Budapest Bulletin

Merrill and I have begun a new adventure. The purpose of this blog is to keep those of you who are interested in our journey updated. The adventure began on September 1, when we flew out of DFW headed to Frankfurt, Germany. We arrived in the early morning of September 2. After a 3 hour layover, we continued on to Budapest, Hungary. We were met by Andy and Phyllis Anderson, who set up and have operated the Budapest Christian Library for the past 5 years. They gave us a couple of days to recover from jet lag and get our living space organized. It is interesting to reduce our life to 4 suitcases and 2 storage units (we left those at home).

I can't decide if we have gone back to college and are living in a dorm room or more like newlyweds in our first apartment! The apartment is the library site and we have private quarters within the library. When the library is not open, we can use all of the space. As I look at the kitchen, there is much that reminds me of our first apartment in Iowa City, some 38 years ago. It has an 18 inch gas range, a small table with 2 chairs. The kitchen is furnished but certainly not to the extent of my kitchen at home. In some ways I feel like I am playing house! The kitchen does have a kind of 50's retro feel to it.

We have set hours for the library, and we are closed on Monday and Thursday. The hours vary but we don't open any earlier than 10 am and we are open until 6 pm some evenings. We are also closed on Sunday but there is a group that meets at the library for Bible study on Sunday afternoon. I am writing this on Saturday evening and we have finished our first two days of opening the library. It has been very interesting to meet the library patrons. We have several Americans who live in Budapest involved in missions or international business. Another patron, who is a student here, is from the Ivory Coast of Africa. There is a lot to learn about checking the books in and out but we have only scratched the surface of learning the ropes in that regard. The patrons who came in, were very welcoming and eager to help us get acquainted here in Budapest. The days that we don't have library hours, we will be busy getting acquainted with grocery shopping, keeping the library clean and learning how to get around in Budapest on public transportation. On the days that we have library hours, we have been taking a walk after we eat supper. On our free days, we seem to get a lot of walking.