Happy lives

Last summer we took a trip to a village in the south of Hungary to perform in the local Cultural Center, with our puppet theatre and our clown act. In the evening we stayed in a building that was partly a day-care center. It was really hot and we didn’t have fans or air conditioniting. Jeannette, one of the teen girls was complaining about the heat and she said we would all die. Danci told her "we will all die someday” and I said "Yes, but some of us would have lead happier lives…”
I wasn’t trying to be profound or poetic, I just thought of bringing a little humor into the conversation. But I thought about it a lot ever since, how we all will be gone one day and all that matters, more than accomplishments and climbing the ladder of success, is to lead happy lives—by following our dreams, wherever they might lead us. If we all have a mission, and we do, then it’s our duty to find out what that mission is and find the road that will lead us to the destination that we were meant to reach. And of course, everyone has a different mission, but I think that love is meant to be present in everyone’s journey and love will be our binding link and help us to find the happiness we seek .

Letter from Anita

Anita is 17. She lives in Spain, where I lived a few years ago. With her family she goes down to Sahara every year to visit the refugee camps and bring humanitarian aid. This is an excerpt of the letter she sent me

Every year it gets better. It´s so amazing! It makes you look forward to your next trip with excitement, knowing you will encounter many wonderful opportunities, open doors, miracles that the Lord does and so much more.
Sahara really is a magical place, and the people are even more so. I admire each and every one of them for their love, spirit of giving, endurance, positiveness, faith, and sacrifice.The people there are an incredible sample, to all who visit them. Everyone who arrives at the refugee camps just wants to go back; they need to go back. I think it is because they come in contact with something that you cannot find too easily: pure love. These people are blessed by God. You can feel it! Their spirit, the way the live and interact with each other. Sometimes you feel like you just cannot get enough of them. They carry so much peace. It is wonderful to be around them.
I feel very blessed to have met the people from the refugee camps in Sahara and to be able to go on these trips. Even though I would have loved to stay there longer, I am very thankful for the time that I spent there. I really enjoy doing clown shows for the children. Seeing them happy and laugh is a wonderful experience. Your heart goes out to them and you feel like doing more and giving more & more to them, because they really do deserve it. I am glad that we were able to do all the shows that we did. All the schools we went to really enjoyed it and asked us to come back next year.
Singing at the cultural program that was taking place in "February 27th Refugee Camp" was something unexpected and exciting for us, as well as performing with a Saharaui group, which made me feel closer to them. It was amazing how the Lord led us to sing on TV, five songs that touch touched people`s lives. Those five songs that were about love, freedom and happiness! It was incredible to see how each of those songs really applied to them. It was wonderful to see how the Lord really does have everything under control, even though sometimes we don’t see it that way.
Now I am here, back in Spain, and all I wish for is to go back--back to those people I am now in love with, or perhaps is God´s love through me. I will be patient and wait for next year, trusting and knowing that even though I left them for some time, God didn’t, and He never will. He loves them and will always provide for their needs and be by their side, whatever may happen. He will never turn His back on them and knowing that calms my spirit, knowing that, as hard as it may sound, He does love them even more than I do, and they are in the best care in the world.
So now, all I can do is pray for them and trust God, and wait for the day that I can return and live with them 3 weeks. All we can do now is continue to trust God, and to give love away so that He can in return refill us with His new and pure love, so that we can once again give it to His children that need it.
Viva Sahara libre!!!!




Anita dressed in the traditional attire

Counting blessings...

On the 10th this month I turned 29. I wrote a list of things I am thankful for.

-Having the Lord is the biggest blessing ever. Knowing He loves me, knowing he sees far ahead into the future and that nothing escapes his knowledge and that He is there for me, is more than enough.

-Being in Hungary—because I love it here. I am glad I live in a country where I like the people, the weather, the landscape, the food, the language, the traditions, and the mentality. It’s a privilege to be here!

-I am thankful for my family—their support, their prayers and their love.

-My life would be a desert instead of the garden it is if it wasn’t for my friends. I am eternally grateful for each and everyone of them.

-I am thankful that my life has been very interesting, that I traveled all around, that I have friends everywhere, that I speak three languages...I am thankful that my heart keeps young and bubbly and that inside I am 17 going on 16 :)

-I am thankful for the life I lead—for the kids that surround me, for the experiences I go thru’, and I am so grateful for the project in Deva—I love Hungary because of it! The children there changed my life!

