Hungary: March 21

Friday, March 21

Today was our last full day in Debrecen. We came in to finish up some of the tasks around the church and even start new ones. Breakfast consisted of a Hungarian variation of French toast they call “furry toast” topped with honey or jam and the assorted varieties of beverages.

We headed out to fill in the irrigation trenches and organize the newly covered shed. Only the roof needs shingles but I think the church members will do that themselves. We also replaced the insulation in the attic. This took most of the morning.

After lunch at 1:30pm, which consisted of a creamy dumpling and pea soup, and a meatless paprika pasta, since Hungarians don’t eat meat on Good Friday. We also celebrated Sandy’s birthday and the church members had made two delicious cakes one topped by quite the display of fireworks!. In the late afternoon, we headed off to Debrecen Plaza for some shopping. We didn’t have a lot of time, and exchanging money at the bank was a very slow process. We were supposed to head back to the church for the Good Friday service.

We met back at the Pension and headed off to the bus station but our bus was late by 20 minutes so we barely made it in time to the service.

Pastor Miklos preached and we had a good spiritual atmosphere in the congregation. His daughter Rekka sang “Via Dolorosa” after the message. Very beautiful and very meaningful.

They had prepared some dinner for us, mostly lunch leftovers plus some bread with poppy seeds that didn’t go too well with the US crowd. An acquired taste I assume. They also served cream of wheat which was rather tasty.

This was followed by a good time of fellowship and pictures a presage perhaps to tomorrow’s painful farewell.

NOTE: Since we depart for Budapest tomorrow afternoon, and we are staying with families, we may not have a way to get any more news on the blog until we return to the US on Monday night. Keep checking but, at this time, we don’t know what is in store for us.