My teammate recently introduced me to the comedian Brian Regan. I found this clip especially funny since flying is a normal part of my life these days. Tomorrow I fly to Italy for a short visit with my friend Tracey. I hope that I don’t hear, “Ahh, somebody put our engine in upside down.” 
I found this info interesting.
Excerpts from Budapest Times and Budapest Sun Articles:
Fewer than half of Hungarians are satisfied with their lives, compared to an EU average of 77 per cent, Eurobarometer’s latest survey reveals. Compared to the figures from six months earlier, views of the current situation in Hungary have worsened, leaving only the Bulgarians more pessimistic within the EU.
Nor can Hungarians be described as overly optimistic concerning the near future: just 18 percent of those canvassed anticipated that their life would improve within the coming year, and 39 per cent expected things to get worse. The majority of respondents mentioned unemployment and economic difficulties as the main challenges facing the country. Just eight per cent of those questioned thought it was likely that the latter would improve in the next twelve months. The question of managing inflation came top of the list, but a quarter of respondents also listed healthcare among the problems which need immediate attention
The shapers of Hungarian economic policy are in a particularly awkward situation today. In terms of inflation, the country has once again succeeded in standing out in Europe.
Worldwide it is one of the priorities of economic policy to drive away the ghost of inflation. The threat is particularly great at the moment. In addition to energy prices, the prices of agricultural products are also rising significantly. Unfortunately, products affected by the rise in prices include those on which the less well-off households spend the most money – energy and foodstuffs.
The rising energy and food prices have a stronger effect on the general price level in Hungary than in the majority of the EU countries. This inevitably leads to social tensions, which makes it difficult to curb domestic consumption. In such a complex situation it is very difficult for the Hungarian government to draw up a correct monetary policy.
Hungarian currency continues to set highs against euro and dollar. The forint continued its remarkable rise against the dollar and the euro, reaching a several-year high of 143.80 against the American currency in the early New York session on Monday (July 21). The forint has gained 10% against the euro this year, and 17% against the dollar.
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book’s FIRST chapter!
I never received the first book in this series when FIRST blogged about it back in February, but the author did a great job of laying a foundation so I could figure out the characters relatively easily. While I didn’t personally connect with the characters, I thought both the story and the characters were well developed and that the plot vividly underscored how someone can easily deceive themselves, one little justification at a time. You can read more about the book, including the first chapter below. You can go back and read the first chapter of the first book in the Sisters, Ink series here. (It’s still at my old blog site - I still haven’t moved my previous posts).
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today’s Wild Card author is:
and her book:
B&H Fiction (July 1, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rebeca Seitz is Founder and President of Glass Road Public Relations. An author for several years, Prints Charming being her first novel. Sister’s Ink was the first book in the SISTERS, INK series of novels. (At the center of the creativity and humor are four unlikely young adult sisters, each separately adopted during early childhood into the loving home of Marilyn and Jack Sinclair.)
Rebeca cut her publicity teeth as the first dedicated publicist for the fiction division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 2005, Rebeca resigned from WestBow and opened the doors of GRPR, the only publicity firm of its kind in the country dedicated solely to representing novelists writing from a Christian worldview.
Rebeca makes her home in Kentucky with her husband, Charles, and their son, Anderson.
Visit the author’s website.
Product Details: List Price: $14.99 * Paperback: 320 pages * Publisher: B&H Fiction (July 1, 2008) * ISBN-10: 0805446915 * ISBN-13: 978-0805446913
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Chapter One
“I mean it, Harry,” Kendra Sinclair let a bit of her fright and frustration leak into her tone.
Harry’s chuckle mocked. “You know you don’t. Come on, everybody has to eat.”
“Like I said, I’ve already eaten.” And I don’t need this kind of complication right now, even if I want it.
“Dessert, then, Kendra. You don’t want to end the day without dessert, do you?”
Yes, she did. No, she didn’t. Well, yeah, she did. She should. The sigh was out before she could stop it.
“I heard that. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“But—”
“See you soon.”
Kendra slammed the phone down and stared at it, waiting for it to jump up and bite her. It might as well have, for all the craziness it had brought her life in the past two months.
Okay, six months.
But there was that two month lull, so really, four months altogether.
“Imparticular man,” she muttered, pacing away from the phone and back. Her purple toenails gave a nice contrast as her feet sank into plush carpet the color of a pure snow drift.
Read the rest of chapter one here.
Today was the last day of baseball camp. The time went well. Jamie shared about the three most important things in his life: Jesus, his family and baseball.
There will be ongoing baseball events with the teens and adults and if there is enough interest there will be ongoing training with the kids as well. It was a great weekend and a valuable relationship building tool. Thanks for praying.
I added today’s pictures to my Flickr site baseball camp set here.
August is traditionally the Hungarian month of vacation. Our foundation has no formal outreaches planned, but we will still be busy, as always. :) My church is holding street outreaches until the 10th and has an evangelistic concert this coming Sunday. Would you be in prayer for these events?
