First of all, good answer Julie! :) I love it. I'll pass that along to Jonathan as soon as he gets home from the morning service. We were all given the option to stay home this morning and most of us took advantage of that, but he was up at 7am so he could go. He really does love it here. That's the part we're not joking about. And Pastor Tim has encouraged him that he needs some young help. Not THAT young, but young. He should probably finish school first. lol
Pastor Pete is concerned that some may get the impression that there's a lot of flirting going on. Let me clarify the humor in all of this. The gypsies are very flirtatious with us Americans. I've had to pull women away from my husband a number of times. We flash our rings and indicate WE'RE MARRIED. Everyone is being responsible in their behaviour, trying to remain friendly while being firmly understood. There's just a lot of teasing because certain gypsy individuals have gravitated to certain team members. In some cases, there's not too much argument, but we're all making a group effort not to ENCOURAGE this behaviour. In the slideshows we're doing today, we're specifically excluding pictures of gypsy girls with our guys, and visa versa, so they don't get any wrong ideas.
We had a beautiful day yesterday for the baptism. Martzihaz is a brand new church so they still meet in someone's home. This is the family's back yard. They set up a swimming pool and filled it with water by repeatedly carrying LARGE jars of water back and forth from the pump. Our guys helped with that and were QUITE worn out.
The ones in white are the people who got baptized.
Pastor Tim preached and Pastor Pete gave a few words of encouragement as well.
This little kid was PICTURE PERFECT sitting off to the side watching the service. The lighting was awesome, everything was just perfect, I couldn't have posed it better if I had tried.
Each person gave their testimony. Several of them cried, one wailed. It was very emotional for them.
Pastor Pete and Pastor Tim dunked them. The first time down, Pastor Pete hit his teeth on Pastor Tim's head. :) We're going to check Tim's head for teeth marks later. lol
I won't take the time to post each of the baptisms, but here's a couple more shots, chosen at random.
Afterwards, they greeted each other with kisses, hugs, and tears.
Each person was given a Bible and prayed for.
Tomorrow we leave here and head to Budapest for a day of tourism, including a boat ride down the Danube, I believe. We're all a little sad to leave. Tonight we'll be saying goodbye at the church services and for some of us, that will be the last time we see these people until heaven. I believe others will meet again, and maybe soon. :)
I may not be able to blog tomorrow...don't know if our hotel room in Budapest will have an internet connection. This may be the last post of the trip. If so, lots of love to everyone. We'll see you soon! I can't wait to hug my boys! I miss you SO much!
