Répášska Huta

Eger sits right in between two of Hungary's few mountain ranges - the Bükk and the Mátra.
If you are heading north through the town, if you turn left off the main road you will be in the Mátra, and if you turn right you will be in the Bükk.
Even though neither of them are very high, they are both very nice, especially after having suffered through years of living in the "alföld" (the plains) in Debrecen - which for a mountain boy was like a slow painful death on the inside.

This past weekend we went for a drive with Shane and Marianna, through the Bükk to enjoy the fall and the changing of the leaves.
On the way, we visited one of my favorite villages - Répáshuta, also known by its Slovak name: Répášska Huta, as this is one of only a few villages in Hungary with a significant ethnic Slovak population.

In Hungarian, the word "kisebbség" (minority) is usually used as an offhand way of referring to Gypsies, since they are the largest minority group in Hungary. There are however other national minority groups in Hungary, but their populations are quite small.

At one time, it would not have been anything special to find villages in Hungary with ethnic minorities in them. Hungary used to be a bigger place, with many different nationalities.
If you talk to any Hungarian for more than 10 minutes, there is a pretty good chance that you are going to hear about the Treaty of Trianon - a peace treaty made at the end of World War I, in which the Great Powers divided up the teritory of the Kingdom of Hungary (on the losing side of the war). As a result, Hungary lost about two-thirds of its territory, and new borders were drawn according to ethnic lines.
Here's a map of the "distribution of races" in Austria-Hungary in 1911:You can see from the map, that the nations which were formed after WWI, were formed for the most part along ethnic lines - with a few exceptions.
One of these exceptions was the Germans living in what became Czechoslovakia, and the other is the Hungarians who ended up outside of the borders of Hungary, in almost all of the newly formed countries - leaving Hungarians as the largest national minority population in Europe, but leaving almost no ethnic minorities in the new Hungarian state, as you can see in this post-WWI map:
Even now, almost a hundred years after Trinanon, you can go across the borders of Hungary and find significant Hungarian populations in all the surrounding countries. Which, from our point of view is kind of nice, that we can travel for quite a ways outside of Hungary and still get by many times using Hungarian.
These exceptions - the Germans in the Sudetenland and the Hungarians outside of Hungary led to problems in WWII.

And getting back to Slovaks - Hungary and Czechoslovakia were on opposite sides during WWII - Hungary was Axis and Czechoslovakia was Allied. As a result, Czechoslovakia issued the Beneš decrees, which declared the Hungarians (and Germans) living in their country to be traitors and enemies of the state, which led to much of their land being confiscated. This led to a "population exchange", in which about 70,000 Slovaks from Hungary were "relocated" to Slovakia and 70,000 Hungarians from Slovakia were transplanted in Hungary. Thus, a country which was already very homogeneous, became even more so, as most of the Slovak population left.

Today, the estimated population of Slovaks in Hungary is around 50,000.
That's why Répášska Huta is such an interesting place in Hungary - a village where half the population is Slovak and 38% speak the Slovak language as their mother tongue.
Besides all this stuff, its also just a cute little village tucked away in the mountains, and a great place to visit.

"Blue Like Jazz" in Hungarian

Donald Miller's bestselling book "Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality" was released recently in Hungarian, so I borrowed a copy of the book in English to reread it, to figure out whether or not I want to recommend it to our church.

I read this book when it first came out, and now after reading it again, I remember why I liked it so much the first time. The author is so honest, and it is so enjoyable to read, that I always find myself staying up late or stealing a few minutes throughout the day to read it. When I finish a chapter, I look ahead to see how many pages the next chapter is, and think about if I have enough time to read it - and even if I don't have time, I usually end up reading on anyways.

In case you're not familiar with the book, its the author's story of his own frustrations with American Christianity and the sincere questions he had about God and faith - and how God answered those questions, and led him to a real, living faith in Jesus.
He tells about how he came to realize that being a Christian isn't about accepting and following a set of political beliefs and cultural practices, but about truly encountering and knowing the person of Jesus Christ.
He explains how he was turned off by those who misrepresented God, but came to see that their actions don't discount the reality or greatness of God Himself.
He points out that one of the mistakes Christians often make is using love as a commodity that we lavish on those who agree with us and withhold from those who don't, when Jesus simply told us to love our neighbor.

