8:30 Head out to the Mickey D’s again. It is our central location. We can get into somewhere familiar and get re-Americanized for sanity’s sake. I bring the laptop and try to write a little bit in the blog before my battery dies again. I order a Latte Machiatto and Vanilla Croissant. I try to convert people to the Latte Machiatto, but no takers.
9:30 I wander around Debrecen again. I am mainly trying to find a place to print out my pictures from yesterday’s gypsy church. I find Rossman, a cross between a drug store and a dollar store. There is a picture machine and i try to figure out how to use it but everytime I get so far my English directions reset to Hungarian. Finally a man takes pity on me when he sees my frustration and he explains to me that Rossman prints the pictures to cd and then sends it to the photomat out of the store and gets it back days later. That is not what I want, I want one hour photo, so I head out. I hear there is another photo shop and I vow to visit later in the day.
A child playing with pigeons in the town square
12:30 We go to Trendo Line Cafe for lunch. We decide to eat outside because it is so beautiful outside. The weather has been perfect all week. It was so warm for being October. We couldn’t have hoped for anything better. I start wearing my winter cap because I packed it and I felt like it must be used, eventhough it was over 60 degrees outside.
The view from the cafe.
We take our time eating at the Cafe. I ordered breaded pork cutlets with a cheese sauce, veggies and rice. The pork and cheese sauce is fantastic. We order lattes afterwards. It is the best so far! We hang out eating and talking for over two hours in true European style. I check out a photomat and they tell me that they don’t print at the store, they tell me of one that does. That will have to be part of mission the next day.
3:00 We head out for another Gypsy church. This one is a litle bit further away. I take a nap in the car and I am sure I missed a horse and wagon again.
4:30 Arrive at the Church. This time it is held in a school house–a very old school house. When we pull up the service has started because we were late. We can hear these girls singing inside the school. It had a very enchanting feeling when you hear them sing. We come in to sit down. Many of the people give up their chairs so we can sit. I like to sit in the back or middle so I can take video and pictures and get many angles. The school room was very cold. I was glad I was wearing my fleece jacket and I could stick my hands in my pockets. When we started praising the Lord with songs it seemed like it was no longer freezing. I don’t know if the turned on or not, but I wasn’t uncomfortable anymore.
These were the singing girls and their mother.
5:15: Brother Augustine, Pastor Steve, Michael, Rick and Pat shared their testimonies. At first it seems that they weren’t receptive to our testimonies, but then someone said to them that we wanted to pray with them for healing and strength. Then many came forward. Some people brought their children up for prayer. One asked for healing of many ailments and she cried out to the Lord for healing. You could see that she was touched. A teenage girl asked for the Holy Spirit to come to her. Although she did not have the experience she did learn how to press into the Lord and speak with Him. Some prayed for two boys who had lost their father. They prayed that they would grow into men of God. Afterwards the fellowship was great as the kids wanted their pictures taken. They giggled and smiled when they saw themself on video. Michael taught some of the boys how to play rock, paper, scissors. The treats were the usual sandwiches and desserts. There were table clothes made by the pastor’s wife. You have to be careful when you compliment anything because if you say it is beautiful they will give it to you. So a few of use walked out with table clothes.
A woman getting prayer for healing
There were many children and women in the church, but very few men. You can see how so many are hungry for God and were so grateful to have visitors to speak and pray for them. Healing and miracles are so important to them because they don’t have access to medicine or doctors. They must depend on their faith in God to provide healing. I believe that they probably experience more miracles in their lives because they are more receptive to seeking out God’s help than Americans. It is very powerful to see someone cry out to God for healing and it touching your heart.
Michael playing Paper, Rock, Scissors
8:00 We head back to Debrecen for the evening but Pastor Csaba takes us to a restaurant on the way back. It is a bed and breakfast. The outside has beautiful landscaping and lighting. It is gorgeous. I thought we should all have checked in for the night. We went to the dining room and looked at the menus. It was quite a difficult time ordering because the menu had English and Hungarian. Our waitress only spoke in Hungarian. So if you had a question you needed to ask Pastor Csaba and then he would ask the waitress. A lot of the message got lost in translation. I wanted to order a salad, but I wanted salad with LETTUCE. I had learned my lesson earlier in the week with the Gyro and the Cole Slaw. So I asked about the Green Salad thinking it would have Lettuce. Well, I guess Cabbage and Lettuce are the same word in Hungarian and I got a cabbage salad with cucumbers and tomatoes. I ate the cucumbers because it had a vinaigrette dressing on it. I also order the Turkey Cordon Bleu—oh my! It was fantastic. Pastor Csaba ordered us a fried potato cake appetizer. It was wonderful. The potato cake was the size of a small dinner plate. You put cheese and sour cream on it and go to town. Sour cream is not my new condiment. Forget ketchup or salsa it is all about the Sour Cream. Irony: There was lettuce as my garnish to my turkey cordon bleu. I didn’t eat it out of principle.
The outside of the beautiful hotel in the country side.
10:30 We are back at the hotel. I find out that I can sit in the stairwell outside of the internet cafe in my hotel and I can get WiFi. I start typing away at my blog while I got juice in the battery. The stairwell light keeps going off on me, but I keep typing. The guy working in the hotel office comes out to see a glowing face in the stairwell. I scare the crap out of him because he didn’t expect someone to be sitting in the dark typing on a computer. Surprise!
12:00 Head to the room and crawl into bed. I realize that I had A LOT to eat today! Pork, Turkey Cordon Bleu and Potato Cakes! My tummy may be aching, but it hurts so good.
