Most Popular Posts of 2011

I read somewhere that 2011 was the year in which nothing major happened. I'm not sure that was the case for us - but it was a year characterized by moving forward in what we were already doing. And it was GOOD.

Here are my most popular posts from 2011:

1. May 21, 2011
2. Surprise Amendment to Church Law in Hungary
3. It's Official
4. Morbid Angol Mondókák - Morbid English Nursery Rhymes
5. Teaching Kids About the Real Saint Nicholas
6. Bomba Jó - Bomb in Eger
7. Felicia is One Year Old
   

Skiing in Bánkút

Hungary is famous for a lot of things: Music, food, thermal baths, wine, and many other things.
One thing Hungary is not famous for? - Skiing.

I have been snowboarding twice in Hungary - one of them was today, when I took Rosemary, Nate and Felicia to Bánkút ski area in the Bükk mountains, mostly to let Nate try out skiing.
A few years ago I went snowboarding on the highest peak in Hungary, Kékes tető (1014 m/ 3330 ft). It wasn't so great.

I spent the first hour today in Bánkút teaching Nate how to ski, and then I decided to buy a lift ticket and take a few runs myself.
There was actually much more snow there than I expected, considering that it is not far from Eger, and in Eger there is no snow at all.
Nonetheless, I kind of felt like I was snowboarding on frozen grass. There wasn't much of a base, to say the least.

But, there are a few positive things I would have to say about Bánkút:

• It was CHEAP. I paid 1000 HUF (3.23 EUR) for my lift ticket - which lets me ride the lift 6 times, any time between now and when they close in March (providing that they have snow until then. They could close earlier if there is not enough snow). Also, I was able to rent skis for Nate for 1000 HUF too. That is cheap.
• It was CLOSE to Eger. It was a short 1 hour drive from our house.
• It is a great place to teach people how to ski - especially kids. If you are going to be teaching someone how to ski or snowboard, it makes a lot more sense to go to Bánkút rather than spending a lot more money on gas and lift tickets to go to bigger mountains in Slovakia or Austria, when all you really need to teach them is a minimal amount of snow and some short runs. There is nothing more frustrating than driving a long way to an awesome ski mountain, only to not be able to ski on it because you spend the whole day on the beginners' hill teaching someone the basics.

So, I thought up a few possible slogans for Bánkút:

• "Bánkút: The Most Frozen Grass in Hungary!"
• "Bánkút: Ne válaszd műsípályát - inkább gyere hozzánk és válaszd FŰsípályát!"

Here is a video of our trip today to Bánkút. Nate even did a bit of skiing on his own, but we didn't get video of that.

Merry Christmas

Funny Guy

Nate likes to make people laugh. His main audience is his sister Felicia - who is usually pretty easy to impress and make laugh.

I have been teaching Nate to tell jokes lately. So far, he knows 3:

1. "A mushroom walks into a bar and says, 'hello everybody! I'm a fungi (fun guy)!"
2. "A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, 'Why the long face?'"
3. "What's brown and sticky? ... A stick."

The other night there was a youth group meeting, so Nate went and tried to tell them some jokes. He kind of messed up the horse one - he told them:

• "A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, 'Why do you have such a long head?'"

Then he started making up his own versions:

• "A crocodile walks into a bar, and the cowtender says, 'Why do you have a long face?'"

It was at that point when I realized that Nate has no idea what a bar or a bartender are. :)

It's Official

Here is the blog post I wrote a little over 3 years ago, when Balázs moved in with us and we became his foster parents. nickandrosemary.blogspot.com/2008/11/ch-ch-changes
Check it out - it is a blast from the past and worth the read.

This August we began the process of adopting Balázs. We didn't tell many people about it, because we weren't sure if it would be possible, as adoption can be a complicated and sometimes long and difficult legal process.

This Monday we got the papers in the mail that our adoption of Balázs has been approved and finalized. It's official; Balázs is now our son!



