I returned from Hungary nearly a month ago, so I’ve had more
time to reflect on my experience. I’m now settling into university classes, my
student teaching placement, and my new apartment. I have hardly, however,
forgotten Hungary and my family there. Last week, I received a post card from
Juju and Saci. With it came a flood of memories. Then, Saturday night, as I
watched friends cook in the kitchen, I experienced a sudden craving for palescinta, the Hungarian version of
pancakes or crepes. Whenever I wave goodbye and tell people, “see ya!” I
chuckle inside at the linguistic joke. They don’t know that I might have been
speaking Hungarian: szia. I’m fully
committed to being here at University because I know that this is where God has
me at this point in life. Nevertheless, I’m happy whenever I discover the
little pieces of Hungary I’ve brought back in my person. Travelling changes
people!
Below are some of the things I learned this summer:
·
I can learn languages!
Even though I was interested in languages, I used to
consider myself a linguistic failure. This summer, however, I realized that
with immersion, I can learn another language! It certainly took time, and my
Hungarian is nowhere near proficient, but I was able to grasp some basic
vocabulary and even a grammar rule or two.
I’m confident that if I were to spend another couple of years there, I
could gain proficiency. This development didn’t come from tutoring or studying;
it emerged as a result of living life and trying to communicate.
·
Flexibility is an asset
I can be pretty Type A, and this summer, my personality had
ample opportunity to conflict with reality. Plans and schedules have important
roles in the classroom, but in day-to-day family life, a lot more flexibility
is required. I would think that growing up with five younger siblings would
have prepared me, but living with another family in another culture is
stretching. I found that minor differences, which wouldn’t normally bother me,
could accumulate until I was unexplainably annoyed. More than once the girls
were victims of unnecessary lectures that were probably just an opportunity for
me vent. Nevertheless, I’m really thankful for the small differences that
sometimes frustrated me because they gave me an opportunity to grow. I’m sure I can further develop my
flexibility, but I think that my time in Hungary helped me become a little more
relaxed.
·
Hospitality and friendship know no bounds
I experienced some pretty incredible hospitality this
summer, not only from the family that I stayed with, but also from their
friends and extended family. I was amazed by how people I couldn’t even communicate
with would feed me, offer me comfy bed, and go out of their way to make me
comfortable. Towards the beginning of the summer, I tried to get involved in
church and the English club in Sopron. Even though they knew I would be leaving
in a few months, people invested in me as friend. Through this, I’m encouraged
to look for the foreigners around me. Do I extend the same hospitality to them?
Now that I realize how it feels to be the odd-man-out, I better understand the
significance of hospitality.
·
I’m a foreigner
Throughout the summer, I struggled with feeling disconnected
from people back home. I was surprised to find that I didn’t miss people as much
as I expected. In fact, I didn’t always enjoy keeping in contact with people or
even writing blog posts. I had this vague feeling that my family and friends
back home weren’t really real. That may sound strange (hopefully not
pathological), but I think that I was just absorbed with adjusting to my new
surroundings. There were, however, times when I did feel a great longing for
home, and Skype conversations, emails, and letters, sometimes served to remind
me that the people I loved really did exist; they were just far away.
This weekend, I was thinking about my relationship with God
and the fact that the spiritual world often seems unreal. There have been
moments when I’ve heard God’s voice or felt his presence, but most of time I’m
pressing on in faith because God seems distant enough to feel unreal. As I
thought about this, I was reminded of my time in Hungary. People don’t cease to
exist simply because we can’t see them. Letters and conversations can remind us
of their reality, and we live in faith of their continuing existence and the
hope that we’ll see them again face-to-face. Similarly, God doesn’t cease to
exist just because he feels far away. As a citizen of heaven, I’m a foreigner
on this Earth, but I can still communicate with God through letters and
conversation with His Spirit (which, at the risk of heresy, is kind of like
Skype). Sometimes God seems like a vague ideal, but that’s true for other
persons too. “For now we see only a reflection as in
a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know
fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).
