Orrszívó Porszívó - Nose Vac

Sorry for not writing since the birth of the baby! He's beautiful and wonderful - praise the Lord!
In case you don't know yet, he was born on September 1st and his name is Nathaniel Nicholas Cady.
Well, Nate got his first cold (from his dad it seems), and today we took him to the doctor because of it. And her recommendation - buy an attachment for our vacuum cleaner that sucks out his brains, I mean mucous!
Anyways, I knew that Hungarians use this product, and I must admit that I was a bit skeptical to use it - not to mention that it didn't help when the doctor told us, "Don't be surprised if he bleeds a little from it!"
But we gave it a shot, and his brain didn't get sucked out or anything! Its still fully intact.
Anyways, I have to admit that I am totally impressed with this thing! I was totally convinced that this is some sort of torture device, but now I'm fully converted - I'm a fan. I vacuum out his nose every chance that I get, and I'm pretty sure he actually likes it, because he gets super calm and just lets me do it.
I can't wait until I have a cold, so I can use it on myself!

Oh, and I found this awesomely bad video - an official advertisement for this product. This is one of the worst commercials I've ever seen! Among the things that make this video so bad its good, my favorite parts are: 1) the horrible background music, 2) the part where the kid takes it and uses it on himself, 3) the close up of the snot fluttering as it is sucked out of the kid's nose.

Enjoy!

Birth Announcement

What I am looking forward to

Junior is due tomorrow!
I honestly thought he would come early, but it seems like Junior is going to keep us all waiting. Being at the end of the pregnancy, I can look back and say that it has gone very well for me and I have enjoyed being pregnant and have this amazing thing happen in my belly. This is really a blessing from God because no woman can know what to expect, and we have enjoyed the phenomenon of Junior growing inside and not having any problems for either of us. My life usually has difficulties and I have learned through it not to worry and know that God is One to be trusted, and this has carried into the pregnancy.

At the end of being pregnant with Junior, it has gotten more difficult these last 2 weeks. Being at the end of a waiting period, its natural to get impatient and want it to be over, and this is where Nick and I are at! Also, it's gotten uncomfortable, and I am thinking about things I miss and what I want to do once Junior is out!

This is what I have been thinking about:
1. I love sleeping on my back, and it has been painful to sleep on my side. I wake up in the middle of the night on my back, and the weight of the baby pushes down all my guts and major blood vessels, making me feel like throwing up and my feet are asleep from lack of blood.
2. I would like to get dressed without needing to lean against the wall because I cannot bend over to pull anything up or put my shoes on.
3. I remember being able to bend over at the waist and pick something up. Being pregnant, I have to carefully squat and not fall over because I don't know my center of gravity.
4. I miss being able to cuddle with Nick. The belly gets in the way-obviously. He sits on a separate chair now because we cannot cuddle on the couch and I cannot just turn any which way to get comfortable.
5. Something I never thought would be hard is to get into bed. Nick laughed really hard when he saw my procedure of having to back up into place, sit down in just the right spot so my head will land on the pillow when I lay down and far enough back on the bed so I won't fall off. Then, I fall on my side to make it to the pillow. Its so hard to roll over in bed-I have pulled muscles in the belly doing it.
6. Did you know that with all the hormones is one that relaxes the ligaments for pregnant moms? With this, I have experienced quite a few serious choking episodes as my epiglottis is too relaxed. I choke a lot anyway-but its been scary while pregnant to choke so seriously that I barf.
7. I miss being able to lay down without acid rushing into my throat.
8. Taking a shower is another experience with a big belly that I have had to learn. The first one is climbing into and out of the tub without losing my balance-and remember, bending is not easy. This means also that washing my legs and feet are a challenge.
9. My toenails have grown so long being pregnant because I feel like barfing every time I bend over and try to cut them. I have tried squatting and cutting nails, but that is very hard too, and the deed just gets neglected. The other problem is that they grow so fast with all the hormones, and I wear flip-flops since I won't bend over to put shoes on.
10. In the past 2 weeks, I have started itching a lot on my ankles and wrists and hands. Part of the reason is my teno-synovitis which causes swelling anyway, and the other reason is hormones, oh and also, yes, because I am pregnant with so much fluid everywhere anyway. I look forward to not having weird pregnant things happen to my body anymore, even though it is interesting how God made the woman's body to do all this.
11. I look forward to walking up the hill to my house without dying because now I am carrying a big belly and the baby pushes my lungs up, decreasing my breathing capacity.

