Reflections on my Hungarian Adventure

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).