Hello from Hungary!

After a wonderful visit with family during the Christmas break, we are happy to be back to work. At the elementary school I am teaching language lessons as usual. Right before Christmas we had a visitor from Nebraska, and a gentleman representing a church and region interested in missions in Hungary. His pastor and regional minister visited us last year, and he was following up. He himself is a cropduster, and shared pictures of his flights and pictures of his young family. An American guest always causes great excitement in the schools, as the kids love to meet real Americans and the teachers are anxious to see if the students can understand and communicate with a native English speaker. I was blessed by Waylon's willingness to share his story and visit us, furthering the relationship that the Spirit has begun between our school and the Nebraskan churches.

Our students again participated in IM's Kids Drawing Contest, this time drawing what they think it's like to be a missionary kid--this isn't hard for them to imagine, because our MKs are growing up among them! Once again it was an opportunity to explain what a missionary is and does and to remind them that I'm not just a teacher but a missionary among them, come to teach them English as an expression of my love for Jesus and his love for them.

Larry is eagerly awaiting his return to Serbia after the holidays. The Serbian church has been asking for him to return, to cut and distribute firewood to their members. He will also help on the kitchen building project which Pastor Zoltán sees feeding the poor in the community as a population that lost their pensions begins to age. And as the winter here in Europe has turned bitter, his heart is with the refugee families in tents and abandoned buildings, crouching with fading hope on the Serbian side of Hungary's southern border.

We were blessed with a wonderful trip to Illinois for Christmas. We are thankful to our partners, Hungarian Baptist Aid and the schools for making this possible. We soaked up precious family time and recharged for another semester of work.

Thank you for your prayers, financial support and encouragement.