I'm not sure I knew what to expect in coming to Hungary. I guess growing up in the Midwest, USA during the Reagan years gave me a bleak outlook on the Eastern Bloc. But Budapest is bright, stunning architecturally, vibrant with culture, and beautifully spanning the Danube River.
We had a quick flight from Berlin, quickly settled into our hotel, and went out to the city center to meet Peti, one of the young Hungarian pastors. We shared a traditional lunch at a local, classy restaurant, walked around downtown some more to meet Gabor (brother of another young Hungarian Pastor), quick stop at the Danube river, and back into the city center, stopping for coffee and then ice cream. We walked back to our bus stop and the quick ride to the hotel to wrap up the night.
The whole way was filled with people enjoying each other's companies among the hundreds of street side cages, restaurants, & beer-gardens -- this is a hip, trendy hot-spot for your college student, backpacker, tourist, or young professional. Prices are reasonable, though the currency exchange rate is a bit confusing still, but we're getting it.
We'll recover from the walking, catch a breakfast here at the hotel, & then get some sight-seeing in tomorrow to further familiarize ourselves with the area. As the Budapest Lectures continue to develop, I'll help Patrick host speakers and facilitate their stays,ale introductions, etc. - so the tourist-y parts of this trip are actually research for future service :)
Saturday, we'll meet in one of the three churches for the summer session of this lecture series. We had to condense the normal 3-4 day plan into one day because many of the participants are currently on vacation! That's right, they're actually coming back from vacation to hear these lectures on Saturday before they go back again!!! No pressure on the speaker! We'll also be joined by 4 from Bulgaria, including teammate Dave Simpson--the one day format actually helps them, too because it allows them to drive in Friday night, leave Sunday after church, and not miss too much work.
I'll let this post chronicle our visit with updates & pictures each day throughout our stay....
Looking back toward the Basilica down one of the quieter streets.
Friday, July 26
We spent 4+ hours sightseeing and learning about the histories of this amazing city...
I took this picture from the spectacular view outside the ancient citadel fortress - this view actually reminded us of looking down on the Tennessee River Valley and Chattanooga from Lookout Mountain - though there's not an equal amount of amazing architecture, castle, or Basilica - but similar ;)
Near to the Citadel is Liberty Statue (as it is now called) holding high a palm branch over the city of Budapest.
In the rock below the Citadel, there are series of caves that once were dwellings during times of attack, and later sanctuaries for monastics. Eventually, a church was built into one of the caves--closed during Soviet rule--and reopened shortly after the fall of communism. You can see the entrance to the cave church below and left of the cross.
The Buda Castle is a huge network of buildings from medieval times and includes this ornate church in which royal weddings would take place.
Across the river on the Pest side of the Danube sits the large, elaborate Parliament Building. Titus has a book he bought in London titled "World's 100 Greatest Cities" - each city has at least a two page spread with pictures, facts, and other interesting information. The Parliament building is the large picture on the Budapest listing, so I had Titus take a picture here to go along with his book. He brought the book on this trip and traveled through 3 of the 100 cities in as many days: Munich, Berlin, and Budapest.
Heroe's Square is outside of a large park featuring a zoo and pond used for ice skating in the winter. The Square is at the end of a large, carefully crafted avenue that leads away from the city center and honors the historic founders as well as more recent Hungarian heroes.
The Lover's Tree sits in a park between two of the city churches - whenever a couple gets married in one of the churches, the bride and groom make their way to the park and affix a lock to the gates around the tree -- then, they proceed to throw the key into the Danube River nearby.
After a few hours break, we met up with the Bulgarian church group. Representing two of the 9 Church of God congregations in Bulgaria; they are actually quite an original group, representing America, Ukraine, and Cameroon, one native Bulgarian :) So what does a diverse group like that (along with two American-Egyptians) eat? Chinese food, of course!
Saturday, July 27 - Budapest Lectures
Today was the third session of this quarterly leadership development series. We had the largest group, and the most diverse attendance due to the participation of the Bulgarian churches - it was quite an honor sharing with and encouraging these Christians. Several of them could only come for part of the day due to work or their interrupted vacation plans--that's humbling. The questions were sharp, the discussion was appropriate to each congregation's needs, and we hope that each was as encouraged as I was. After the sessions, several of us shared a dinner at a nice buffet here in Budapest -- there's a catch I'm told in Europe that differs from buffets in America: if you leave food on your plate, you are penalized an extra charge--so if you take it, you better eat it! We were given that warning before we filled our plates, and we did so cautiously as we introduced to several new Hungarian foods.