There are many more things that can be added to the list, but I won't state the obvious nor make my first blog too long.
The thing we look forward to most is having Junior and holding him.

Hot, hot, hot!

Its been crazy hot here for the last two weeks. This article should give you an idea of just how hot its been:

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:25 AM

BUDAPEST (AFP) - The heatwave in central and southern Europe killed an estimated 500 people in Hungary last week, the country's chief medical officer announced yesterday.

Ferenc Falus said that during the week from July 15 to July 22 the heat in central Hungary "contributed to the early death of 230 people, which nationally means about 500 deaths".

The announcement of hundreds of deaths comas as heavy rain and extreme temperatures continue to batter Europe.

Britain was experiencing its worst flooding in living memory, while across the continent in the Balkans people were warned to stay indoors to avoid searing temperatures with deaths reported in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, and Romania.

Temperatures in the region were recorded at 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and above, with Greece expecting a high of 45 Celsius on Tuesday and Italy just behind at 44 Celsius, hours after Rome recorded one of its warmest nights ever on Monday at 27.1 degrees.

Bulgaria has also experienced its hottest temperatures since records began with the mercury shooting above 45 degrees Celsius in parts of the country, and more than 860 people reportedly fainting in the streets in Romania.

Magyar vagyok, nem turista!

After many months of bureaucracy, my perseverance has paid off, and I now have my settlement papers in Hungary (like the equivalent of having a Green Card in the US)! Until now I was here on a Missionary Visa, which prevented me from being able to do many things, including getting a job or signing certain contracts.
Today I got my Hungarian Identification card in the mail, so now I don't have to show people my Colorado driver's license anymore - which is always met with confusion and 5 minutes of discussing with the colleagues about whether or not that is acceptable as a form of ID.

Although things are coming together, although I still have to get 2 more important documents before I am finally finished with all the paperwork, and I am having a lot of difficulty getting these papers. For example, you can't get the TB card (National Insurance), unless you have a job; BUT you can't get a job unless you have a TB card! Lovely!
Then the office that is supposed to give the TB card told me that I need to go to the Unemployment office to get my TB card, but at the Unemployment office they told me that they can't help me with anything until I get a TB card.
Anyways, please pray that God will put it on someone's heart at one of these offices to actually help me out!

New Belly Picture

Here is the long-awaited belly picture - taken June 26th.
We have only 8 weeks to go now! That is,unless Junior gets silly and decides to come out early-which we are hoping he doesn't!

Another amusing sign

This is a street sign in Eger. We always have a good laugh when we drive by this street.

Puky = Fart. Miklós = Nicholas.

Today we were laughing and taking pictures of it, and 2 old people stopped to look at us, totally not able to comprehend why we were laughing - as if living on Puky Miklós street is the most normal thing in the world!

Picture of the baby!

Here's a picture of Rosemary's belly that we took today. I think if you look really closely you can even see an image of Junior!

Kis Kuki

Junior let us look between his legs last week, and we saw a kis kuki - for those of you who know what that means!
Anyways - in case you don't know what that means - it means that Junior is a boy...well, probably! The doctor did look 4 times, so its pretty sure.
Now we're trying to figure out names, which isn't really all that easy. I wanted to name the kid Zorán (I'm totally serious about that), but I'm having trouble talking Rosemary into it. Maybe she'll have a change of heart. I hope so.
The only problem with naming him Zorán, would be that there is a bad Hungarian musician by that name:
But, I guess you could argue that if his music is bad enough, then that would make it awesomely bad, thereby giving a basis to my argument for why we should name him Zorán!

Confession

For years I refused to watch the movie Zoolander, because I thought it was about animals.

