Spring

What are those circumstances which signes you: it is spring?

You can hear more and more birds, you can see higher degrees during weather forecast, the Sun is up on the sky more time...

If you are romantic, you may fall in love. :) Anyway, spring brings new things every time. You can see the nature's "rebitrth" and for me, this kind of beginning is deeper than the New Year's Day because you do not see bigger change around you at that time but in spring!

And - of course - it is clear for you, that it is spring, when you meet the first ants in your flat. :) That happened with me... but it is an old habit between ants and me. We meet and they will be convinced, this flat is a very bad place for them...

Today is a national holiay in Hungary. We remember the heros of the revolution and war of independence in 1848/49. I have been in Isaszeg (a village near to Budapest) with my hiking association (its name in Hungarian: Kerge Zerge, in English: Giddy Chamois). We listened the commemoration, then we went to dance Hungarian traditional dances. I like dancing traditional dances so much! :) After dancing we took a small tour around the village.

Tonight at 6 pm there was a very great event! We met at Peti's place with the Students (my Bible discussion group) and with some other brothers/sisters because a youg man, a student, Gábor (his nickname is Fenyő, in English "Pine") wanted to be baptised. I should call this evening rather as celebration, not just as a simple meetting. So, this evening a new spiritual brother was born! :) (You can see him on the picture)

You may remember, I wrote about two important thing about my near future in the previous post. I have good news! :) It is unbelievable but I won the scolarship, so I will have a quite stable financial situation until the end of August. :) I am very grateful for that because I can pay my full attention on my PHD work and I do not need to have a job at the same time with my studies.

My interview was quite good as well at the Corvinus University. I told the department's leader that this job would be my dreamjob. If I will have the job, I should have a deep knowledge about data protecion and data security. The job would begin in September.

I had finished my publication and this week I got the reviews about them. Two teachers wrote down their opinions and it was difficult, because those opinions were almost against each other. It is hard to decide what I should change, who is right. I think, I should get used to it, those reviews were the very first in my life. The price is high, I shuld publish papers in this semester is I would like to finish my doctoral basic training.

I will attend the European Bible School sessions in Budapest. I am very ecxited about it because I think this will be the first time when I can have a longer term deep training about the Bible. "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." (2 Tim 2:15)

Unfortunately I was very sensitive for weather changes this week. It is not common... Usually I was like a zombie all day long, however I slept enough. This "zonbie being" made me weaker, it was hard to focus on my task, on other people.

I want to go to sleep soon. I try to write in two weeks.

Home

Home. It is a very important word. When you call a place as home, that place should be near to your heart and should give you safety.

This is my fourth week in Budapest after I came back from Finland. I have been living here in Budapest since I was born. I know the city, here are living my friends, my family, my relatives. I know whom I could call if I had problems.

I spent the fall semester (5 months) in Helsinki and Espoo. I have never spent this amount of time far away from Hungary. God has given me friends, family and safety there. That's why I call Heslinki and Espoo as my second home. I am so grateful for I will not feel myself as an alien there.:)

I wanted to write this post earlier than this time. I had lots to do, I had a deadline to finish a publication about my PHD studies. It went too slow, I draw not so fast especially about scientific topic. But, finally, this week I finished it! :) So I planned to spend the whole Sunday afternoon to write this post and write mails for my Finnish brothers and sisters.

Many things have happened during February. I think I will not remember all of them. At the first week I spent much time with my Small Group (we have many small groups in the Church, usually I will refer to this group as Students). Since I was in Finland two students have been baptised! :) So there were new people! We had a great journey together on 6th February. We visited two castleruins. I really like this kind of times, because it is so rare, if you have a free day to spend longer time together with your friends!

The next "stop" was Oslo. Yes, I can not stay at home for a long time! :) Our congregation in Oslo organised a conference called "Open Heart". It was on the second weekend of February. We were six+1 people there from Hungary (the +1 was Attis, he was coming from Finland). We travelled on Thursday however the conference began on Friday, but this way the planetickets were much cheaper. So we (Móni, Eszter, Nelly, Olivér, Sebastian and me) had almost a whole day free in the capital of Norway.

Usually I call these international confrences as "peace of Heaven" because in Heaven I will spend much time together with brothers and sisters from everywhere. I have met my friends from Finland :) and from Denmark. I want to share about one of my Danish friends. His name is Kresten, I got to know him in Eckerö in 2005. He is a conductor and he is organising the musical things in the Church in Copenhagen. I feel myself so close to him however we have not met since last February. I like so much to see how he plays piano. He plays with his heart for God.

Maybe you know that Oslo is one of the most expensive city on the world. The prices are three times higher than in Hungary. The brothers and sisters from Oslo helped a lot us. They payed our tickets for the public transport, they opened their homes to accommodate us. They have a big heart! :)

After Oslo I was concerned with my publication. I had struggles with it. I missed the deadline 1,5 week but last Wednesday - as I wrote - I finished it.

Two weeks ago I was with the small group leaders in Komárno (a little Hungarian town in Slovakia near to the border) to spend time together and get to know how we can help our Church in Budapest. It was an honor to be there! I have got a view about my congregation and at first it shocked me. Do not misunderstand me, the situation is not bad, but I recieved too much information, and I could not relate myself to them, because I have not been here for 5 months. I realised, I need time to "acclimatize".

I was so grateful for my uncle and his wife, because we should have celebrated their birthday with my family on that weekend, but they were OK with moving one week later the celebration, that's why I could participate this meeting in Komárno.

Yesterday I have been in Kaposvár (200 km from Budapest), I taught secondary school students programming. I enjoyed very much the time! Last time I taught this age-group at my practice-teaching. I think, they are more able to being taught like 20-25 years old students at the university. OK, I know my pupils in Kaposvár are very interested in programming, that's why they spend the half of their Satirday at school.

Unforunately the weather became very stormy yesterday afternoon that's why my train was late. I have arrived to Budapest 1,5 hour later compare to the timetable, so I was late my meeting with some brothers and sisters. Usually I have these meetings on Saturday evenings to have fun together, to biuld our friendships and specially to encourage the sisters.

This Tuesday will be an important day. I applied for two scholarships at my faculty and for a job (assistant lecturer) at Covinus University and on that day I will get to know the result and I am going to have the jobinterview. This job is my "dreamjob", until I will have my PHD degree, I could not imagine better job than this! :) The future is under construction.

I hope I can write the next post soon! :)