I found his section on loneliness very insightful, his part about social action challenging, and most of all what he says about actually knowing and experiencing God to be refreshing.
I personally know people who have walked away from the church - some even from the Lord - because they have been disappointed by people who misrepresented God, and I think this book has a great message that these people need to hear.

So, I'm probably going to recommend the book to our church. My only hesitation is that, while I know some people will get what he's saying and be totally blessed by it, others might have a hard time getting it, and be confused.

Have you read Blue Like Jazz?
What do you think?

Alternative Holidays

Today we tried to call some of our friends in the States, and were frustrated to find that no one was answering their phones. Then we realized - oh yea, today is a holiday!
Today is Columbus Day in the United States. But, after reading up a little bit on Columbus Day, I came to find that the States are not so united in the celebration of this holiday.
For example, Nevada does not even celebrate the holiday. Other states celebrate different holidays in place of Columbus Day - such as "Native American Day" in South Dakota, "Indigenous Peoples' Day" in the People's Republic of Berkeley, California, and "Discoverers' Day" in Hawaii - rather than celebrate a man who mistreated Native Americans, and whose arrival led to the demise of their culture and society.
Denver (whoot, whoot!) has the longest-running Columbus Day parade in the United States, and it has been protested for the last 20 years by Native American groups, who aren't a big fan of Christopher Columbus.
Also non-fans of Columbus are the Venezuelans, who celebrate "Día de la Resistencia Indígena" (Day of Indigenous Resistance) on this day, to celebrate the resistance to European settlement in the Americas. On the 2004 Day of Indigenous Resistance, activists toppled a statue of Columbus in Caracas. One Venezuelan writer wrote: "Just like the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, that of Columbus the tyrant also fell this October 12, 2004 in Caracas."
Interestingly, in the US Virgin Islands the day is celebrated as "Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands Friendship Day," while in Puerto Rico they choose to celebrate Columbus Day. LOL! That seems like a one-sided friendship - like when Person A says they're good friends with Person B, but Person B says they don't even know who Person A is! Good luck US Virgin Islands - don't give up! Maybe in time, you will win Puerto Rico's affection.

In other holiday news - today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada.
In case you think that the Canadians stole the whole Thanksgiving holiday from the United States - think again.
Although the first recorded Thanksgiving celebration in North America was held in Florida by Spanish explorers in 1565, the first Thanksgiving celebration in Canada took place in 1578, in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador province, and was organized by explorer Martin Frobisher to give thanks to God for having survived his journey. The first of the famous Thanksgiving celebrations by the English settlers in Virginia was in 1619, some 38 years later!

So, Happy Thanksgiving to our dear Canadian friends, happy Columbus Day or whatever it is called where you live to those of you in the USA, and to those of you who live in Nevada or most other places in the world - have a nice Monday!

10 Things About Rosemary You Probably Didn't Know

1. Although she grew up in San Diego, she was born in "The OC"
2. For 2 months out of the year, she is the same age as her brother Tony - he's only 10 months older
3. Rosemary has traveled across all of North America by car - including Canada and Mexico.
4. She has been to every US state, except for Hawaii
5. She has run 5 half-marathons
   
6. Her father was a refugee
7. Both her parents were immigrants to the United States
   
8. She LOVES Spider Solitaire
   
9. She has worked as a merchant bank teller, handling very large amounts of cold, hard cash
   
10. As of the end of September, Rosemary has been living in Hungary for 10 years!
    

Whomever

Rosemary and I have been watching The Office lately.
At first Rosemary couldn't stand it because Michael is such an idiot, but now she's hooked, and always asks me when the next episode is coming out.
Oh, and we're also very happy for Pam and Jim - even though they're only fictional characters...
Here's one of our favorite clips:

Sarajevo in Black and White

Back a few years ago, Rosemary and I and two of our friends, Naveen and Sunil, took a trip to Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia.
At the time I was still using a 35mm Pentax SLR camera - from 1983.
Its a great camera - no auto-focus or other automatic settings on it at all, just a simple light meter. I stopped using it a while back, because it jams up a lot, and using film just isn't practical - its a lot more work and a lot more expensive.
Recently I started getting some of our most memorable 35mm pictures digitized, and the first batch we did was the set from our ex-Yugo trip.
Here are some of the pictures from Sarajevo, which despite its sad recent history, is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities we've ever been to.
RIP old Pentax!

