For such a Time as this

The 400 year old chateau that we called home.

We thought France was going to be relaxing. We thought we would be sipping coffee, having class, and do a few casual ministry times on the streets and in a cafe or two.  But God surprised us!

On the 17th we got to experience the worst flood that the area has seen in at least 50 years!  There was a bad flood here in 2008 that everyone in town talked about previously...this one was much worse!

Before and "During"
The River rose 12 feet! 

From what I have heard, it was the equivalent of 3 months of rain in one night.  The river rose up 12 feet, flooding many bottom stories.  The water was rushing down the hill and THROUGH the chateau! It was coming up through the ground! At times we felt like we were in the titanic, with water gushing through the doorways and into the rooms. Luckily it only got knee deep.

We were and are grateful to have been here. Having the Denver team here gave 13 extra people to help move furniture, dig trenches and bail out water! Because of that there was minimal damage.  For 4 hours we threw buckets of water out the windows and doors, singing while we worked.

It was actually quite fun and exciting, a good memory! My body was achy two days later, but my spirit was happy. In the surrounding area 6 people died as well as horses, livestock and many cars. But at the chateau we were all safe and sound.

It was an experience I'll surely never forget and one that brought much bonding and unity to the teams.  I'm sad we didn't get to stay a few more days to help with moving the furniture back to the bottom floor and more cleaning. But happy to have been able to help in the time of crisis.  Praying for those who lost so much in this storm. France, you have left your mark on me!

Budapest

Budapest welcomed us with Cool weather and great views. Its one of those cities that many people dream of visiting.
Our team had a great time in Budapest. So much so that three of the girls were looking up apartments to rent hoping for a return.

View from the Cathedral.  

My adventure buddies.  Often Aubrey, JoJo, myself and Anthony would
buddy up looking for adventure!  Sometimes that included hiking up hills
to get a great view. :-)

Gulasch... yum!

I have lots of pictures from walking around the city, it seems every corner has a beautiful building or great view. Our ministry times were much more like things we'd be doing at "home". Twice a week we went out to subway stops to do " evangelism". This looked like us setting up speakers and a microphone, singing songs, performing dramas and giving short speeches on the microphone speaking of love and testimony of Gods goodness in our lives. The thing we struggled with most was lack of translators. Only on one day while doing this did we have someone available to translate.  Quite unfortunate none of us speak Hungarian. We also did two nights of bar ministry, one day of handing out sandwiches to homeless and two nights in coffee shops with one of our team members performing.

Many of the younger generation speak English, but our first day we ran into very few that we were able to communicate with. Throughout the week had some great encounters and conversations. Half of these great conversations were with Hungarians and half with tourists.

Perhaps my favorite conversation was at the end of one of our bar ministry days. An English tourist joined me in conversation and I simply shared what we were doing. He asked "so you want to convert me?" To which I replied, "no, let's just have a normal conversation, if we happen to talk about God, great! Because I love talking about God!" This allowed us to have a great 15 minute conversation, mostly about God. :)

Simpla- one of Budapest's more famous bars and where we had bible study!  Why not?

This was the day that we took sandwiches to the homeless.  We met this man.
His name is Atilla and he asked for us to pray that his wife would deliver a healthy baby.
They had already lost the last 3 babies and all he wanted was a healthy baby.
We gave him a Hungarian bible and prayed whole heartedly!

Zsofi, an amazing Hungarian girl that loved joining in the ministry times.
If I ever have a daughter- I LOVE her name!

When people I meet ask what I'm doing, I tell them spreading love around the world. "We love because he first loved us." Knowing the love of my heavenly Father is one of the greatest joys. I'm just hoping to spread that so others can experience THAT.  Along the way there have been a couple of people who have prayed for salvation, a handful who have been healed through prayer and a thousand smiles shared.

Budapest was a very different experience from Guatemala, but so good in giving a greater picture of the world and different cultures.