Budapest, Hungary

Budapest is a gorgeous city.  There are really no other words for it.  Unfortunately, we were not blessed with the best weather for it, very cold and lots of rain, but we still managed to have a good time!

Madison, Steph, and I decided to explore the city a bit, so we walked around and made the cross from "Pest" to "Buda" by walking across a huge bridge because each side of the river apparently has different names.  It was super fun to see all the gorgeous Hungarian architecture.

This weekend for Austria and Hungary, I traveled with a group of people I haven't traveled with yet, so I really enjoyed getting to know a lot of the students on the trip that I hadn't really gotten to know yet.  These girls are all about community and have a ton of fun together and don't mind just sitting in a restaurant or chilling in the hostel, enjoying each other's company.  A good amount of time was spent sitting at restaurants, talking and laughing about anything and everything.  I loved getting to know everyone in the 11 person group that came along this weekend and discovering how differently they travel.

It was Lissa's birthday, so we celebrated with lots of delicious dessert all day and an evening cruise on the Danube River, which was a lot of fun and gave us a beautiful view of the architecture of the city along the river at night; it looked unreal.

As beautiful as Budapest is and as fun as the city was to enjoy it, the highlight of the weekend was going to church.  We went to an English-speaking international Baptist church for an Easter morning church service, where we met missionaries, Bible school students, and teachers from the States and other parts of the world.  The service resembled a typical protestant service in the states, which ended up being such a blessing and moving many of us to tears because it had been so long since we've connected with God through a church service that we understand.  Here's an exert from my journal about it:

"It was such an incredibly powerful and moving experience... to finally get to see and draw close to God in a normal worship setting.  In Hungary.  The Holy Spirit was so evident there.  People who are loving Jesus stationed in Budapest by God's calling coming together to worship Him in the same way that we do at home is so encouraging.  Singing praises to God with other believers in a church setting after having not done so for so long... filled us all with the Spirit and brought me unexplainable joy for the remainder for the day that can only come from Christ.  As fitting for Easter, the sermon was a... salvation message, comparing it to Abraham in Genesis.  It was so refreshing to hear someone preach the gospel, an incredible reminder of Christ's sacrifice and God's love, and then to watch people come to Christ was beautiful.  God's work is being done and his story is being told in an eastern European city full of poverty and dry of religion.  Praising God with songs I know and surrounded by people truly living out God's calling was such a blessing.  God is so good and provided me with exactly what I needed this morning."