Bulgaria: On the Road

On our trip to Bulgaria, we flew into Burgas, on the southern Black Sea coast, stayed at the beach for a few days, and then rented a car and drove up through Varna to Veliko Tarnovo, the medieval capital of the Bulgarian Kingdom - a very cool place with lots of history, a big castle, and a bunch of monasteries nearby.
We spent a few days in Veliko Tarnovo, before heading back to Bugas to fly back to Hungary. On our way back we took a different route, going over the Balkan mountains which run through the center of Bulgaria.
I have to say that the roads in Bulgaria were much better than I had expected. A few weeks before we went, I was in Romania, and was on some of the worst roads in my life. Bulgaria's roads were light-years ahead of even the "good roads" in Romania.
Nevertheless, the road trip took a lot longer than we were expecting - almost 2 hrs longer each way.
But the thing that kept us going was that there were plenty of interesting things to see along the way. Here are some highlights:

Nathaniel did a great job in the car!

 

He slept most of the way, and the rest of the time he kept himself busy with some light reading.

 

Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which means that most signs were in only Cyrillic

 

Even the McDonald's sign!

 

This can obviously cause some confusion, especially for Japanese tour groups:

 

We saw lots of interesting stuff along the way, including beautiful old stone bridges

 

Some MiG fighter jets

 

And an old lady beating some goats

 

We saw this Trabant, which had a Texas Tech sticker on it, which goes to prove that the Trabant is not only the car of the common worker, but of the Texas Tech University grad too!

 

Nessebar police drive the same car that we do - Peugeot 306 Break!

 

Quite frankly, I'm not surprised, as this is the greatest car ever made (sarcasm). I like to tell people that in the word Peugeot, the letter P stands for power, the letter S stands for speed, and the letter R stands for reliability...if you get what I'm saying.

Speaking of police, along the main roads there were these cardboard cutouts of police cars - obviously to make people slow down. They worked actually, except usually you could tell the difference, because the cardboard ones were covered in graffiti.

 

But my absolute favorite thing on the road in Bulgaria were these signs everywhere, saying "You are now entering the danger zone!"

 

Wait...so, in other words, they are telling people that they are on "the highway to the danger zone?" Its almost as if I've heard that somewhere before...

Vintage

The word "vintage" has more than one meaning.
Here is how the Oxford dictionary defines it:

1. adj. Referring to something from the past of high quality (i.e. vintage cars, vintage clothes, Vintage Jesus, etc...)
   
2. n. The harvesting of grapes for winemaking

There are two times of the year which I really love in Eger. One of them is spring time, when after winter's greyness the hills turn bright green and people are working in the vineyards, trimming and tying the vines to prepare them. One of the things I love most is mountain biking through the vineyards in the spring.
The other time of the year which I love in Eger is the "szüret" or vintage. The vines turn the hills red and gold, and around town there are containers full of the grapes that have been picked.

Here in Eger, the szüret is a big deal. Its been going on for about 3 weeks now. One of the interesting things about pastoring a church in a wine region, is that during the grape harvest our attendance goes down because people go to work in the vineyards on the weekend to make a little extra cash.

We were out in the Szépasszonyvölgy this weekend - the "Valley of Beautiful Women" (or as our friend Geof calls it: "The Valley of 10,000 Virgins"), and took some pictures of the vintage.

