Welcome from slushy Miskolc, Hungary!
It snowed for the first time on Wednesday and the snow lasted all of about four
hours. Now, is the second time for the snow to fall. It is getting
cold!
Yesterday we traveled up to the border of Slovakia to a town called Ozd.
Pronounced, Oz’d as in the Wizard of Oz. The Lions Club had visual screening activity up in this small town, particularly aimed for the Roma. It was an hour drive up to the town. We took the area governor for the Lions Club with us. He speaks fairly good English and told us about some of the history of the northeastern part of Hungary.
When Hungary joined the EU one of the requirements was to shut down all coal
mining. So now, the people of Hungary just burn wood! I don’t know
which is dirtier, wood or coal. The use of gas as a source of heat is
limited due to the high cost of gas. The EU’s position was a lot like
Marie Antoinette who said let them eat cake when she told that they did not
have bread. The EU said in essence, “Let them freeze to death so
that we can say that we are not causing global warming. The towns and
villages that had the coal production are all ghost towns or major pockets of
abject poverty. But what is a few 100,000-people living in poverty in
Hungary, when the EU can save the world from pollution from Russia, China and
India?
I wore one of my Christmas ties to church today and go a lot of comments.
(Good ones) This week is part 1 of Christmas. On December 6th,
St. Nicholas comes to the homes and bring small gifts and a lot of
chocolate! This is all done in the homes of children. December 25th
is the other Christmas. Oh, by the way, they don’t call Christmas,
“Christmas” or use his name at all. It is “Karacsony” meaning yule, noel,
nativity and the csony means Christmas, but no mention of Christ (Jézus
Kristus). But we are not missing any Christmas music in English. It
plays non-stop in all the stores!
This next week we will be in Budapest on Monday. We are being honored as
helping with 9 communities to get micro grants for projects in their villages
for the Roma people and going to a Roma kindergarten with the Red Cross at 10
am tomorrow morning (early start from Miskolc - 7 am). Tuesday, off to
the city of Gyor (jer) that is on the western border near Vienna to make final
plans for buying new beds for an organization that takes care of the mentally
impaired adults that houses 50 people. Back to Miskolc for Zone
interviews on Thursday. On Friday we are off to Nyiregyhaza and Debrecen to do
apartment checks (about 1 3/4 hours from Miskolc and 45 minutes in between each
city) and back in time to go to a fund raiser with the Lions Club that
night. Saturday is get ready for going home for two weeks! Sunday
is church and Monday back to Budapest and stay in a hotel near the airport.
We are excited about going home, but missing Christmas in Hungary and
especially missing 5 baptisms on December 16th in Miskolc will make
us think about Hungary while back home. We have been part of the teaching
of the two women being baptized and very much involved with the three children
being baptized. And we thought we were on a Humanitarian mission!
Our flight is very early Tuesday morning. Then about 18 hours later we
get to see seven grandchildren (one brand spank’n new one named Max!) So
who’s excited about being home for Christmas with grandchildren?
No comments:
Post a Comment