on the president's 100th day in office, which will be displayed in New York City's Union Square.
Here's the painting:

Yes, that's a crown of thorns on Obama's head, and he is posing like Jesus.
The only thing I would agree with, is that some people do view Obama as a Messiah-esque figure - but since the title of this painting is "The Truth" it is obvious that the painter is also in the "Obama is our Savior" camp.
This is outrageous. This president covers up the name of Jesus, but does not object to being portrayed as Jesus in public.
Does this count as putting yourself in Jesus' place? Does this count as accepting worship as Savior? Those are pretty serious things. I'm not sure if this equates to that, but it makes me wonder...

Here's an article about it.

Csak én gondolom így, vagy ez tényleg pofátlanság és Istenkáromlás?
Michael D'Antuono festőművész be fogja mutatni a legújabb festményét Barack Obamáról az elnök 100. napján a Fehér Házban, amely ki lesz állítva a new york city-i Union Téren.
Fent található egy kép a festményről.
Igen, az tényleg egy tüvises koszorú Obama fején, és igen, ő tényleg úgy pózol mint Jézus.
Egy dologgal egyetértenék: vannak olyan emberek akik úgy tekintenek Obamára, mint egy Messiásra, de mivel e festmény címe "Az Igazság", nyilvánvaló, hogy ez a festőművész is az "Obama a mi Megváltónk" táborához tartozik.
Ez felháborító. Ez az elnök letakarja Jézus nevét, de nem tiltakozik attól, hogy nyilvánosságban Jézusként ábrázolják.
Ez annak számít, hogy Jézus helyére helyezi magát? Ez annak számít, hogy ő Megváltóként elfogadja a dicséretet? Azok igen komoly dolgok. Még nem vagyok benne biztos, hogy ezeknek számít ez, de elgondolkoztat...

Floyd Horony

We will miss Floyd. He passed away from cancer recently, and kept his gentle, cheerful character until the end. I heard that he passed away in a coma.
What I know is that Floyd never married and didn't have much of a family around. He has been a part of Calvary Chapel Vista for many years though, and was like a grandpa for many people. The kids all loved Floyd because he had either balloons or candy for them when he was around, and the kids weren't shy to always ask him for something.
I have many memories of Floyd. One of the oldest memories was from about 13 years ago when Calvary Vista had a cafe, and he would take groups of people there after service. He would call out to a whole crowd of people standing around after church, asking with an excited voice, if it was going to be white or dark hot chocolate that night.
When I moved onto the mission field 10 years ago, I remember that he gave me the fabled "missionary handshake" which means he shook my hand and secretly passed me a 20 or 50 $ bill. Every time I visited, Floyd gave me that fabled handshake, and it was really a blessing-of course to get some money, but that he always remembered me.
As the years go by while someone is away from "home," people write less and less letters and emails. Floyd was one of few who would send cards with Bible verses and handwritten messages to encourage me. He always included some cash, then wrote that I should NOT write back.
I remember those times that I went to tell him goodbye before I left for Hungary, and he would get tears in his eyes.
He was a genuinely kind man who had a huge amount of love for all and made all of us feel special.
When we visited home this last time in January, I was shocked to see Floyd so thin and bent over-obviously sick. He didn't want to oblige his news at first, but then told me that he was an old man and had cancer.
I know he has received his rewards now in heaven, but I want to write and share how special I thought he was.
His passing on is another reason I look forward to also going "home" to my eternal home where my mom and dad and a few friends await.

~Rosemary

Doga

In case you ever happen to have too much money and don't know what to do with it, here's an idea: Doga.
Yes, its Yoga with and/or for dogs. Its a new fad in America, just showing another example of something dumb people will spend money on.

Here's the article

Hátha majd esetleg annyira sok pénzed lesz, hogy nem tudsz mit kezdeni vele, itt egy ötlet: Doga.
Igen, ez jóga kutyákkal és/vagy kutyákért. Ez egy új divat Amerikában, és még egy példa arról, hogy az emberek milyen buta dolgokra hajlandóak pénzt költeni.

Name Above All Names

This week Barack Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University - one of the oldest Catholic universities in the United States. He created quite a stir, especially among Christians, because his people decided to cover up the name of Jesus, in the form of a monogram with the letters IHS, with a black peice of plywood, right above Pres. Obama's head.
The White House issued a statement about it, saying that they did it for camera reasons, so as not to have any symbols which might be distracting to the eye or misunderstood. But obviously Christians are quite upset about this - both at Obama for choosing to speak at a Catholic university and then daring to request them to cover up the name of Jesus, AND at Georgetown University for being willing to cover up Jesus' name instead of telling Obama to buzz off.
I understand that they don't want this to be misunderstood out of context - as if propogating Christianity over other religions - but if this is the case, I think Obama should have chosen to speak somewhere else rather than covering up the name of Jesus.
Its a shame that the White House doesn't think the Name which is above all names is appropriate to be above Obama's head.