Here's a few pictures from the lectures - some of which were taken by Titus...
Sunday, July 28 - Worship with the Hungarian churches
After breakfast, Dave, Sunny, Titus and I went back to the Budakalazi Church where we were surprised to see closer to 40 in attendance than the 12 Pastor Peti had feared. It was so great to worship with them as they sung songs of praise in Hungarian. Dave shared a word of appreciation and updates from the Church of God in Bulgaria because the Hungarian Church of God had often prayed for and contributed financial gifts to the work in Bulgaria.
Dave Simpson (3W Bulgaria) shares through the brilliant translation of Janos, who also translated my sermon.
Pastor Peti plays guitar while Gabor leads worship from his bass guitar.
After a truly wonderful Sunday morning of worship, we left the fellowship time so that we could join Svetlana, Kenneth & Patrick at Pastor Laszlo's congregation, which is located about 15 minutes east on the Pest side of the Danube River. We arrived as the service was concluding and were able to see this congregation worship as well as Pastor Laszlo led singing while playing his guitar.
As Patrick was praying to close his message as we came into the sanctuary; Pastor Laszlo also did the translation for him. Laszlo, as I understand it, has taught English before and is currently holding English classes for members of their congregation and they are enjoying the cross-cultural opportunities for application.
We then joined a feast of a lunch -- you have surely heard of a 5-course meal, well they served a 5-course dessert! Seriously, the good stuff kept coming at the end and we tried our best to keep up! Among the desserts was a special anniversary cake presented to Kenneth and Svetlana who were celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary -- just an extra-special, unexpected act of hospitality from our Hungarian hosts that further blessed our Bulgarian participants.
July 29
There is a huge "Jewish quarter" downtown that has an obvious history prior to and in the aftermath of World War II. We went down to the Great or Dohany (street) Synagogue where we signed up for a walking tour through the quarter and included access to the museum, memorial garden, and a couple of the synagogues in the area. I'll add notes to the pics below and then thoughts at the end...
The first synagogue that we went into is in really poor shape -- it was recently repurchased by the Jewish community from the city who were in the process of selling the property to a company who wanted to turn it into a casino! Plans are in place to begin a costly renovation. During the war, the Synagogues were not necessarily torn down - these that remain here in Budapest are examples of how they were "preserved" by turning them into stables.
Seven banners like this went around the room - as I read right to left (in the order of Hebrew) this is what it would say:
"The first table contains the preaches of the faith, the second one the preaches of the ethics:
The ethics can not exist without faith, but in the same way...
The faith can not be independent from the ethics and from the ethical deeds.
No Jewry* exists without morals!
The Almighty said the Ten Commandments in one single sentence
In order to teach us that theTen Commandments
Are one organic unit, which cannot be separated into parts."
(*I never used the term "Jewry" before - I learned it meant "Jews collectively" as a group)
Brass plaques like these were at various building doorways as memorials to those who died from those buildings, either due to deportation to concentration camps, killed in the city by military, or death by the cruel imposed conditions.
Plaques like this one beside the door indicated historical buildings that survived since that WWII time period.
This memorial to Carl Lutz, a Swiss consul, really spoke to me - he creatively and deliberately found ways to stretch permissions to save thousands of lives prior to and during the occupation of Hungary. I added the rough translation on the stone that memorializes his anguish from his journals.
These pictures are from within the largest, active Orthodox Synagogue in Europe; Titus is shown here with the kippah, which we all had to put on entering the different Synagogues.
Interestingly, the "orthodox" synagogue did not have an inner building inside, but the decorative "built-in" version. The elaborately decorated Synagogues gave me a better glimpse into what the splendor of the Temples must have been like.