Speaking of vineyards, Jesus said this: "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples." (John 15:1-3)
Just like how in the spring, the workers in the fields trim and clean the vines so they will be maximally fruitful, we are told that God prunes us and cleans us, so that we will be maximally fruitful. He removes the dead parts out of our lives, which do nothing but burden us. Its not always enjoyable to be "pruned," but the result is worth it - fruitfulness.
If you've ever tried to figure out what exactly "fruitfulness" means, you've probably found that the Bible defines it as many different things: Agapé love (the fruit of the Spirit), good works, leading others to salvation in Jesus, and I'm sure there are others.

Jesus also said this about the vine and the branches:
"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. (John 15:4-6)
The thing I find interesting about this, is that here in Eger, you see this happen this time of year. At vintage time, they bring the grapes in these big containers, and then pitchfork them into this machine which sucks out the juice from the grapes, and spits out the seeds and the branches. And after the harvest, there are big piles of these dead branches in front of the wine cellars, and they usually stink! And of course, the way they get rid of them is to make a pile, and set the pile on fire - just like Jesus said - because they are no longer attached to the vine, and they have no fruit on them.

I don't know about you, but I want to abide in the true vine and be fruitful, because as Jesus says at the end of that section on the vine: "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples." (John 15:8)

Colorful

Its been pretty dark and rainy outside for the last 2 weeks, so Nate hasn't had much of a chance to get out of the house.
But the other day we went to a baby store that had an indoor play area, and he had a great time!

Gyöngyhalász

Sziasztok magyarok (illetve nem-magyar magyarul beszélők, mint én magam)!
Figyelmetekbe ajánlom a Gyöngyhalász című blogot - ami tulajdonképpen az egri gyülekezetünk online újságja.
Kissné Ági a szerkesztője. Eredetileg volt már egy gyülis újságunk papír formában, de mivel egyre kevesebb ember van aki tényleg olvas papírra leírt szöveget - gondoltuk hogy internetes formája is legyen az újságnak.
Ez azért is jó, mert így nem csak azok olvashatják a cikkeket akik járnak a gyülibe, hanem bárki a világon, aki csak a weblapra oda talál. És így reméljük hogy több ember számára is áldás lesz.
Ági úgy akarja, hogy minél többen a gyüliből írjanak az újságban, hogy színesebb legyen.
Ma, azokat a cíkkeket rakta fel, amik már szerepeltek a papír újságban. De rendszeresen lesznek újak is.
Itt a link: http://gyongyhalasz.wordpress.com/
Isten áldjon!

Bulgaria

We went to Bulgaria earlier this month to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary, Nathaniel's first birthday, and just to take it easy after a summer full of conferences, camps, and other activities.
I've been wanting to go to Bulgaria for quite some time now. I even wrote a blog about it way back in 2006.
We had a really great time, and we'd recommend it to anyone who is considering traveling there. The beaches were nice and the accommodations were affordable. We'll probably go back someday.

Here are some of our impressions of Bulgaria:

• Its really hot.
  
Hungary is hot too, but in a different way. The part of BG we were in, near the Black Sea, has a Mediterranean climate, and its very hot and very dry. On one hot day I asked a shop owner if the weather was normal, or especially hot - he said that they have blazing hot weather from June to September. But, I have to say, that everywhere we went in Bulgaria there was air-conditioning. Even in small little shops and restaurants. That was nice, because we needed it!
• It reminded us a lot of Mexico.
And I mean that in a good way. We like Mexico; we went on our honeymoon in Veracruz, Mexico. There were many things in Bulgaria that reminded us of Mexico, from the dry climate to the sandy beaches and warm sea, from the attitudes of the taxi drivers to the food.
There were even a lot of Mexican restaurants in Nessebar. There was one next to our hotel, even with a guy in a sombrero trying to talk people into coming inside. We were thinking pretty seriously about it, until the guy told us that they only serve pizza and spaghetti! But there were other restaurants there that served real Mexican food.

