Battle of the Bands

This morning the Florida team left Budapest. They will be back in Tallahassee by Sunday. I said good-bye late last night after "Battle of The Bands". It was a great way to end the week serving here as somewhere between 400-500 students came in and out.

Heres a clip from last year. You will see that I don't exaggerate when I say that some guys have longer hair than I DO! Yep. Unfortunately, the long hair metal look is still "in" around these parts of Europe by atleast half the male youth population who swear by Iron Maiden and Metallica. I want to say that maybe these young guys are impressed by the groups guitar solos and their ability to shake their heads around with hair flying everywhere but I've never listened close enough to know for sure.

Yet with 17 Hungarian high school bands competing for the grand prize of money as well as other giveaways, there was bound to be some long haired head shakers....and there were. It was a fun night as students won the grand prize, while others won door prizes and two students won the coveted I-pods.

Our Florida team worked with FEK (a Hungarian youth organization) all week to sponsor the event. FEK started the Battle of the Bands two years ago. Their hope, as is ours, is to encourage healthy student life through positive events like this where students can cultivate their gifts and talents musically or in other ways as well as present the message of Jesus. During the middle of the night a few students shared their journey of faith. The message of Jesus was shared and young people heard it, some for the first time.

A few of my former students came out for the event. Laci is a brilliant student.

His conversational English is incredible but he thinks I lie to him about it. My Hungarian teacher friend, Anett and I were talking to Laci at one point in the night and I told him his English is really good, but he said, "Oh, Miss Jen, you are not serious. You are just saying this to be kind. Either my English is really bad and you laugh about it behind my back or you are just being an American teacher by being nice." He would not receive my encouragement. My friend Anett said, "Well Laci, I am a teacher, I'm not American and I'm telling you your English is great!" He was a little embarrassed when he realized she was Hungarian and taught English....Then he started to believe me after that.

Here's another picture of some students who came to Battle of the Bands from the high schools we were in this week.


I hope to post more in the future. I thought it was a great week.