Why now? There are multiple reasons. To name only a few: Balázs is 17 now, which means that it was now or never. After turning 18 a person can no longer be adopted in Hungary. Another reason is because Balázs is part of our family - our little ones don't even remember a time when Balázs wasn't around; Nate was 1 and a half when he moved in - and we want to make Balázs' place in our family official and stable, and ensure that even after he turns 18, he has a secure family background.

I must say though, that as difficult as the adoption process can be for many people, we had an amazingly smooth experience. We saw the hand of God in a lot of things along the way which were potential roadblocks to us being able to adopt Balázs at all. It was also to our benefit that we had already had Balázs as a foster child for years and the authorities knew us and saw that we had his best interest in mind, which caused them to speed up the process.

We are glad to have Balázs as an official member of our family, and we are blessed that we get to be a part of God's work in his life.

The Good Guys

Last Tuesday I got to preach about Christmas and the love of God to a group of cancer survivors and their families. This is the 3rd time I've been invited to speak to them at Christmas time, for their annual Christmas gathering, and it was a great blessing for me to get to minister to them from the Word of God and get to meet so many of them.
We don't have many older people in our church, so I enjoy getting to minister to the older generation here in Hungary from time to time.

After I preached, a man came and sat down next to me, and introduced himself as an atheist. As we got to know each other, it turned out that this man, who is now 80 years old, was a former communist leader in Eger.

He told me how he had become a Communist party member in 1948, when he was 17 yrs old. This means that he not only lived through the Stalinist era of the 50's, but that he was even part of the regime during the harshest, most repressive period of communism in Hungary. Later he became the head of the biggest factory in the region (Berva), and became an upper level party leader in Eger.
His world has changed a lot since the end of communism in Hungary.

The thing that I think many people in the West don't understand about the people who were communists here in Eastern Europe, is that many of these people thought of themselves as the good guys.
They thought of themselves as those who were really compassionate and humane, who cared about creating a society where everyone was equal. They really viewed the capitalists as the bad guys who wanted to get rich by taking advantage of other people rather than creating a society characterized by equality.
They viewed themselves as morally superior to capitalists, because they believed that life is not primarily about accumulating material possessions (Jesus taught that by the way too... see Luke 12:15), and that it is better to be satisfied with having "enough" than to constantly strive for more and better material things (another Biblical concept - see 1.Tim 6:6-8)
They viewed the church as a corrupt institution, a 'good old boys club'.
They believed that certain forms of suppression of freedoms were necessary and good to protect the society they were trying to create.

This man I talked to still believed sincerely in these ideals - as did the other people we were sitting with at the table, all of whom were raised during communism. It was interesting to talk with them and hear their perspective.
The one thing I was able to tell them that I felt broke through their walls against religion was that for me Christianity is not about a church hierarchy or organization, but it is about following Jesus - his teachings and example. When I started talking about JESUS, they were captivated. Especially when I told them that many of the ideals which they believed made the 'old regime' good, were taught and exemplified by Jesus long ago.

In reality, Jesus is the revolutionary their hearts really long for. His revolution is the one that they really desire deep down - they have just been turned off from Christianity by both rhetoric and by the poor representation of Christ that some parts of the body of Christ have been guilty of throughout history.
My hope and prayer is that these people would be able to see Jesus and not the actions of men.

Kitüntetés - Award

Balázs több mint más fél éve tagja az egri polgárőrségnek.

Tegnap egy kitüntetést is kapott: Az Év Ifjú Polgárőre.

Nagyon büszkék vagyunk rád, Balázs!

Balázs has been a member of the Eger citizen's brigade - a volunteer organization that helps support the police - for about a year and a half now.

Last night he got an award: Youth Guard of the Year

We're proud of you Balázs!

New Life in Heves - Új Élet Hevesen

The Lord has really been blessing our church's ministry in the town of Heves. New people have been coming around, and people are growing under the teaching of God's Word. It is really great to see and to be a part of.