• Great food.
We really enjoyed the food in Bulgaria. Rosemary ate a lot of shopska salad, I ate a lot of grilled meat.
I especially ate a lot of kavarma - a stew kind of thing with tons of spices. I like spicy food, and Bulgarian food made me sweat - which in my book is a good thing.
They also, like Hungary, are a wine-growing nation, and they had grape vines everywhere. Living in Eger, we don't drink wine very often, but we have gotten to know a bit about wine, and what constitutes good wine - and I was really impressed with Bulgarian red wine, especially one called Thracian Gold.
• They shake their heads for yes, and nod for no. That's super confusing.
At least once a day we got confused by this. Like in a restaurant - you ask for bread and the waitress just shakes her head and walks away. You think for a second, "Man, that waitress is rude!", and by that time she puts the bread on the table. Or at one point I ended up in this small village, almost out of gas, and with no cash - and I was asking if there was a gas station, an ATM, and if I could pay with a card at the gas station. The girl just kept nodding and shaking her head, and I was just terribly confused for a few minutes until I got it straight!

These are just a few general impressions. I'll write a bit more later.
If you'd like to see our pictures from BG, then click here.

And here's a map of our route:

View Larger Map

Nate Dogg

Nathaniel has a lot of nicknames, and it would be quite embarrassing to reveal all of them to you, as you can imagine.
Lately we've been making a point of it to call him by his actual name, because for a while he only responded when we called him "Bunny" or other nicknames.
So, we've been making a concerted effort to call him "Nate" or "Nathaniel," but we still also like to call him "Nate Dogg" - which, in case you didn't know, is the name of a gangsta' rapper from the 90's.
And, even though its not true, I like to tell people that we named our baby after Rosemary's favorite hip-hop star.
By the way, Nate Dogg (the rapper) is the cousin of another famous hip-hop star: Snoop Dogg. Perhaps that information will help you guess what the name of our next child will be...

Different

There is a young guy in our church named Dani. He's a great guy - even recently he began teaching every now and then for our Wednesday night Bible study, and he's begun leading worship as well.
Dani repented on New Year's Eve, 2006, and started coming to our church in January 2007. When he first started coming to the church, he had short hair and I couldn't help but notice his army boots and bomber jacket - as these are the typical outfit of skinheads in Hungary, of which there are more than a few. But we were just happy to have him in the church.

In the beginning, Dani didn't talk very much; he just showed up for church and left afterwards. But one day before church, I had been talking with some of the church members about the Hungarian rock band Kárpátia - a group that plays "Nemzeti Rock" or Nationalistic Rock music - and Dani came in, and we started talking about it, and I found out that before giving his life to the Lord, he had in fact been a skinhead.

This picture on the right is a picture of Dani in 2006, in full-on skinhead style.

Anyways, after committing himself to the Lord, I guess he reacted a bit against the whole skinhead thing, by growing his hair out. So for almost 2 yrs, Dani didn't cut his hair - and it got long - and sometimes he couldn't hang out, because he had to stay home to wash his hair, or brush it, or whatever you do to long hair.
Well, in the last week of August, the time came when Dani decided that enough was enough, so another guy and I took him to the hairdresser in the mall here, and they cut it off.

Now Dani looks fairly "normal," although I think he really enjoyed not looking "normal" for a time, which I can totally respect, since part of being a Christian is being willing to not be "normal" in the eyes of some people. A willingness to be "different" is a major asset in the life of a person who wants to follow Jesus, and take the road less traveled - the straight and narrow path of walking in the Lord's ways rather than simply conforming to whatever the culture around us deems "normal." Often times what the world calls "normal" isn't what God has deemed normal and healthy.

God has done a good work in Dani's life. He has a great family, most of whom are also believers. He will also be among those who get baptized next weekend.

Here's a slideshow of the pictures of the haircut:

Disturbing

Right after we got back home from Bulgaria, I got a phone call that disturbed me.
It was the mom of one of the girls who had come to know the Lord at English Camp, and who had asked to be baptized at the baptism will we have in 2 weeks at a lake outside of Eger. She was calling to tell me that she had forbidden her 18 yr old daughter from coming to our church.
I asked her why, and she said it was because we are a sect (actually she thought we were Methodists - and that Methodists are a sect). Then I explained to her that we belong to the Hungarian Evangelical Alliance, a group which validates that we hold orthodox protestant Christian beliefs. Then she told me it was because I wasn't Hungarian. I explained that I speak Hungarian and even teach the Bible in Hungarian (we were talking in Hungarian). Then she said it was because my wife wasn't Hungarian...
She went on to give me many other reasons, none of which held much weight. In other words, these weren't the real reason she was forbidding her daughter from attending our church.
She eventually told me that she simply doesn't think that becoming a Christian is a good choice for her daughter to make, because it will drive her away from her family and make her a social outcast.

