Tanya's here

So my brother's girlfriend arrived safely late Tuesday night (actually 12:30 am Wednesday morning) and will be here until June 2nd. She will really get a chance to see the best of Budapest and in between things, I get to join her. Tomorrow, we're going to Vienna for the day. Unfortunately, this week and next have been and will be packed with high school events, university student meetings and Nori's wedding next weekend. But Tanya has joined me at a few nights of English club so that's been great.

Last night on our way to English club, there was a Hungarian guy in his early 20's who was slouched in the corner directly across from me on the tram. When I say directly across I mean our knees were touching. He had tears rolling down from his eyes and his face was red from crying. He was directly across from me and hard to ignore. I started to ask God what to do because he was obviously distraught and I couldn't just leave him that way. Finally, he took out his earbuds where he was listening to music and looked up at me. I sort of smiled and asked him "Are you OK?" in Hungarian. He just shook his head, turned his eyes away and his eyes welled up with tears that came streaming down his face. Then he pulled out a ratted up tissue from his pocket and realized he couldn't use it anymore. Then he asked me for a tissue. I gave him tissue and tried to talk to him. He showed me his cell phone that was playing the song "Over the rainbow" That didn't make sense but he said some things in Hungarian that I couldn't really understand. I found out his name was Csaba and then the next stop was ours and I asked him if he wanted to come to English club with us and meet my friend Matt, thinking he could talk to some guys plus there would be Hungarians there who could interpret for us. Surprisingly, he said yes. He joined us and met the people there. Long story short, his mom had just died two days ago and he was obviously dealing with it. He stuck around for awhile then he had to go but Matt had a chance to talk to him and pray with him too. He told us thank you for caring and that our concern meant a lot to him.

Tanya and I talked about it later and we both had the same thought when we first saw him on the tram but different responses. We both thought that maybe he was getting over a girlfriend who broke up with him. Tanya's thought was "It's a girl. He'll get over it and find a new one." Mine was a bit more complicated. I thought "People in Hungary have killed themselves for lesser things. If it's a girl and if he's suicidal that is NOT GOOD. What can we do?"

Hungary used to have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Now, Lithuania tops the list. Last year two students (who were not in my classes but in the school where I taught) committed suicide. One of my students was writing suicidal things last year in his English essays. I pulled him aside after class once and asked him about it and tried to find out what was going on in his life. Basically, he was having family problems. I told him suicide was selfish, that he had a lot to live for and told him the story of my friend Susan who was a quadriplegic and still had a great outlook on life. That nothing is that bad and that just like the weather in Budapest, circumstances in life change, so he better stick around and see some of his better days! He turned things around last year but I just saw him last week when he came to English club. This was the first time in months. I noticed slits near his wrists and he's wearing all goth clothing.

Anyways, that rabbit trail is to say that suicide is still a major concern in this nation and it pisses me off. I get angry at the fact that young people are thinking about taking their life. I get angry because Jesus said in John 10:10 that the thief (the devil) comes to rob, kill and destroy. He's doing a dang good job with some of these kids -- robbing them of their future. Jesus also said in that same place that HE came to bring life and bring it more abundantly.

Well, I don't know if Csaba was suicidal but he was definitely depressed and distraught.Obviously no one can go to the depths of pain that happens in grief when you lose a loved one. I just hope Csaba has a good support system around him during this time. We extended friendship to him and perhaps at least lessened his grief for an hour. That has got to be tough to lose your parent. Like John Mayer sings in "Off This Train" -- don't want to see your parents go. If you think of Hungary and Hungarians though, please pray for this issue of suicide because it's very real and it sucks. There are more situations but I don't have time to go into details. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.