Az Úr nagyon megáldja a gyülekezetünk hevesi szolgálatát. Mindig vannak új arcok, és az emberek növekednek Isten Igéjének a tanítása által. Nagyon jó ezt látni, és részt venni ebben a munkában.

There have always been quite a few people who attended the services who were not believers, but were interested in studying the Bible. Tonight I gave people a chance to respond to the Lord, and asked if there was anyone who would like to repent of their sins, and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Hevesen eddig sok olyan ember is járt a gyülibe aki még nem hívő, csak érdekelte őket a Bibliatanulmányozás. Ma este lehetőséget adtam, hogy ezek az emberek válaszoljanak Isten hívására, és megkérdeztem, hogy szeretne-e valaki megtérni és befogadni az Úr Jézust mint az élete Úra és Megváltója.

I knew that at least one or two people would come forward - because I had been talking with them for weeks about it. But I was happily surprised when 7 people came forward to repent of their sins and receive God's grace, and become children of God.

Tudtam, hogy legalább egy-két ember előre fog jönni - mert néhányukkal már hetek óta beszélünk róla. De meglepődtem és örültem, amikor 7-en előre jöttek, és megbánták a bűneiket és elfogadták Isten kegyelmét, és Isten gyermekeivé lettek.

Here is a picture of the 7 who received the Lord tonight:

Itt vannak azok akik ma este megtértek Hevesen:

Please continue to pray for the work that God is doing in Heves!

Kérlek, imádkozzatok továbbra is, hogy munkálkodjon az Úr Hevesen!

Red Eye

We thought Nate had pink eye this week. He woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday complaining that his eye hurt, and in the morning it was swollen. It got to the point that he wasn't able to open his eye all the way and he was complaining that it hurt all the time.

We took him to the doctor, who referred us to the hospital, where Nate had to see a specialist.

In the end it turned out that it was only a stye (árpa) and we were able to treat it by putting a compress on his eye.
He was pretty excited about wearing it though, and enjoyed looking like a pirate. Our friend Dani came over once, and Nate promptly called him a "dirty scallywag".

Teaching Kids about the Real Saint Nicholas

December 6 is St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) Day - HU: Mikulás - in Hungary and other countries of Europe.

Nate came into our room this morning and climbed into our bed. He has been pretty excited about Mikulás - today there is a Santa coming to visit his preschool, and last night we took him to a toy store that had a Santa. Nate told him exactly what he wanted for Christmas, and even wanted to sit on his lap.
We proceeded to tell Nate the story of Santa Claus - that is, the real Saint Nicholas - who was not a mythical fat man in red clothes who rode through the skies on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, but a devout Christian man, a pastor, who was persecuted for his faith, and gained fame by his generosity to the poor and those in need.

There are some Christians who think that Santa is evil, and that he takes away from the true meaning of Christmas. Not to mention, some would point out, that Santa is nothing more than a misspelling of SATAN, which must be why he goes around in those obnoxious red clothes: because he is from HELL and wants to take you and your kids back there with him!
This of course, is based on a sad lack of knowledge regarding the origin of Santa Claus - the name (in English) being simply a direct derivative of "Saint Nicholas".

For this reason, many Christians protest anything to do with Santa Claus, and tell their kids that Santa is not real, he is bad, and he takes away from the true meaning of Christmas, which of course is Jesus.

We don't avoid Santa Claus - we don't even want to. We see it as a great opportunity to teach our kids about a great Christian man who loved Jesus and was generous and kind because of the love of God which was in his heart. THAT is the "Christmas spirit".
We tell our kids that there are many people in the world who want to follow the example of Saint Nicholas, and that is why they will meet a Santa at their school and at the mall. And we teach our kids that we want to be like Saint Nicholas, and we are going to be generous to the poor and needy because God loved us so much that he gave us his Son, Jesus, so that we could have eternal life and have a relationship with God.