Needless to say, this call was disturbing. And whats more disturbing to me is that this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened.
Here in Hungary - especially more in Eger than in Debrecen, this kind of attitude is something we have had to deal with.
Perhaps its hard in this area because there isn't really any other church like us - a young, modern, protestant church - but I also know that the other churches in town struggle with the same thing. I think another possible reason is that the older generation of Hungarians who were raised under Communism view religion in all forms as a negative thing - as detrimental and unenlightened.
Another issue here is that many Hungarian families are very tightly knit, and the parents are somewhat controlling. They often view the church as something which takes away their influence and control over their kids, in spite of the fact that we would never encourage kids to disobey or rebel against their parents.
People say that Europe is a "post-Christian" place, and I think there is much truth to that. We have had people in the church before, whose parents encouraged them to practice Eastern Religion or the New Age - but were not happy at all that their child (although already legally an adult) wanted to be a Christian. In America, even if a family does not consider themselves Christians or go to church, they still often view church as a good thing.
* Hungarians - what do you think about this? Am I getting this right, or am I way off?

I find it disturbing that in this part of "Christendom" being a follower of Jesus and studying the Bible is viewed by many as a bad thing.
One friend of mine in another town in Hungary leads a youth group, and they had the problem that their kids had stopped partying and their parents were upset by it, and started telling their kids - You need to leave that church! What they are teaching you is unhealthy! You are teenagers; you need to be going out and partying and having sex! That's the normal, healthy thing to do!
I have a catch-phrase that I always tell our church: Jesus makes you normal. And I really believe that to be true. The view of many people in the world of what is normal and healthy has been skewed so badly, that they call good what is evil and evil what is good.
When studying the Bible and being a follower of Jesus is called a bad thing, but premarital/extramarital sex is considered a good thing - something is wrong.

On Sundays right now we are studying through the Acts of the Apostles, and one of my favorite verses in the book is when it says in Ch 17:8, that in Thessalonica they people dragged some Christians before the city counsel and said: These who have turned the whole world upside down have come here too. My prayer is that God would use us here in Eger to turn this city "upside down" with the Gospel. If things are already upside down - where right is called wrong and wrong is called right - then turning it upside down again would be like turning it right-side up. Again, "Jesus makes you normal."
One thing I love about the book of Acts is that you see that through very small groups of people, God changed the history of Europe - and really the history of the whole world. I love that, because I know that God can use us to change our city - and I pray that He will.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Last Monday, September 1, was Nathaniel's first birthday!
One year ago we first saw Nate-dogg's little face and held him in our hands for the first time.
His name means "Gift of God," and thats truly what he is!
Over the last year we've been blessed to watch this little gift grow from a tiny baby into a little boy, who is now trying to walk and talk and do other big boy stuff.
We celebrated Nate's first birthday in Slanchev Bryag (Sunny Beach), Bulgaria.
We had a lot of "firsts" last week in Bulgaria - Nate's first birthday, his first piece of cake, his first time at the beach, and his first time swimming in the sea.
Indecently, it wasn't Nate's first time abroad or even on an airplane. He's already been to the USA, Germany, Slovakia - and now Bulgaria. He's already traveled more than most people I know!
He had a great time at the beach, digging in the sand, and got super excited by the waves, when we took him in the water.
Here are some pictures of Nate's first birthday:

