High school students this past week....

I haven't had a lot of time to blog about last week but one thing is for sure. Our high school programs went great!

Yesterday in staff meeting we talked about increasing our involvement on the high school campuses, as we have wide open doors to be there.



Hungarian teens are "normal" in the sense that they can identify things in pop-culture. MTV is big over here with like 5 channels of options so they hear and see what American teens listen to like - Beyonce, Kanye West, Sugarbabies, Brittany Spears, etc. But Hungarian teens are different in many ways too. In some ways they have matured faster than American kids. In other ways, they are pre-teen in their thinking. Although they have been impacted by Western pop-culture, they are still living at a poverty level and thinking in terms of a mixture of western culture and former communist influences. Most teens just say "I want to go to America with you." But that is not the answer. I know poverty is relative if you are to talk about some other places in the world, but more than material poverty these kids are starved for love and attention. Most of their parents work two or three jobs just to make about $1,000 a month. This means lots of teens are home alone or neglected.

Natasha, was one of the students who followed us and met up with us twice outside of the classroom. She's a brilliant but timid girl whose English is great and is starving for love and time. She was curious about everything we were doing. So cute! She was literally on my heels the entire time when she came over to my flat as we were setting things up for the girls university night. So cute! Her mom called around 6pm and she had to go.


One of the schools we were in actually has a high school dorm where students live in the dorm and just go home on some weekends. You can see it in their eyes, it's a tough way to live. They miss home. I don't blame them.



Actually, we made a great connection at this school and it looks like I'll be going back as it's a girls dorm. Their English was probably the worst of all the schools we went to, but hopefully with my Hungarian and their English we can understand each other. Hopefully we can bring some great things to their high school campus. Of course, our heart's desire is also to see these young people come to a place of trusting Christ with their life and future. This is the best thing we could ever give them. Yet, in the process we will love on them, bring them hope and encouragement and help them practice their English!