The Story of the Real Saint Nicholas

The real Saint Nicholas was born in the 3rd century in the village of Patara, in what is now southern Turkey, into a wealthy family. His parents died when he was young, and he was taken in and raised by a local priest. Following Jesus' call to the Rich Young Ruler to "sell what you own and give the money to the poor", Nicholas dedicated to use his entire inheritance to assist the sick, needy and suffering.
He became a pastor, and was later made Bishop of Myra. He became famous for his generosity and love for children.

Nicholas suffered persecution and imprisonment for his Christians faith during the Great Persecution (303-311) under Roman emperor Diocletian.
He attended the Council of Nicaea (325), at which he affirmed the doctrine of the deity of Christ.
Nicholas died in 343 in Myra. The anniversary of his death became a day of celebration, St. Nicholas Day, December 6th.

Many stories are told about St. Nicholas' life and deeds. Perhaps the most famous story is one of a poor man who had three daughters who were of marrying age. Because the man was poor, he was unable to provide a dowry for his daughters, which meant that they would not be able to find a descent husband, and would either be married into further poverty or would have to become slaves. After Nicholas found out about this family's situation, he visited the family's house, leaving them 3 anonymous gifts - each time a bag of gold, which was tossed through an open window while the family was sleeping. Legend has it that the gold fell into their shoes, the reason for the tradition in Europe that St. Nicholas leaves gifts in children's shoes. Nicholas provided for these poor girls to help them break out of the cycle of poverty.

Rather than teaching your kids the common myth about Santa Claus, and rather than trying to make Christmas Santa-free, take back the true story of Saint Nicholas and take hold of this opportunity to talk about a Christian man who loved Jesus and who exemplified the true Spirit of Christ and Christmas through compassion and generosity.

Baptism

I love baptisms. And I love having the privileged of baptizing new believers, as they make a public statement that they have died to the person they used to be, and they have been born again to new life in Christ.

By God's grace, we have baptized people every year that we have been here in Eger. This year we baptized 6 new believers.

We have a good relationship with the Baptist church in Egerszólát, and they let us use their building, which has a baptismal.
We rented a bus and brought the Heves church up, so they could be with us for this event and because some of the people who were baptized were from Heves. God is doing a good work down there, and it is exciting to be a part of it.

Here are some pictures from the baptism which was on November 20.

Ukrainian Playground

When we were in Ukraine recently we took the kids to a playground in Ternopil.

I had read before about the elaborate, and sometimes strange, playgrounds in the former Soviet Union - such as the one in this picture below, so I was interested in checking one out.



We were not disappointed. The playground we went to was both elaborate and strange. A perfect mixture of both elements which I had hoped to find.



The kids really liked it, and they had some pretty cool stuff - like a police officer that you could climb up into


There was also this cool castle that they could climb on


And this giant slide



But there were some strange things as well - like the "slide of death", a 3 story tall straight drop designed to give near-death experiences to toddlers

I heard stories of dads taking their kids up to the top and trying to make them go down, while the kids shouted "No!" and cried. Sounds like a nice family day at the park :-)

There was also a new prefab part of the playground



Ukrainian playgound, you did not disappoint us!

From the Mouths of Babes

Lately Felicia has been having days where she wants only dad or only mom. Sometimes she has to have ONLY mom change her diaper and get her dressed, or ONLY dad put on her shoes or her jacket.

Tonight when I kissed her goodnight, I told her: "I love you Felicia" - to which she replied: "I love mom!"

On my way out the door tonight I told Nate: "Be obedient to your mom tonight" - to which he replied: "Ok dad. And you be obedient to Kati!" (the translator in the church).

Thanks Nate...

Brief Ministry Update

The last few months have been very encouraging and exciting.

