His love changes us . . . doesn't matter where you come from

 I haven't written too much about my faith yet in this blog, but today I am going to. 

Three years ago I became a Christian and since that time God has been changing me drastically. One of the marks of this change is praise. I cannot help but to sing praises to Him. Seriously, the first six months after becoming a Christian, I would do this run/skip/dance/hop thingy home from wherever I was coming from and I'd be singing at the top of my lungs. I didn't care who heard me. I looked like a complete fool, BUT It didn't matter. GOD SAVED MY LIFE AND HE LOVED(S) ME!  That was three years ago, and I'm still singing.

In the United States, I've seen this same response to the acceptance of God's love over and over. When people are hit by it, they are changed, and their response is praise. Usually I see some tears first, but after that it's praise. . . Singing or dancing or something.

Overtime, I have met some other Christians here in Hungary. I've watched them too, and it's the SAME thing. They are singing for joy because the GOD of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE saved their lives and loves them. They don't need to tell me why they are praising God. I can tell they are thankful for what He did in their lives.

Somehow this observation has been teaching me that God really is the same God everywhere in the world. It deepens my faith in Him. It doesn't matter what a persons background is, what color their skin, what country they are from; He loves them and that love changes them.I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes thinking about how awesome it is to watch people here sing praise to Jesus for what He has done in their lives, and to think that ALL OVER THE WHOLE WORLD people are doing the same thing. It's really all you can do when you're overcome by His love. You gotta sing or shout or cry or dance or do all four! (I did all four- yup all at the same time too- kind of awkward looking)

Seriously though, His love is the same wherever you go and it elicits the same response. . .  To me, that is a beautiful thing.


Anyway, this is what's on my heart right now. .  


Christmas is coming. . .

I wanna wish you a love-filled Christmas and Happy New Year!


LOVE <3

Anna

Cultural Mishaps & General Tomfoolery . . .

Hello :-)

I know, I know, I haven’t updated this in forever! Partially because I don’t have internet in my flat, partially because I am busy teaching and things, and partially because I am lazy . . . sorry!

 Anyway, I wanted to share some interesting stories with you. . .

1.      I will call this story "The Yellow house"

This house has gotten me into A LOT of trouble recently!  I live in a flat inside of this house. I might be scared to put a picture of my house on the internet, but I don’t even know the address myself, so if some creepy person figures it out maybe they can let me know what it is! 

Anyway, so yellow house in Hungarian is “Sarga Haz” Sarga meaning “yellow” and “Haz” meaning house. All I know about my address is that I live in the Sarga haz next to a school. Sooo, on Friday my friend and I wanted to order a pizza. Problem being I don’t know my address.  It’s a small town though, and the pizza guy probably would recognize the place if we described it. I tell my friend, who speaks Hungarian, that we will tell the pizza guy that we don’t know the address, but we live in the sarga haz next to the school. He would totally know where that is. . .  She starts laughing really hard, and I am sitting their clueless as to why this statement is worth any more than a little chuckle.

She explains that sarga haz has two meanings in Hungarian . . . Yes, it does mean yellow house, BUT it also means mental institution. From what I understand, mental institutions used to all be painted yellow, so this is still the name given to them.  Therefore, we were about to tell the pizza guy that we lived in a mental institution, which he would probably believe since we don’t even know our own address. . .Picture this conversation:  Pizza guy: “Okay, what is your address?”  Me: “Uhhhh… I have no idea, but I live in the mental institution.”   I really needed a pizza, so we ordered one even though we didn't figure out the address.

Here’s the real embarrassing part. . . People in other towns in Hungary have asked me where I live before this eye opening conversation on Friday. I give the same answer, “ I don’t know, it’s the big sarga haz.”  They laugh, but NO ONE has ever explained it to me. . . .  

Sooo, I didn’t expect this story to take up an entire page, so I won't share my other stories right now. . . DON’T worry there will be more embarrassing stories to come in the near future!

LOTS OF LOVE <3

Anna