Mr. Brown

A few years ago, one of my good friends Paula and I watched a movie on our day off. It’s called "Mrs. Brown" and it’s about Queen Victoria and the relationship she had with her bodyguard after her husband, Albert, passed away. It wasn’t a blockbuster movie or anything, and although the acting was good and the story line sweet, I doubt many people have seen it.
Paula and I at the time lived with a family of 5 children, and both parents were full time counselors for our volunteer organization. It was sometimes a job without much excitement, just taking care of the kids, and making sure they did their homework, went to bed on time, brushed their teeth, and ate their veggies. I remember Paula always kept in mind that we were helping the parents to do their job, by taking care of the little menial tasks.
In the movie, Queen Victoria’s bodyguard, Mr. Brown, commits his life to serving the Queen and does it with passion.
We wanted to be like Mr. Brown and in our case our "Victoria” were the kids--we wanted to dedicate our time and energy into them and do it professionally.
Ever since that has been our motto, along with another girl who eventually took our place, when Paula got married and I went to help another family. That is pretty much the motto we want to live by, in any thing we do. If there’s anything that is our "Victoria” then we should be willing to be Mr. Brown. If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing all the way.

Zita

I met Zita in February—we were showing our project brochure to different companies and we went into the shop where she works, and that’s how we met.
We talked a little, and we explained the work we do, and the visits to the hospitals and summer camps for the orphans in Transylvania, and she was very interested in coming along.
We took her to the hospital in one of our visits and she loved it! She dressed up as a clown and talked to the children and helped me translate for the little ones.
Zita also will come with us this summer to the English Camp we are organizing. And we are very happy to have her come with us, because she has a good way with children and has a cheerful and sunny personality—and the best thing is that she is teaching me Hungarian.
Zita reminds me of what Mother Teresa wisely said “We don’t need to do big things, just little things with a lot of love”

Teaching to fish

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that goes “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat everyday”—in our line of work is very important to keep that principle in mind.
It’s all very nice and helpful to bring clothes, shoes, and food to the institutions we help, because there is a need and we have a way to meet that need. But that’s not all we do. By teaching children English, we give them the opportunity to expand their horizons—and yet that’s not the whole purpose of our ministry either.
Perhaps what we are really after, is to inspire the children to want more from life. To take the little they are given and build from that, to create a brighter future.
I have great hopes for some of this young people I’ve met in the different events we’ve organized. All they need is a little encouragement and someone to believe in them. Someone to teach them to fish. That’s what I am in Hungary for and doing the work I do, and I love it!



Children from a "Mother's Home" in Csepel, Budapest

Looking at Stars

I met a guy recently who has great expectations and wants his life to mean something—he wants to change the world and make it a better place. But he told me that he looks around and gets discouraged, it seems the good one does goes to waste. Our society is such that people put great importance in getting things for themselves, and more and more people are losing the touch and all attempts to change the world are futile.
I understand and agree that it’s not easy to always be unselfish, caring, and giving, especially when such efforts are met with ungratefulness, misunderstanding and sometimes even rejection.
I heard a story when I was in my teen years that has always been an inspiration to me.

The story is told of how a young bride from the East who, during the pioneering days, followed her husband to an army camp on the edge of a desert in California. Living conditions were primitive at best. He had advised against her moving there, but she wanted to be with him.
The only housing they could find was a run-down shack near an Indian village. The heat was unbearable in the daytime, the wind blew constantly, spreading dust and sand on everything in the house. The days were long and boring because her only neighbors were the Indians, none of whom spoke English.
When her husband was ordered farther into the desert for two weeks, loneliness and the wretched living conditions got the best of her. She wrote to her mother that she was coming home—she just couldn’t take it any more. In a short time, she received a reply that included these two lines:
Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw mud, the other saw stars.

She read the lines over and over and began to feel ashamed of herself. She finally decided to she would look for the stars.
In the days that followed, she set out to make friend with the Indians. She asked them to teach her weaving and pottery. At first, they were distant; but as soon as they sensed that her interest was genuine, they returned her friendship. She became fascinated with their culture, history—everything about them.
She began to study the desert as well; and soon it, too, changed from a desolate, forbidding place to a marvelous thing of beauty. She had her mother send her books and studied the vegetation in the desert—Later, she became such an expert that she wrote a book about it.
The desert didn’t change. The Indians didn’t change. Simply by changing her own attitude she had transformed a miserable experience into a highly rewarding one.

How easy it is to focus on the problems around it, on the lack of progress, on the impossibilities—and yet if we were to look for the stars in our sky, we will realize how vast the universe actually is.
I made a resolution in my life to always look for the stars—and the darker the night, the brighter they shine. The stars are out there, the mud too as far as I know, but let’s focus on the stars—it is after all the better alternative.