Tomorrow, a new member on the PI Area Resource Team (located here in Hungary) will be arriving. Cherry will be teaching at the International Christian School and she is buying my Ford which is an answer to prayer! She starts teaching this coming Thursday so please pray for her to have a smooth and quick transition to life in Hungary.
Thank you for your faithful prayers for our summer events and outreaches. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to exalt the name of Jesus in this nation.
On Sunday the sermon was about total surrender and the fact that God accepts nothing else. On Wednesday the message was about brokenness. Are we broken over the lost? Do we see the people through God’s eyes? And my own reflection: how does that passion, that vision, that brokenness motivate me to action?
So often I am convicted and compelled onward in my walk with the Lord when I am again reminded that I do not love the way that He loves. His love is complete and compelling. His love led to the cross.
This week I heard a song on the Internet radio which I immediately went and downloaded. It has been playing over and over again in my head.
Give me your eyes for just one second,
Give me your eyes so I can see,
Everything that I keep missing,
Give me your love for humanity.
Give me your arms for the brokenhearted,
The ones who are far beyond my reach,
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten,
Give me your eyes so I can see…
Baseball camp was off to a good start today. Nobody got hurt. It was hot, but there was a breeze and it didn’t rain.
Please continue to pray for us - for safety, good weather and for relationships to develop where we can share about our love for our Savior.
You can take a look at today’s pictures at my Flickr site here.
It is August FIRST, time for the FIRST Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and his/her latest book’s FIRST chapter!
Today’s feature author is:
and her book:
NavPress Publishing Group (July 15, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lisa Samson is the author of twenty books, including the Christy Award-winning Songbird. Apples of Gold was her first novel for teens
These days, she’s working on Quaker Summer, volunteering at Kentucky Refugee Ministries, raising children and trying to be supportive of a husband in seminary. (Trying . . . some days she’s downright awful. It’s a good thing he’s such a fabulous cook!) She can tell you one thing, it’s never dull around there.
Other Novels by Lisa: Hollywood Nobody, Finding Hollywood Nobody, Straight Up, Club Sandwich, Songbird, Tiger Lillie, The Church Ladies, Women’s Intuition: A Novel, Songbird, The Living End
Visit her at her website.
Product Details * List Price: $12.99 * Paperback: 195 pages * Publisher: NavPress Publishing Group (July 15, 2008) * Language: English * ISBN-10: 1600062210 * ISBN-13: 978-1600062216
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Monday, April 30, 6:00 a.m.
My eyes open. Yes, yes, yes. The greatest man in the entire world is brewing coffee right here in the TrailMama.
“Dad.”
“Morning, Scotty. The big day.”
“Yep.”
“And this time, you won’t have to drive.”
I throw back the covers on my loft bed and slip down to the dinette of our RV. My dad sleeps on the dinette bed. He’s usually got it turned back into our kitchen table by 5:00 a.m. What can I say? The guy may be just as much in love with cheese as I am, but honestly? Our body clocks are about as different as Liam Neeson and Seth Green.
You know what I mean?
And we have lots of differences.
For one, he’s totally a nonfiction person and I’m fiction all the way. For two, he has no fashion sense whatsoever. And for three, he has way more hope for people at the outset than I do. Man, do I have a lot to learn on that front.
He hands me a mug and I sip the dark liquid. I was roasting coffee beans for a while there, but Dad took the mantle upon himself and he does a better job.
Starbucks Schmarbucks.
He hands me another mug and I head to the back of the TrailMama to wake up Charley. My grandmother looks so sweet in the morning, her frosted, silver-blonde hair fanned out on the pillow. You know, she could pass for an aging mermaid. A really short one, true.
I wave the mug as close as I can to her nose without fear of her rearing up, knocking the mug and burning her face. “Charley . . .” I singsong. “Time to get a move on. Time to get back on the road.”
And boy is this a switch!
All I can say is, your life can be going one way for years and years and then, snap-snap-snap-in-a-Z, it looks like it had major plastic surgery.
Only in reverse. Imagine life just getting more and more real. I like it.
Charley opens her eyes. “Hey, baby. You brought me coffee. You get groovier every day.”
She’s a hippie. What can I say?
And she started drinking coffee again when I ran away last fall in Texas. I mean, I didn’t really run away. I went somewhere with a perfectly good reason for not telling anyone, and I was planning to return as soon as my mission was done.
She scootches up to a sitting position, hair still in a cloud, takes the mug and, with that dazzling smile still on her face (think Kate Hudson) sips the coffee. She sighs.
“I know,” I say. “How did we make it so long without him?”
“Now that he’s with us, I don’t know. But somehow we did, didn’t we, baby? It may not have always been graceful and smooth, but we made it together.”
I rub her shoulder. “Yeah. I guess you could say we pretty much did.”
The engine hums its movin’-on song. “Dad’s ready to pull out. Let’s hit it.”
“Scotland, here we come.”
