On Sunday our team was really blessed to worship with the Budapest Deaf Church (see pic over on ee08). They came up to Vac to worship with our team and the Coppages in their flat. I was struck by a couple of things.
To me, most importantly, the prayer was so cool. Of course since they are signing, they look at the person praying. It is really cool to see how intently these believers watching the person praying, but the passion that I saw on the faces of the folks as they prayed was so cool as they looked up as though looking into the face of God (we will dispense with the discussion about needing to look up to God – as in a direction in space, just go with it here). Our good friend Doug interpreted for us and my soul was moved by these prayers…
Community. This band of believers are a close community and interact with joy and love. Their facial expressions (necessary to communicate well) are really blessed.
The last thing that I would mention here (there is a lot to mention but I can’t get it all on this post) is my understanding of how Deaf culture is, indeed its own culture. I don’t know that I can convey this in words yet… its like, they are so visual… and the Deaf don’t read like we do, so to be properly understood, they need to SEE the Scripture story signed. And they are SO careful to be sure they get the facts of the Scripture story straight before
Here is the system they use in understanding Scripture:
1. What are the facts of the text?
2. Dialogue about the text – “what does it mean?” (there are no lectures at Deaf church – there is conversation about the text and its meaning)
3. What does this teach us about God?
4. What does this teach us about us and how text impacts our life?
I am so encouraged by my experience with the Deaf church and I really hope to worship with them again.
So, yeah – this was an amazing experience…
Yesterday the kids went with Doug to a class he teaches at the Deaf school and then played with the kids at recess for an hour. Steve told me this morning that he was looking forward to recess with the kids again. I will have to leave that to another post.
Last evening we ate pizza with, sang with, and played a fun game with some fun kids from the youth group at Calvary Chapel here in Vac…
Its been a great time of connecting at many different levels with people. We are just about used to the time zone. The weather has been cloudy and cool (thanks be to God!) and today is sunny and much warmer but without the humidity our East Coast USA friends are suffering with. More later, perhaps from Budapest (Bp).
OH! HUGE news: for the first time since 2004, we got our luggage when we arrived!!!!!! Thanks be to GOD!
We are praying through the trip using a prayer guide on the ee08 blog, please join us by praying for us each day.
kingdom travelin' 
Foley- this sounds awesome! I’m so glad to hear that you all are doing well and that the Deaf ministry is still fulfulling God’s call. I miss everyone there so much and wish I was there with you! I cannot wait to read about how God is going to use EE08 to touch the lives of the Hungarians and Croatians. Keep up the good work of the Kingdom, Prime Minister! 🙂 Oh, and praise the Lord that all the luggage arrived! God is good. I’m praying for you all!
Praising God with you and enjoy laughing with Arden about the “blah, blah, blah” committee. Sweat is running down our backs here – Jon is running around in an hawaiian shirt, no shoes, and shorts – it’s so hot. However, we are glad that you are not.
We missed you at luncheon…. somehow, Smethurst and you – we just seem to miss having you there for those important events. There was a gift for you! I expect you’ll get it eventually…. blessings to Arden from her prayer warriors at the Bressans’.
I’m sure my comment will need “editing!.”