The wood benches with "book rests" (?) all had fold down seats, and each seat was numbered with a locked cabinet under the "book rest". In the original synagogue, the benches were taken to the second and third level balconies (where women and children sit) so the main floor could be used as a stable. The ones that survived the war and use of wood were returned to the floor--others were painstakingly created to match exactly so that you would never know which were the originals and which were the replacements.
The ceiling was a double ceiling - in between were lights so that the stars and decorations would still be illuminated at night - very cool!
Inside the Great Synagogue - grand, ornate, and beautiful. Note the smaller, internal building up front.
In the adjoining building, there is a museum - it was weird to see articles of faith displayed like relics.
This painting had a magnifying glass - as you looked through, you could see Hebrew scriptures were forming the pictures out of different colors of ink for each letter. I can't give the magnified pic, but next is a closer pic of the drawings...
beyond the rescued and preserved worship elements was a wing that shared the painful, gruesome, and cruel history of the Nazi occupation. Above, some of the propaganda pics / posters.
"striped pajamas" and a vest that had the large yellow star of David on the back.
These items were all made from destroyed religious items. The dress and skirt were made from prayer robes, and the drum heads were pages from Scripture scrolls.
A bronze model of the bronzed shoes that are along a Holocaust memorial on the banks of the Danube River. The memorial commemorates this sad history: as families were deported for concentration camps, some couldn't fit on the train, and so some of those left behind were simply lined up on the bank of the river - before they were shot so that their dead bodies would fall in the river, they were made to take off their shoes because they were too valuable to be wasted.
These images show killing of Jews publicly, but also piles of dead bodies in the courtyard near the Synagogue. The courtyard, pictured below, now has dozens and dozen of little memorial stones with names of loved ones who died -- these that were piled here were ones that died due to the poor living conditions imposed during the occupation. The courtyard became a mass grave site.
Beyond the courtyard Memorial Garden, is a place of sculptures that also memorialize those who passed away.
This area contained little "boxes" with names and a hole in the middle - inside were piled pebbles and small stones. I had to look up why people leave stones on/at grave markers, especially upon Jewish memorials. There are several different possibilities, but this came up frequently: people used to buried under piles of rocks, and people would add a stone whenever they visited as a way of indicating that we are never through remembering the deceased.
This large "silver" tree had thousands of "leaves" on which were stamped names and dates. Here, Titus is reading one of the leaves.
I don't know where to begin. As I write out these descriptions, I'm taken back to not only seeing these memorials and reading these histories, but feeling all of it as well. I find profound sadness and grief in things related to the holocaust--at times it makes me nauseated even. I ache over discrimination/persecution issues, particularly out of my own trivial-by-comparison history. I am convinced we should never forget the evils of which we (humanity) are capable - from Auschwitz to Uganda to wherever - we should never let these histories be diminished but they ought to appall us so that we repent and are repulsed at the ideas and attitudes that would dare take us down similar dark, hellish paths.
As Titus and I walked through the pictures, propaganda, and tragedies, we read that during the occupation and before the deportations to concentration camps for the "final solution", forced labor by the men in the most brutal of conditions led to even the strongest and most fit dying daily. The reading accompanied this picture, prompting Titus to ask, "Dad, why are some of them smiling?"
"Because," I offered, "they have hope--they will not be defeated--and even though they're suffering, they're not going to let that be taken from them. At least, that's what I think."
I also think, it could've been me - God forbid we live in a time or a place where it still could be me, or you, or anyone.
July 30 - Bye Bye Budapest
We're packing and preparing to leave Budapest later this afternoon. We have been so blessed and we leave with great excitement for what God is doing within this country. Beyond the overall beauty and interesting city is a beautiful and wonderful people that have so much to offer the Kingdom beyond their borders. Pastors Laszlo and Peti are young, vibrant, gifted, and exciting--their congregations are sincere and passionate believers who desire to share the love of God beyond themselves. They are also tremendous hosts, and their city is a wonderful crossroads for connecting leaders throughout the Europe and Middle East region -- we are so excited about the possibilities of connecting more and more leaders here through the Budapest Lectures every quarter.
So, it's goodbye for now - we look forward to our next opportunity to serve together here in Budapest!
We're looking forward to joining the rest of our family in Berlin, and the additional rest and relaxation that we will have with teammates there. Thank you for your continuing prayers for us, as well as for those we serve in Egypt.