Not just one of the Jackson 5

We love former Yugoslavia!


We just took a short trip down through Croatia and Bosnia to Montenegro and back.
Its more than just bombed-out buildings, like many might think!

Palm trees, ancient walled cities, Turkish mosques and bridges, and lots of greasy chevapi, burek, and baklava does the body good.

Oh, and our favorite Communist dictator of the 20th century would have to be Josip Broz Tito (Gorbachev is a close second, but he disqualified himself from the #1 position because of that whole arms race thing; Nagy Imre {nem az egri polgármester} is biztos jó lett volna, csak nem volt esélye...).
You could argue over how good of a guy Tito was, but as far as dictators go, I don't think you could find a better one. Who else could keep such a diverse and mixed up group of people in total peace (and prosperity, compared to the rest of the Communist world) for 35 yrs?
It was only after Tito's death that things got all crazy down there - which I guess shows Tito's greatest failure as a leader: that he failed to raise up people who would successfully continue what he had started.
In fact, Tito did more than just keep the peace in Yugoslavia, he actually unified the people. To this day, in all the countries of former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia), you find streets and squares and memorials commemorating Marshall Tito.
The real shame is that in the West, the name "Tito" will only be remembered by most people as the name of Michael Jackson's unsuccessful older brother.

Thanks for the warning!

Old School

No, I'm serious--I have actually found THE Old School!

Enjoying ourselves in England

I'll make this quick.
For those of you who think that (Western) Europe is more advanced socially than America, this photo should convince you otherwise. It would seem that things in England are so bad that they are not only selling blacks, but renting them as well!


And the winner for worst children's toy ever is...


Well, at least I've made some new friends.

Come on England!

Hi there,
Rosemary and I are in England at the moment, more specifically in Oxford.
Two main things on my mind right now:
1) England is a cool place! I have never been one to be interested in Western-Europe at all; I've always been (and continue to be) much more interested in going East. My reasoning behind this is that I don't like pushing through crowds of tourists or paying a lot of money for anything. The farther East you go, the less you have to worry about those things! That's why while Rosemary is always saying, "I want to go to England or France," I'm always saying, "Let's go to Bulgaria or Azerbaijan! Albania, here we come! Watch out Moldova!"
But after being here in England for even only a day, I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about. Its cool here, and I love Ginger Beer!
2) I love watching the World Cup. I never watch football (that's right, I called it football on purpose) much outside of the World Cup or the olympics, but I must admit that I have caught a full case of World Cup fever. I watch as many games as I can, and even get a newspaper and follow all the groups.
Just a side note--I am proud to say that Ukraine will almost definitely proceed to the second round. I'm sure that almost none of you care, but I think its really great.
Ok, here are some pictures from our day in Oxford. Enjoy.

Eger by night!

Geof and I, by the cover of almost-darkness, went out tonight after church, around dusk, onto the lower ledge of the castle wall, and I took these pictures with the help of my trusty tripod.
I hope you like them!

Church Outreaches

This past week our church organized 2 evangelistic outreaches to the city of Eger.
Our friend Geof Stimack from Denver, CO has been here and did 2 presentations in 2 different locations on the topic of the claims of the Da Vinci Code.

Its not so much that we think the Da Vinci Code is a real threat to the Christian faith, but we more wanted to use this opportunity to share with people that the Bible is in fact reliable and trustworthy, and on the basis of that truth, challenge them to respond to the message of the Bible.

The presentations were well attended (about 70 the first night and another 35 the second night).


One of the greatest things was to see how the people from church really came together and helped out. It was great to see people sharing their faith with friends and family members and even complete strangers afterwards.

We had "feedback" papers that we asked people to fill out afterwards, on which they could check off if they'd like to be contacted in regard to Bible Study, personal conversations about spiritual things, or even our English Club. We got a lot of good responses, and many people showed interest in knowing more.

Please pray that God would water the seeds which were sewn through these presentations and that people would respond to the message as we follow up with them!