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Last week I got to do something that I haven't done since I left Colorado - go camping.
Not the kind of camping that you do at some fenced-in place with paved parking spots and bathrooms with hot water - real camping, in the middle of nowhere, where you just walk until you decide that you've found a good place for your tent, where you have to do your business in the forest, and you have to bathe in a creek. Now that's good stuff!
In order to do this kind of camping, we went to Romania, since "wild camping" is not permitted in Hungary or Slovakia. And "wild camping" is a good term to use about Romania, which is one of the few places I've been in Europe where you can still get the feeling that you are in the wild.
We went to the Bihor/Bihar Mountains, to a place called Padiş/Pádis (everything has a Romanian, Hungarian, and often German name in Transylvania), which is like a high plateau, close to many cool places to hike and things to see.
Getting up there was no easy task. There are 2 roads that lead to Padis - one from the north and one from the south. Because of picking up John, we took the road from the north on the way there. This was one of the worst roads I've ever been on. I don't even thing this should be called a road - it was more of a series of pointy rocks and car-sized puddles. We went 20 km in a matter of 1.5-2 hrs. A lot of the time, everyone had to get out of the car and run alongside to help me not to bottom out on the pointy rocks.
At one point I saw a line of oil running down the road, and it took me a moment before I realized it wasn't from my car, but from the guy in the Dacia who had come the other way going about 40 km/hr. In one of the travel books someone had for the region, it said that you should only take the northern road to Padis if you are driving an SUV or a Dacia! Our Peugeot did a good job though, even though it wasn't a Dacia. Go Dacia!
On the way back home, we took the southern route, and left John in Oradea/Nagyvárad. Praise the Lord, that way was a great road and totally uneventful.
This was originally planned as a church camping trip, done together with Calvary Chapel Cluj, but both of us had almost everyone back out at the last minute, so in the end it was just me, 3 people from our church in Eger, and John - the pastor of the Cluj church.
It was a great time. The mountains there are karst, so they are full of caves to explore. The people from our church kept asking if it reminded me of Colorado, but I had to explain that although the Bihar Mountains are beautiful, they are a completely different kind of mountain than what I grew up with. But, that said - I really liked Pádis, and it was my first time climbing around in caves like that.
It was good to get back home to Rosemary and Nate, and I'm looking forward to going back, and looking forward to when Nathaniel will be a bit bigger and I can take him out camping and doing man stuff like starting fires and peeing outside. I guess I could always teach him to do that stuff here in Eger too, but my neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate it very much!
If you're interested in seeing pictures of the whole trip - shepherds, caves, horses, etc..., you can click here, or just watch this slideshow.

Thoughts on Calvin

This one goes out to all my Calvinist friends out there:I've had a few posts recently about John Calvin - mostly because of our church moving to a building called the Kálvin Ház in Eger, and every Sunday,there is this picture of John Calvin hanging over my head as I preach, and there is this statue of him in the courtyard. So, Calvin's been on my mind lately, since I see him almost every day of the week.

But in regard to Calvin and Calvinism, I would like to say the following:
I'm not a Calvinist.
But I have friends who are.
A few years ago one of my friends became a Calvinist; not long afterwards, I got an email from someone who knew him, asking me - Hey, I heard that (my friend's name) lost his mind and became a Calvinist. Is that true?
It was like this guy was asking about my friend as if he were Anakin Skywalker, who had just gone over to the dark side and become Darth Vader.

One thing which I make try to make very clear in the church I pastor, is that there is a difference between "primary" and "secondary" theological issues.
Here is an excerpt from a handout we pass out in our church about baptism:
Primary Theological Issues are those which are necessary for Christian Orthodoxy. They include such things as our belief in: One God, the Trinity, Jesus (i.e. His Virgin Birth, sinless life, death for sin, and resurrection), the perfection and authority of the Bible, and salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Secondary Theological Issues are those matters that are of varying degrees of importance, but which are not necessary for salvation. They are disagreed upon among Christians, and include such issues as speaking in tongues, different worship styles, baptism, and eschatology.

It was in regard to this distinction that Augustine is quoted with the following: In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas. (In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.)
Since Calvinism is a way of interpreting scripture in the areas of the sovereignty of God and often eschatology, which are not necessary for salvation, these are things which fall into the "Secondary" category - topics which are worth studying, debating, discussing and having strong opinions about, but not worth dividing over.

