Faith on a ride at the grocery store (taken with cell phone)
Education: We tried putting Hope and Charity in the public school full time, and found they were not getting anything out of it. Besides, the children there seem to run the school. There is little order and discipline. In addition to that, when they change clothes for P.E. class, they change in the classroom with boys and girls all present together at the same time. Due to a number of things about the public school, we did not feel this should be their primary source of education. Instead we are continuing to home school them. But we decided to let he children attend the public school as visitors for the last couple lessons of each day, which is basically from 11:00 AM to about 12:45 PM. We also still plan to put Faith into kindergarten, once the one in our neighborhood has an opening, since they are full right now.
Charity all ready for church
Language Acquisition: A teacher from the elementary school named Roszika has offered to be our tutor. She has been coming to our home 3 days a week to teach the children Hungarian language lessons. Jennifer and I sit in for these as well and learn whatever we can.
Translator: We have a good Hungarian translator named Bea who has been a great help to us. She is the relative of our host and is attending college here in Budapest. So we thank the Lord for her help, which has been a tremendous blessing.
Connecting the regular Vonage Phone: We finally found a router that allows us to make Vonage calls from our regular phones without needing to keep the computer on all day or use a headset. Praise the Lord! This took an extraordinary amount of time and effort with many phone calls, Internet research, assistance from others, as well as trips to the store. But now it is connected and you can reach us at our same NH number found in the email you received from us. Please don’t call after 4 PM, as it will be 10 PM here. So far we are mostly getting calls from the States from wrong numbers and telemarketers. One called us at 10:30 PM, and another of them called at 2 AM..
Buying a VW Bus in Hungary: We ended up getting the van on the road by 11-20-08. We are so thankful for the help we received from a car expert here in finding it and getting the insurance, plates, title, and various other inspections that were necessary. This has taken some getting used to, as the pedals are very close together and I had to buy new, more narrow shoes in order to drive it without stepping on the brake and gas pedal at the same time. We still don’t know what we are going to do about Jennifer, since she cannot drive it comfortably. It’s one of the smaller 8 seat minibuses here, but she cannot depress the clutch pedal without hyper extending her leg, even though she has her seat all the way forward. For now, I am the only one driving it, but we hope to eventually come up with a solution so Jennifer can drive it herself.
Buying household items: We still have not purchased the furniture we need like beds, wardrobes, and dressers. We hope to resume that project sometime in January after we have found a doctor for Jennifer.
Culture: When they are saying farewell to you here, they often say, “Hello.” Or they say, “Hello! Hello!” Try this sometime and you will see how strange it feels. If you are with a Hungarian who speaks any English, they sometimes translate this for you as they say it, so they will say, “Hello. Goodbye.” As foreigners, this is very interesting to us.
The other thing is the driving rules here. Most neighborhood streets do not have stop signs. Instead, when you come to an intersection, the car on your right has the right of way. So everyone just looks to their right as they slow down at the intersection.
Theft is a concern here, so whenever you park your car, you need to put a large steel device on the steering wheel to lock it. You also have to alarm the vehicle.
Worship: We have found the Hungarian Free Christian Fellowship, which is a warm, friendly church where we feel very welcome. The services are entirely in Hungarian, but they always ensure we have our own translator, so that everyone in the meeting understands everything that is being said. They have reached out to us as a family and we sense both the presence as well as the love of God when we are there. The children like it, too. Right now we feel like this is where we are to belong. The pastor speaks English and has offered to sit with me and find out how he can help me fulfill our mission from the Lord here in Eastern Europe.
Discipleship contacts: I had a great conversation about the Lord with the young man who helped us find our van. I’ve invited him to meet with me in a Life Transformation Group each week, for the purpose of discipleship. He is considering it. Additionally, the children shared Jesus with our babysitter.
Join us in praising God for the ways He has already helped us:
1. Praise the Lord that we actually purchased the VW minibus and put it on the rode!
2. Praise the Lord that we got our Hungarian landline telephone and our Hungarian cell phones!
3. Praise the Lord that we found a way to successfully connect our Vonage phone without having to leave our PC on.
4. Praise the Lord that we found a language tutor and a reliable babysitter
5. Praise the Lord that we have found a church family here where we can belong.
Next steps and prayer needs: Our immediate next steps to pray about include:
1. That we will find an OBGYN or midwife for Jennifer, as well as a good birthing facility
2. That we will soon be able to buy the furniture we need, incl. wardrobes, beds etc (we are still sleeping on air mattress & children are still living out of suitcases since September)
3. That Charity’s asthma will be healed and that we will all walk in good health
4. That Niki will come to know that Jesus loves her and she can trust Him (this is someone we shared the Lord with)
5. That Gabor will develop a spiritual hunger to seek to know the Lord in a greater way than he is now experiencing (this is someone we shared the Lord with)
6. That we will be able to place Faith into kindergarten, if the Lord is willing, since the local one is already filled to capacity
7. That the Lord will help us with language acquisition, which is very difficult
8. That the Lord will help us and guide us in all of these as well as provide for every need
Thank you so much for your partnership in this ministry.
Love from all of us,
The Lacroixs
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