Scotland? Well, sort of.
Read the rest of Chapter One here.
Tomorrow, Friday August 1st, Baseball Camp begins.
Please pray specifically for:
Jamie - as he leads this camp and shares both his love of baseball and his love of our Savior.
The weather to be good.
The time to be safe and well attended.
This bomb was found not far from where I used to live in the 9th district. The closure of streets and bridges added more than two hours to my commute today. They weren’t expecting the removal to be finished this evening, but I haven’t heard the news on the status. Here’s the story courtesy of the Budapest Times.
Tuesday, July 29th
By midday around three-quarters of Budapest’s 9th district residents had been evacuated due the disposal operation of a huge WWII bomb, a senior Budapest police official told MTI.
The bomb is reported to be encased in concrete and bomb disposal officers were engaged in the delicate task of chipping away at the concrete to get at the bomb. Explosives experts expect to take the bomb to a safe site away from the city later on Tuesday, Defense Minister Imre Szekeres told reporters while visiting the site. The bomb, estimated to weigh around two tonnes, was found at a construction site at the corner of Toth Kalman and Vaskapu streets on the Pest side of the river Danube on Monday evening. It is reckoned to be the biggest such find in Hungary’s post-war history. About 500 police officers, disaster management and civil defence staff started evacuating a part of Budapest’s 9th district shortly before 0900 hours.
Around 16,000 residents were informed about routes to leave the area through loudspeakers.
In June a teammate introduced me to the music of David Wilcox. Being that I love folk music and acoustic guitar I have a hard time believing I went so long not knowing of his songs. So I’ve been listening to some of his music and contemplating all of the truth that I find there. I love thoughtful lyrics. Poetry and the struggles common to man, reflected in song, always impact me more than just concepts on their own. So I thought I would share some of my thoughts with you, in case you, like me, had no idea that these amazing songs existed.
Some of the songs I have been listening to:
Start with the Ending (Live: Stories and Songs) - A song about honesty and truth in relationships
Listen to Excerpt at Amazon (Right-click and select “Open in New Tab” or you will be directed away from this page.)
Perfect Storm (Airstream) - This song compares hiding and living. Embracing the changes, the challenges and the storm’s of life is a reflection of part of what it means to really be alive.
Lightning cracks the darkness
And for a moment I can see
It’s just a spark to start with
But I follow where it leadsI can’t spend my whole life hiding
Where no soul could ever thrive
I can’t live with just surviving
My heart wants to feel aliveLife is change and change looks frightening
Watch that wind, I’ve been warned
But I live to feel this lighting
in this perfect storm
Show the Way (Live: Stories and Songs) - A song about how light shines more brightly when it comes through darkness, this song talks about life as a play where darkness is “cast around us” but Love wrote the script to show itself bigger, more powerful and stronger than darkness and hate. As a Christian I can relate to this song in many ways. I believe that our lives are lived by choice, not only by a heavenly script (though I think God has an unthwartable plan). I also believe from the Scripture that God’s plan includes this world being a testimony of His character in the heavenly realms, in the way we might watch a play unfold, as in the book of Job. Darkness was cast into Job’s life to demonstrate the glory of God in the heavenly realms. Our lives also are a testimony to our hero, our Savior, who arrives just at the right time and in our darkest hour brings glory to Himself demostrating all that is good and right and true.
Two Roads Diverge and Hold It Up to the Light (Live: Stories and Songs) - This intro and song focuses on life decisions, how we choose and how we must trust the guidance that we are given all along the way. There are some powerful thoughts about indecision, choice, fear and trust.
That’s What the Lonely is For (Live: Stories and Songs) - A thought provoking rendition that reminds me of the oft-used quote about how we have a God-shaped vacuum inside that can only be filled by God Himself. This song speaks of loneliness as a sign, a symptom of something that we were made for that is missing in our lives and how we must “follow” - we must act to seek out what is missing. (The intro to this song, called “Metaphorical Reasons” laid a lot of the foundation for the metaphors found in the song).
Get On (Vista) - Another song about indecision. (Think it might be something that I struggle with in life?) This song specifically speaks of trying to make a choice between the desire of the heart and the hesitation of the mind about said choice.
It’s sure to take its toll on me
My heart and mind will not agree
There’s something in this mystery that calls me
from beyond this blue
Right now I only wish I knew
Where all of this is leading to…And my heart says, come on let’s go
And my mind’s saying I don’t know
And the train is at the station
But I’m lost in contemplation
And this ticket’s only good for just so long
I can think about it ’til that train is gone
or just get on
Hard Part (Vista) - This song is about being known - not just the easy parts but the hard things too. I’m sure it was meant about a romantic relationship but I can’t help hearing the voice of God in it every time I listen to the words, “I’m strong enough to take it and I know what you’ve been through - You’ve got a whole heart, give me the hard part, I can love that too.”
Are you a David Wilcox fan? Have a song you would recommend I listen to? Leave a comment about it.