The unfortunate thing, is that some Christians are willing to, even eager to, divide over "Secondary" theological issues.
Not long ago, I was looking at an evangelical apologetics website; on the left-hand side was a long list of articles to choose from, which included Buddhism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, the Baha'i faith, and so on. And there, on this list of non-Christian religions and cults was also "Calvinism."
Now, I understand that this is just a list of things this guy has articles on, and that he is not necessarily saying that Calvinism is heretical, but it bothered me that a position and interpretation of scripture which is not only Christian, but actually Evangelical, would be listed in the same list as non-Christian religions and cults.
This just illustrates for me how some Christians are quick to demonize anyone who has a view which is different from theirs - even if that view is a "secondary" theological issue - and treat them as enemies of the faith, portraying them as people who must not truly love God, the Bible, or people, whose hearts are black, and who hate everything that is good and beautiful, including puppies, babies, kittens, and flowers - and who have some dark agenda.

I think that there are things which are actual threats to Christianity which would be a better use of our time to fight against than to attack those amongst our own ranks who have different methodology or interpretations of secondary issues. The latter is probably much easier to do - although it avails little, if anything, for God's Kingdom.

I recently read this quote by Robert Frost:
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
I like that. I hope that more of us as Christians could be like that when we encounter those who have different views than we do - and especially those brothers and sisters of ours with whom we have differences of opinion on secondary issues.

The Place That Time Forgot

Last week we were in Felsőtárkány, right outside of Eger, for our 3rd English Camp in Eger. The Lord answered our prayers and we had a lot of kids, and it was a great camp. We got to share the Gospel with those who came, and some responded that invitation to know God.
It was a great week. We had great helpers from America (and Canada!), and everything went smoothly.
A few things made this camp harder than those in the past though. Most obviously - this is the first year that we've had a baby. So we weren't able to be as involved in the "fun stuff" because of naps and bedtime and stuff like that. Another part was that the more kids come, the more punk and jerk kids come as well - and we had a bit of that this year.
But one thing about the camp is the place we have it. Táltos (which means "Mustang"!). The staff is nice, and the price is right, but the place is a bit rough around the edges.
It was built over 40 yrs ago as a Communist Youth camp. In the center of the camp still stands a statue of Hámán Kató - Hungarian Communist hero - with the text: "Hűség a Néphez, Hűség a Párthoz" (Faithfulness to the Nation, Faithfulness to the Party). Yea, that's the Communist Party, just in case you weren't sure.
If any of you have ever been to Csillebérc, its kind of like that - but maybe not as nice.
I think this place hasn't been cleaned thoroughly since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Actually, the place was abandoned for quite a few years, so that might well be the case. But this place is seriously unkempt. Some of our helpers who have come in past years lovingly refer to it as "The Bomb Shelter".
There are a lot of bugs up there. One of our helpers this year, on the last day, said - It is now time for us to leave this place, and turn it back over to the bugs. I think its possible that they have some nuclear waste stored up there, because the bugs are bigger than life. So much so that you're tempted to put a leash on them and give them cute names and take them home to live with you.
The main hall where we had our big events was cluttered with fragments of the walls and 10 yrs worth of dead june bugs. We lost power a few times because we plugged in a laptop and a fan - which overpowered the system - and another time we had a power surge and a light bulb exploded right above everyone.
For me, this picture really sums up Táltos in an artistic way:You see those stars under the horse's feet? Yea, its kind of like as if to say, We used to have more stars! This place used to be kind of nice - but not any more! Its all been trampled on! And now all we've got left is these 2 stars - which is probably an exaggeration to say even that.
But despite its flaws, we love the Bomb Shelter. Its in a really great place in the hills, we are friends with the staff, and they treat us well. We're going back next year for sure. Táltos, here we come!

New Camera

I've been wanting to buy a DSLR camera for a while now, but the price always deterred me. Finally I sucked it up and decided to buy one (or maybe Rosemary sucked it up and decided to let me buy one - whichever it is).
After spending a lot of time on ebay, and worrying that it wouldn't arrive on time to the person from California who brought it over for me - I got a used Nikon D50.
I'm really enjoying it, and it takes great photos.
I have some posted on this site: www.flickr.com