In August we started a Bible study in the town of Heves, about 45 min south of Eger by car. This is something we had prayed about doing for years, but didn't feel that the time was right before. We started it in part as a way to reach out to people from our church who live in and around Heves, but shortly after we started it, the people we had originally started it for were not able to come for various reasons - however the Lord led a whole different group of people to the fellowship there.
We have started calling the Heves ministry a church plant of our Eger church, and there are an average of 25 people coming to the meetings, which are held in a house. Most of the people attending are Roma (Gypsies), and so we moved the Bible study from the culture center in downtown Heves out to this house in the Roma part of town. As a result, we have had a lot of people who aren't believers attending our services out of interest, and some of them have gotten saved.

We will have a baptism this coming Sunday (Nov 20) in which 3 new believers from the Heves church and 2 believers from our Eger church will get baptized. We are expecting a full house with our church and the Heves church together, and praying for a blessed time.

We have had a wave of new people in our church in Eger, which is encouraging for us. There are some people whom the Lord is raising up to take part in ministry as well, so we are praising Him for that as well.

Rosemary has been doing a women's book club for the women's ministry, which has been well attended and fruitful. She has also started a group for moms with small children as an outreach to non-believers, as well as a ministry to some moms in the church.

We have been doing a bit of traveling as well. We spent 2 weeks in October in Colorado visiting family, friends and ministry partners, and then the first week of November in Ukraine, where I (Nick) taught church history at the School of Missions at CC Ternopil.
The travel was a bit hard on our kids, mostly in that Nate is now having to get back in the routine of going to preschool and speaking Hungarian there. He was doing quite well in it before we left for the States, but after being out of that environment for about a month, he needs some time to get back to where he was.

Thank you for praying for us!

Spelling Matters

One of the hardest things about English for those who learn it as a second language is that there are a lot of words that we don't spell phonetically.
Spell check filters out a lot of mistakes - but it doesn't when the word you spell is an actual word which means something else.

For example: at this restaurant in Ukraine, you can get a delicious "stake".

I hope that is just a misspelling of steak and not a comment on the quality of their meat.

If you aren't in the mood to eat a stake, you could always order some pancakes, AKA: "craps".

Again, I hope this is simply a misspelling of crêpes, and not a warning about what their pancakes taste like.

A Few Thoughts After a Week in Ukraine

1. I like Ukraine. Maybe it is the great people I know there. There is something about the country that I like a lot. Maybe I just like a bit of imperfection and incongruity. Maybe I just like a bit of grunge. I can't put my finger on it - but there is something I like about Ukraine.
2. L'viv is a beautiful city. I would recommend everyone to go there. And it is closer to Eger by car than Krakow. Only 5 hrs away by car, and the roads are good. Not all roads in Ukraine are good - but that one is.
3. Hungarian roads are GREAT. Whoever those people are who criticize Hungarian roads as bad, they have no idea what they are talking about, and they need to get out more.

Border Lines

It seems that this Ukrainian tea company doesn't believe in the existence of Hungary or Slovakia.

Probably it is a conspiracy from Romanian nationalists... :-)

Putting It to the Test

I have had my Samsung Galaxy tablet for a few months now, and have really been able to put it to the test.

Using a tablet for school
Aside from everyday productivity, one of the main things I use my tablet for is my theology studies. It is really great for this, because I can carry all my course material on it, all my books and keep all my notes on it with Evernote. It is much nicer to read off of than a laptop - much more like a real book in shape and size.
The only problem I have run into so far is that my course material gives me page numbers from my text books, and the Kindle app only gives "location". You can navigate by page number if you use Kindle on a laptop, but not on a mobile device. So I'm not totally lost, but sometimes I have to open up my laptop - like people used to do in the old days :) - to find out what location relates to a given page number. I hope that Kindle will add page number navigation to their tablet and mobile apps soon. I think more people would be interested in using Kindle books for reference and school if they did.

