Kristi's Adventure...

The Home Life

I’M HOME!!! I made it back safely. Whew. I don’t have much time to write, but I thought I would update everyone and let them know I am here. Stateside. Hanging out with my fam. I’m going through a mix of emotions…
Excited to begin this next journey—of trying to find a job, figure out where I am going to live… etc.
Relieved—God was so good to me. He was completely and totally in the details in providing for me the entire time I was in Europe, and in getting back here safe and healthy : )
Devastated—I miss Europe a ton. I miss my friends, my apartment, my church, and the way life worked over there.
Lonely—(may sound a bit weird). Even though I’m surrounded by friends and family… whom I missed so much. It’s strange for me to look around and see how their lives went on, and try to figure out if and where I fit in their ‘new’ lives.

Okay.
Enough for now.
More later.

Here is a couple pics of my travel adventures with Timme the last 2 weeks. i will be posting more pictures on facebook with photos from my last 2 outreaches, and more from our time in London and Paris very soon.

“Take it back to the beginning, back to the start, when gravity’s pulling, you’re still holding my heart…”

I am back in Kiskunmajsa, the place where this big adventure began. On February 4 (the day after I arrived) I went on my first outreach. You can read about it in one of my first entries on my blog…. It was incredibly challenging for me, being thrown into ministry without having time to take a breath, I was overwhelmed at the time, but I look back and know it is exactly what I needed to do. I needed to dive in… head first.

Now I am back.
In the same village.
With the same people (plus a few more…)
Working in the same church.
Sleeping in the same bed.

It’s crazy because I feel like so much has changed since I was here last time. Not the town, not the places, but ME. I don’t even know how to put it into words, but I’ve been through so much over the past 6.5 months. So many ups and downs. I have new/shifted perspectives on too many topics to mention, some which weren’t even on my radar 6 months ago. I have wrestled and struggled through so much, and yet experienced some of the greatest joys of my life.

I think it’s so true that as you learn more, the more you realize you need to learn. I feel like I have answers to some of the questions I had when I arrived… but the answers only led to lists of more questions.

I want to share this prayer/ poem I find myself mediating on often. Although it was written long ago… it is so relevant to me RIGHT NOW. Especially as I prepare mentally/ emotionally/ physically/ spiritually to head home soon.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my struggles alone.
(‘Thoughts in Solitude,’ Thomas Merton 1915-1968)

CampFest

5000 campers
200 volunteers
152 performances
5 days
4 hours of sleep a night
0 showers
Uncountable new friends
Immeasurable memories

Here is an excerpt from my journal on night 3 of the Campfest music festival:

Ahhhh.
Breathing a sigh of pure joy as I sit here inhaling the brisk mountain air. It’s 10:00pm and my evening is nowhere near ending. We will open the bus again in a few minutes for the ‘after show.’ The main program has just finished, and there are still 6 or 7 more concerts. The schedule is for the shows to go until 2:00… but the program is running an hour behind, so there will be music and dancing, and shouting, and laughing, and praising the God who brought us all together until early morning. I’m in the Tatra mountains, surrounded by 6 event stages/ tents. The program is filled with music, teaching, praying, creative arts (jewelry making/ painting/ etc.) Here are some of my favorite things so far:

-Tereza. I love just thinking about her. She is such a beautiful person. My roommate Emily and I were playing guitar outside of the bus when she came over, sat down and asked to sing with us. We jammed for a bit and talked a lot. Little did we know she was the lead female vocalist for the main worship band for the weekend. We spent the entire weekend eating meals together, talking and encouraging one another. She introduced us to her friends and brother, we saw her ‘palace’ (a massive tent that she shared with her best friends), and prayed for her and her team as they led thousands of people into worship each night. She gave me a very special gift…. She made me a fantastic necklace out of recycled buttons, paint, and fabric. Here is a pic of us on the bus: ( http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31519382&l=a0b8041849&id=58300392 )