The Number of the Beast

Those of you who know Rosemary probably know that she loves to run. I personally would rather get poked in the eye than run, but Rosemary enjoys it and I'm glad she does.
Well, this Saturday there was a race in Eger and Rosemary participated, doing a great job I might add. But in a very ironic turn of events, considering she is a missionary and a pastor's wife, Rosemary sported the following number.

No longer East of Eden

I need to get back to work, but I just wanted to post some pictures taken yesterday on a mountain bike ride I took with Geof.
Completely inspired by a blog I found on-line about a British guy who has biked from London to Tehran (check it out: Simon's Travels), plus excited that now Geof also has a bike, so now I have a partner, I decided that it was time to put my mountain bike to some real use!

Yesterday we headed out into the sea of vineyards surrounding Eger.

These are some pictures of the gorgeous views we had of the countryside, none of which, by the way, do justice to what we saw.

I was in Debrecen this past weekend; there was a graduation concert for a friend, then a wedding in Nyiregyháza of two people from our church, and then I taught in the Debrecen church Sunday morning. But now that I'm back in Eger and really enjoying what this area has to offer, I just think of how much I was missing all those years in Debrecen, on the Puszta, East of Eden.

To think, I thought Hungary was not a beautiful place! All I had to do was leave the Puszta!

Füzesabony: Could it get any worse?

After my last post, in which I mentioned that the nearby town of Füzesabony is almost surely on the Top 10 list of worst places in the world, I recieved some questions about what could possibly make this place so horrible. Obviously this was a question asked by readers who have never passed through the town!
For those who have passed through Füzesabony, I do not need to try very hard to convince you of the horribleness of the place, as you have felt it and seen it for yourself.
For those of you who for whom the name Füzesabony (or Fuzzy Bunny as my non-Hungarian speaking friends like to call it), means nothing, let me explain why I feel the way I do.

For about one year Rosemary and I traveled from Debrecen to Eger almost every week to disciple new Christians, pray for the city and what God's plan was for us, and I taught a home Bible study.
Well, because of a disagreement 150 yrs ago between the Catholic bishop of Eger and some government officials, Eger was punished by being left off of the main train route which runs through North-Eastern Hungary. Instead, the train would pass through (you guessed it) Füzesabony, some 20km south of Eger.
Practically, this means that whenever you travel to Eger from Budapest or Debrecen you must pass through Füzesabony. Worse, you have to change trains here to transfer to Eger and the wait could range from a mere 5 min. to up to even 1.5 hrs!
So, as Rosemary and I were travelling back and forth between Debrecen and Eger on a weekly basis, we spent a significant amount of time in Füzesabony (I cringe just writing it).

What does one do in Füzesabony for one hour, two times a week?, you might ask. Well, let me take you on a little tour.
As you step out of the train station, you are greeted by the lovely Main Square (See photo on right). Gracing the center of the sqare is a wooden memorial to something, which for as long as I can remember has been half-broken and surrounded by tall weeds.
Across the street on the other side of the square is the lovely "Vegyes bolt" (roughly translated as General Store), where you can buy a plethora of RANDOM stuff. Last time I looked in the window, the display included a plastic tray for drying dishes, a paint brush, a shoe, and some nails. You get the idea.
Walking down the street, you have your choice of 3 seedy bars, always filled with lots of smoke and kids from the local primary school. For those travelers who would like to sip a coffee as they wait for their connection, this is their only option.
As you continue on your journey down the main drag, you soon reach the pride of Füzesabony--the city water tower! Believe me, it does not look better in person.

The answer to the above question What does one do in Füzesabony for one hour, two times a week? : One does nothing in Füzesabony, for there is nothing to do.
That's not always a bad thing though. I spent a lot of my time there reading my Bible and praying. God knows what our tendencies are, and he knows that sometimes in order for us to sit down and spend time with him he has to put us in places like Füzesabony for one or two hours per week!

I hope now that you can better understand why I am thankful that God called us to Eger. We would be fine living wherever he would call us to, but we sure do enjoy it here!
Keep on praying for Eger, and while you're at it, pray for the people of Füzesabony as well. They need it.
Farewell for now.