Traveling with a tablet
The trip we took to Colorado a few weeks ago was the first time I have traveled without a laptop in about 10 years, and I must say that it was a great feeling. The battery life on the tablet is great. I was able to use the internet, study, read books to my kids, watch movies on the airplane, all from a single charged battery, which was still going strong for a whole day after we arrived. The key to saving the battery on the tablet is to turn off the wifi when you are not using it.

Preaching and teaching from a tablet
This is probably the thing I use my tablet for most. I have been teaching Bible studies 2-3 times per week for years now. It is great to have all my teachings stored on my tablet, so I can access them any time I'd like, and I never have to print my notes any more.
A few weeks ago we visited another church. We walked in late: the service had already begun, and the pastor walked up to me and told me that he had scheduled me to preach! I didn't know that when we arrived, but I was ready to go nonetheless, and I asked the Lord what message he wanted me to share with the church.
Having a tablet adds a new dimension to 2.Timothy 4:2 -"Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season".

This week I am going to Ternopil, Ukraine to teach a course on church history for their school of missions. This means I will teach for about 20 hrs over 4 days - and I will do it all from notes on my tablet.

One of the only weakness I see so far is that Google Movies hasn't been released for all Android tablets yet. The release is rolling out, and there are other apps like Netflix and Redbox that you can watch movies on, but if they want to compete with Apple, Google really needs to fix that soon.

Was there life before tablets?
I look forward to the future, when all the bugs will be worked out. These things are great tools.

Go to Sleep, Sister!

When we got back from our visit to the States last week we moved Felicia's crib into Nate's room, which seemed like a great idea at the time, and both kids were excited about it.

But since then, partly because of jet-lag - which Nate got over faster than Felicia because he went back to óvoda - Felicia has been waking up in the middle of the night and yelling "NATE!" to wake him up.

Sometimes she is successful at waking him up, and sometimes he talks to her and they laugh and make silly noises at each other, but other times he is just annoyed with her because he is tired and wants to sleep.

Tonight we overheard him telling her: "Go to sleep, sister! Be quiet! It's night time! It's dark outside, we have to go to sleep!" - in other words, all the things we used to say to him when he didn't want to sleep :-)

So in the end we made Felicia sleep in another room.
It's hard to be too frustrated with them when they are so cute :-)

**Update** - Tonight when we went to put the kids down, Nate told us: "Don't let her sleep in here. She is going to talk!"

Colorado Trip

We will be coming to Colorado for 2 weeks from October 6-20.
In addition to visiting family, friends and supporters, we will be visiting Whitefields Community Church in Longmont, who we have been partnering with for a while and who sent a team to Eger this summer. Nick will be teaching at the church and Rosemary will teach at their women's conference.

If you are in Colorado, we would love to meet with you. Please write us so we can plan ahead, as our time there will be very short.

Ministry in the Eger College

The Lord has opened a great door for us into the college here in Eger to share the Gospel and meet students.
For the third year in a row we are working together with FÉK, which is the Hungarian branch of Campus Cru (who until recently were known as Campus Crusade for Christ).

We do their túlélőcsomag (survival pack) outreach here in Eger, which means that we go into the college dorms and go door to door handing out these binders which contain note paper, articles and a questionnaire for them to fill out which has questions relating to ethical and spiritual issues. Based on the responses on the questionnaires we then follow up with those who said that they would be interested in knowing more about a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

In addition to personally contacting those who are interested, we organize follow up events which we promote to all the students.
The first of these follow up meetings will be on Monday, Oct 3, and will be a presentation in the main dormitory. I will be the one doing the presentation and the title will be "Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-roll".
The next follow up even will be on Wednesday, Oct 12 in the Hallgatói Klub, and will be a concert and lecture by a guy from FÉK in Budapest.

Please pray for the college students here in Eger that we would be able to reach them with the Gospel and follow up with them effectively, for their good and for God's glory.

World Heart Day Outreach

Today we had our 3rd annual outreach for World Heart Day - in which we organized free medical check ups in 2 locations downtown and were able to serve hundreds of people and share the Gospel with even more.

