On Friday I was to take a train to Hungary to meet the 3 Hungarian volunteers…well, I missed my train, and was pretty upset about it, but managed to find another train that would take me through Slovakia, and I would meet up with the Hungarian missionaries at a random train stop in the middle of SK. Or so I thought…as I’m on the train, by myself (a big accomplishment for me!), I get a text message on my cell phone from one of the girls: “MISSED TRAIN. NOT COMING. GIVE OUR LOVE TO TISOVEC.” Turns out, the girls had been kicked off their train for some unknown reason (welcome to Central Europe) and couldn’t make it to Tisovec anymore. BUMMER. So I got to fend for myself, making 2 train switches and riding in a one-car train to this little town in the middle of nowhere. FUN!! Thankfully, a super-nice guy named GABRIEL happened to sit in my train car and helped me switch trains, etc. (pretty angelic, eh??)

So I arrived to Tisovec and was greeted by the whole crew, including our Central Europe supervisor, Rick Blythe. On Saturday, we spent all day making our big thanksgiving meal…ALL FROM SCRATCH!! It was so fun. A 20-pound turkey (that had been alive just 24 hours before!!!), mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries, broccoli and carrots, 2 kinds of STUFFING!, homemade rolls, pumpkin pie and lemon merangue pie. We FEASTED away on this incredible meal, as we enjoyed our family in Christ. After dinner we gathered in a room and Rick (who is also a pastor) led us in worship…we sang great hymns, heard a great message, and were able to partake of Christ’s body and blood, together, in English, for the first time in awhile!

What makes this weekend so spectacular is how God places us all where we needed to be. Four of the volunteers (3 from Hungary and 1 from Poland) had to cancel at the last minute-and they all agreed that they had wonderful relationship-building opportunities in their respective towns, and God sort of ‘steered’ them back to those places to take advantage of those opportunities. Had I made my train and joined the Hungarian girls, I wouldn’t have been able to go to Tisovec…but I thank God that He knew that was JUST what I needed, was to be there…so His mysterious ways allowed me to go…it was especially good because one of the girls in Tisovec had recently experienced the deaths of people very close to her, so she and I were able to grieve together a little bit. Thank you, Lord!

So that’s my weekend…it may not seem very spectacular and, looking at the events, it really wasn’t all that EXCITING or anything…but it was an extremely SPECIAL weekend for me…the power and love and peace of God was quite evident this weekend, and it really renewed and refreshed me after such a tough week, with the death of my grandmother and not being home for Thanksgiving and such.