i am staying at the blue dreams motel in debrecen, hungary. the keyboard i am typing on is crazy. for example, it has these keys: ö,ü,ó,á,é,í. the problem is that those keys are in places that the english keys should be. nem yo (not good). i have decided that i am not going to go in to a lot of detail about te trip until i get home and can spend some time processing everything. i will post a bunch of pictures so that you can get a better idea of what we did here.

this trip has been filled with all of the beauty, pain, poverty, hurt, and love that life can offer. i have taken roughly 700 pictures. some are really spectacular, some are difficult to look at, and some (like you saw) have pig heads.

i have learned how to count to 29 and can say various useless phrases in hungarian. all of the kids laugh at my pathetic attempt at linguistics. we have spent time in various gypsy villages, orphanages, towns, busses, cars, and shops. it is going to be hard to go home. i miss melissa and my family and friends but there is something wonderful about being here. the people have been extremelx gracious and loving. its weird being an american abroad sometimes. its like i feel the need to apologize for how our country often acts and is portrayed. it saddens me to see the infiltration of american media and culture in to this society. kids in the orphanages and schools listening to eminem. movies and american celebrities being idolized by kids just because they "represent" america. the hungarian and ukrainian cultures are incredibly rich and inspiring and its sad to think that they could one day be neutered completely by their attraction to all things american. i am not saying america is completely bad. its just that, the last thing the world needs as an american export is our pop culture and media.

i will talk more about the orphanages later but in short, they tore me a part. 3 year old babies weighing no more than 13 pounds, unable to sit up or speak. hopeless and desperate. the kids we stayed with at the ukrainian christian high school visit the orphanages once a month and we went with them. it was amazing to see these students love these children. they held them, kissed their dirty faces, wiped their running noses, cried with them, and loved them. it was horrific and beautiful all at the same time. it was almost too much to take in. the students reminded me of how jesus might have treated these kids, ignoring their smell and condition, and loving them for the simple reason that they needed to be loved. i had to take a walk for a bit and cry and process it all. something needs to be done and i hope that the video that i am making and the plans that we are creating can help make a difference.

these are a lot of my thoughts, sloppily typed, on a keyboard i cant understand. i will try to write more later and add some more pictures.

kösönöm.