-working at the bus and meeting so many interesting people from all over the world

-hanging out with josh mcdowell (author of ‘more than a carpenter’, ‘evidence that demands a verdict’, etc.) and his manager Justin. We helped out with his book signings and public interviews for local tv and radio stations

-going to concerts at 1 am in my pajamas w/ Emily, dancing to techno (check out this great band we discovered, from the UK, Anderson: http://www.myspace.com/andersonnl). (**** off the topic of Campfest, but on the topic of off-the-charts-music, check out my new favorite: JG- (http://www.joshgarrels.com )

-sharing massive amounts of literature with people who are craving more information about God.

-meeting many of the translators and publishers who have translated some of MY favorite books into Slovak. These books really challenged me to evaluate what I believe, and why I believe it, and I think it is so great that through translation… millions more can now read these same books in THEIR language.

holy cow.
i love teaching english.
i think it is my calling.

okay.
probably not.
but i seriously love this part of my job. Right now, I have 34 students ranging in age from 11-59.

here is a day-in-the-life of-me
- wake up at 6:45
- spend time with my creator over a cup of Illy coffee on my porch
- ride my bike to the OM training center
- hop in a van with the 8 other English teachers and drive over to the school we rented for the English classes
- pray for our students and the day God blessed us with
- teach from 10-12
- eat with the other teachers
- spend the afternoon making lesson plans and prepping for my classes the next day
- teach again from 6-8
- come home to my lovely new roommate, Emily, a photojournalist from LA.
- Check email/ watch the sunset/ read/ make dinner/ etc.
- Go to bed around midnight
- Start it all over again : )

In between all that there is a lot of singing, a lot of laughing, a lot of great conversations with the other teachers and my students, a lot of guitar playing, some napping, some runs to tesco, and tons of smiles. I LOVE IT.

Last week I was teaching English in a camp setting. And that was fantastic too. Even though we worked 12-14 hours a day…. It didn’t really seem like work. The people from Liter were really special to me. They were SO kind and generous, and excited for us to be there. There was Fanni, one of the most mature 17 year-olds I’ve ever met who loves heavy metal, Sara, a 16 year-old with impeccable English and an incredible talent for Hungarian folk dancing, Rele, a fun-loving Brit who starts medical school this fall, and of course—- the team from Vienna. Siiiiiigh. I can’t say enough good things about Lindy, who greeted me with a hug and spent quality time getting to know me and sharing about the journey she is on, McKenzie whose authenticity and smile inspire me so much, Jeff, with his gentle yet strong demeanor (and who plays an amazing ‘Paul’ during camp dramas), and Jake, the former Wisconsin-ite who makes me laugh, truly inspires me with his individuality and really challenges me to be ‘all-in’ with my faith. Here were some of the highlights from my last week in Liter, Hungary.

- Sailing
- Horseback riding
- Spending time swimming at the beach when we weren’t working
- Irish Dancing
- The Veszprem music festival
- Hip-hop dance lessons
- Beach volleyball
- Forming a ‘band’ involving 6 children with random musical instruments, Jeff on Djembe, me on tambourine, and Jake rapping. We played at the talent show. We were phenomenal.
- Playing guitar for Balint, a 9-year-old who sang his heart out to ‘This Little Light of Mine’ (his favorite song in English) at the talent show.
- Enjoying amazing home-cooked Hungarian meals (and some good ‘ol Langos down at the beach). Eating fresh fruit every day that we picked on our way to school from the peach/ apricot/ cherry/ apple trees, and blackberry/ raspberry, strawberry bushes. Village life is filled with vineyards/ orchards/ and fresh fruits and vegetables.(**** another interesting part of Hungarian culture- in the villages you don’t only have ice-cream trucks with the familiar catchy tune blaring from a roof-top megaphone, they also have the bread truck, the watermelon truck, the fizzy-water truck, AND the icecream truck.)