More about my year in Budapest…
December —
December started with our school’s szalagavato. Sorry for the dark picture, but this is the class I’ve taught for 2 years performing their pirate-themed class dance:
Another December highlight was our Christmas party with our students…
We do a weekly English club at our house after school on Thursdays. From week to week we average about 15 kids, but for special parties like our Christmas party, 40 kids might show up. We’re playing cards here in the classroom on the lower level of the building where our apartments are.
This fall we had the opportunity to partner with a Calvin College study abroad program to have college students get some “service-learning” experience working with us. The Calvin students took classes at Hungarian universities, and as part of their semester requirements for Calvin, they completed a certain number of volunteer hours each week. We had 2 young men working with us for the semester. They were a great help in our classes and with our English club. Luke is pictured at the top right of the table. I think it was really beneficial for our students (65% of whom are boys) to have some positive male role models. We love our boys, but we know that our influence on them just isn’t the same as a young Christian man’s. We plan to continue this partnership with a new group of Calvin students this fall.
Serve the City: Budapest is another group that I’m involved with. It’s a nonprofit organization in many world cities that works to connect volunteers with practical needs in the city they serve. Our group picks up trash along roads, organizes activities for a home for disabled adults, and this Christmas we collected shoebox gifts for children in a homeless shelter. It was a special experience to see the children receive their Christmas gifts.
I spent Christmas in Budapest with a few friends, other Teach Overseas teachers, and a friend from high school who was teaching English in France. Budapest knows how to do Christmas! The city is beautiful at that time of year, and there are markets and and decorations everywhere. This is Chelsea (she teaches in the Czech Republic) and I on the Christmas tram. A regular city tram wrapped in 1000 Christmas lights. (Google it!)
January — brought another Szalagavato. This one we attended for another school in Budapest where Teach Overseas teachers work. A couple of the students have been been coming to our Bible study for a year and we’ve gotten to know them pretty well. It was fun to celebrate with and honor them!
I accidentally hit “publish” too early. Sorry if that threw you off. I wanted to get a little more in this post before sending it out to the world.
In February — I turned 25!
I also participated in another Serve the City event, this one at the home for disabled adults. It was my 2nd time visiting the home, and I love it. This is Lajos. His body is deformed and he can’t speak (though he’s learning!), but he loves to color and he can understand everything that you say to him. Here I am with him, wearing a mask that he colored for Farsang, the Hungarian spring celebration (kind of like Carnival).
Hope in Hungary 