Here are some links to read more or see the pictures:
From: The Dawn Patrol and NBC

Ezen a héten Barack Obama beszédet tartott a Georgetown egyetemen - az egyik legrégibb katolikus egyetem az Egyesült Államokban. Elég nagy kavarodást okozott, különösen a Keresztények között, mert az ő emberei úgy döntöttek hogy eltakarják Jézus nevét egy IHS monogram formában, egy fekete szinű butorlappal, pont Obama elnök feje felett.
A Fehér Ház adott erről egy nyilatkozatot, hogy ezt kamerai okok miatt tették, azért, hogy ne legyenek szemnek zavaró tényezők vagy olyan szimbolum amit félre lehet érteni. Nyilván, Keresztények ezért fel vannak háborodva - egyrész Obamára, hogy úgy döntött, hogy katolikus egyetemen tartja a beszédét és aztán mert őket arra kérni, hogy tarkarják el Jézus nevét, ÉS egyrész a Georgetown-ra, mert hajlandóak voltak eltakarni Jézus nevét ahelyett, hogy nemet mondjanak Obamának.
Értem, hogy nem akarják a felreértést, mint ha a kormány vallást propogál - de ha ez van, akkor szerintem inkább Obamának máshol kéne beszélnie, ahelyett hogy Jézus nevét takarja el.
Szégyen, hogy a Fehér Ház úgy gondolja, hogy a Név ami minden névnél feljebb való nem alkalmas hogy az Obama feje felett legyen.

Eger in April

Some pictures taken recently:

Slovenský Raj

Balázs had his spring break around Easter, and since he's never really been anywhere yet, I took him to one of my favorite nearby places to hike - Slovenský Raj (Slovak Paradise) national park in Slovakia.
He had a great time, except that the hike lasted 6 hrs, and 1 hour into it he started asking if we were almost at the end yet...
I told him that by the end of this summer he will be a hiking machine :)
Here are the pictures:

Balázsnak tavaszi szünete volt a múlt héten, Húsvét előtt, és mivel eddig még nem nagyon járt túl sok helyen, elvittem az egyik kedvenc kiránduló helyemre turázni - a Szlovák Paradicsom nemzeti parkba, Szlovákiában.
Nagyon jól érezte magát, csak annyi volt, hogy ez egy 6 órás tura volt, és az első óra után Balázs elkezdett kérdezni, hogy "ott vagyunk már?"...
Mondtam neki, hogy a nyár végére, már tura-gép lesz belőle :)

Easter Egg Hunt

I just finished working on my midterm assignments, hence the sudden burst of blog posts.
Nate had his first Easter egg hunt on Easter Monday. Here are some pictures and a video:

Four Years

This past Sunday marked the fourth anniversary of our church in Eger.
On Easter 2005 we started the church formally with our first Sunday service. Since that time God has done good things amongst us; people have come to know the Lord, been baptized, stepped into ministry, etc...
We can see that we are having an impact for Christ in Eger, and that is a good feeling. We believe that this is only the beginning of what God wants to do here.

Rosemary and I have been in Eger for 4 years now too. In that time we've gained some weight, seen some things, had a kid, and picked another one up along the way.
Currently we're trying to buy a house; please pray for that! We've made an offer on a house, but haven't heard anything back on it yet.

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God." My times are in your hand.
Psalm 31:14-15

Its Official

Bajnai Gordon is the new prime minister of Hungary.

He has a pretty hard job ahead of him. He has told Hungarians that they should prepare for things to get difficult for a little while, as he takes drastic measures to fix problems, and that in the end it will be better for the country.

By the way - that's exactly what Gyurcsány Ferenc said a few years ago, when it came out that he had been lying to everyone about the financial state of the country...

I'm already not a big fan of Bajnai, because he is taking away state support for families buying houses from June 1st. So, we'll see if things work out for us to get into something in the next month, before they cut the funds.

Time will tell if Gordon bácsi can turn things around.
I personally hope he does, but I think that no matter what happens, he will be very unpopular because of his cutbacks. But alas, it would be really hard to be less popular that Gyurcsány Ferenc - the man who was so unpopular that it made George Bush seem like a teen pop idol in comparison.

Nerd Fact

Rosemary often says that my brain is full of "nerd facts" - silly facts that I bring up in sentences which begin like: "Did you know that..."

Here's the nerd fact for the day: Hungary is one of only 4 countries in the world that use the date format of yyyy/mm/dd. The only other countries that format their dates this way are Lithuania, China and Mongolia. This is interesting, because the main theories about the origin of the Hungarian people is that they are an eastern people group, with closer relations to Mongols than to the Slavic and Germanic peoples around them.

Another interesting thing is that the United States and its territories are the only places where the dating format is exclusively: mm/dd/yyyy - Canada and Kenya also use this format, but they use others as well.
Maybe we should conclude that this proves that Canadians and Kenyans actually descend from the USA.

Here's the map - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date.png

20 Years

This year marks 20 years since 1989, when many of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe fell.
The BBC has a cool page about this, with old video footage from 1989:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7961732.stm