The idea for this outreach came from a lady in our church - Ági - who since birth has had serious medical issues relating to her heart. The basic premise is that we organize a free service in the city, complete with doctors who volunteer their time, and we measure body-mass index, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. The "patients" then have the opportunity to get medical advice from a doctor, who, in addition to the medical advice, share the Gospel with them and offer to pray for them.
We also hand out fliers which on one side give information about how to keep your heart healthy, and on the other side speak about the importance and need of receiving Jesus into your "heart" as your Lord and Savior.

For the past few years we have gotten a lot of publicity for this as well - we have worked together with the local government and the city hospital, and the event has been reported on in the local news.

This year in addition to people from our church who came out and spent their Saturday serving the Lord in this way, we had helpers from Budapest, Debrecen and Szeged who joined us and were a great help.

It was such a blessing to be out on the streets doing something to benefit the people of our city and getting to share with them the love and hope that is found in the Lord Jesus.

Photos by Kiss Ági:

Eger Airport

One of the best things about living in Eger is that there are a lot of festivals. Every weekend in the summer there is something going on. One of the main sources of income for the city is tourism and they do a really good job organizing these events.

This past weekend there was a festival at the Eger airport. There were vintage cars on display and demonstrations with small aircraft.

Here are some pictures:

Reflecting

Our friend Ocean took this picture of Felicia when he visited us last week:

Archeological Proof of the Kingdom of David

One thing I love about the Bible is that as time goes on, and as more and more archeological work is done, archeological discoveries confirm the historicity of the Bible.

One of the most famous such discoveries was the discovery of the ruins of a great Hittite civilization in Turkey. The Bible mentioned the Hittites as a great and powerful nation, but because no reference to them was found outside of the Bible and no remains of a great Hittite civilization had be found, the Hittites were used as an example of how the Bible was not historically accurate....UNTIL the Hittite capital and records were unearthed in Bogazkoy, Turkey in the early 20th century, and it was found that the Biblical descriptions of them really were accurate.

Another claim that has been brought against the historicity of the Bible is that there is very little historical record of the Kingdom of David mentioned in the Bible. There are records of Solomon, but very few of David, and for this reason, some have questioned whether David actually lived, or whether he was a purely legendary figure.

CNN put out this video recently about some archeological discoveries which could be proof of David and his kingdom.



I have great confidence in the Bible, and I'm sure that with time more and more archeological discoveries will be made that prove the Bible to be historically accurate.

More Thoughts on Tablet Computers...

CNN put out this video report today about the legal battle going on between Apple and Samsung:



I have one of these disputed Samsung tablets, and I love it. It is really similar to the iPad - perhaps the only significant difference is the operating system, which in the end was the very reason I chose the Galaxy Tab over the iPad - because I prefer the Android Honeycomb OS to the iOS.

I haven't seen many people in Europe with tablets yet, but I suspect that Android tablets will dominate the iPad in Europe because Apple products are much more expensive here than in the US because of all the import taxes. And if people here can choose between two products that are essentially the same, but the one costs less and uses a more widespread operating system, I'm sure people would choose that.

We'll see what happens :)

My Wife is Cool

I am impressed with my wife.

On Saturday Rosemary organized a birthday party for Nate with some of his friends from church. Lídia, Julcsi, Alex, Korni and András - and of course Dani bácsi were in attendance, all at Nate's request.

Our little boy is pretty decisive about what he wants. Rosemary took him into a few stores to plan his birthday party, and he knew exactly what he wanted - a Lightning McQueen cake with chocolate on the inside from the cukrászda in the plaza, and balloons with helium and confetti poppers.


But what I think was most impressive was that Rosemary built Radiator Springs in our back yard for the kids to drive their cars on during the party.








She had a lot of other good ideas for the Cars theme and for games the kids could play - and they all got Piston Cups at the end.




A good time was had by all. My wife is cool.