I’m Baaaaaaaaackkkkkkkkkkk 
I’ve returned from my whirlwind trip to Hungary!
What an adventure we had! The adventure started when we (I left Kyiv with friends who are also serving in Ukraine, the Brinkerhoff family-mother/father and two sons age 16 and 14) left Kyiv Sunday morning. After boarding the train and getting settled, the conductor came to our coupe’s to tell us that we were in the wrong car! So, we threw all of our belongings back in the bags, and trooped to the next car, unfortunately, our coupe had been already occupied, so the conductor said to just go to the next one! Oh, I felt as if I was on display as we marched (tried to march as the train was now in motion and traverserring through the different cars was difficult), through the train to find empty coupe’s we could call home for the next 27 hours.
Finally settling in, hot, sweaty (the temperature that day was in the 80’sF), unloaded our belongings and began to enjoy the ride to Hungary. 
The scenery was beautiful! What an amazing thing to watch the train go around the corner, bending itself in a curve. (see pictures)
We had a wonderful time enjoying the view from the train and fellowshipping together. As we passed through the Carpathian mountains, an electrical storm just beyond the mountains flashed off and on, just enough for us to catch a view of the mountains but not long enough to get our cameras ready. It was as if God was saying, “I did this just for you.” What an awesome God we have that He would do something like that just for me (us)!
After the mountains we entered the town of Chop (the “o” says its name) at about 2:00 in the morning. This is the border town between Ukraine and Hungary. During this time, the train is lifted up, and new wheels are put on. This is because the train tracks are different in each country, done so to prevent hijacking of trains (or so I am told). The time in Chop is also used for customs to come, inspect and stamp passports.
This is where the “fun” began. 
The customs patrol agent entered our compartment, asked for passports, and while examining them, asked the basic questions, “where are you from, where are you going, how long have you been in Ukraine, what country are you from” (this last one was directed at me), then as she flipped through our passports she said “you are expired for being in Ukraine. You will need to pay a fine.” I tried to explain to her why we were “expired” but she turned on her heels, left the train with our passports and was not to be seen again for another hour! When she did return she motioned to myself, and my friend’s husband that we needed to get off the train and pay our fines. Mind you, we were in our pajamas at this time, 
but we gladly did as we were told.
As we entered the customs office we were then told that we would not be able to leave with this train as it was behind schedule and needed to leave right away. We were to stay, pay our fine, and board the next train. At that moment I panicked, my friend’s wife and children were on that train and we were headed to a conference together!! I tried explaining all this to the customs agent; she was not impressed as to where we were going. She opened the rule book and raising her voice in an agitated manner, began to explain the law to us. She said, the children being minors; do not have to pay, but as adults, we were expected to follow the rules. I agreed but explained the situation one more time letting her know that my friend’s wife and one of the children had never traveled outside of Ukraine before. This time she said, “You have two minutes to retrieve all your belongings and leave this train!” She then marched us back to the train where I woke up my friend’s wife and children saying “we have two minutes, grab all your stuff and get off the train.” During this time, our oh so gracious customs official stood by and kept saying, “two minutes, two minutes. Hurry up, hurry up.” Not having time to change out of out our pajamas, we stuffed our belongings that had been unpacked, into whatever bag we could find, praying that we had retrieved everything. When we were done “stuffing” we were then escorted off the train past the rest of the passengers who of course were staring and muttering under their breath. This whole incident reminded me of what possibly transpired during the communist regime when people were taken off trains “suddenly and without explanation“.
Within ten minutes we had paid our fine and we could see traces of the train we had just exited, in the distance. I thought to myself, “If they could have just simply waited a few minutes, we would have gladly paid the fine and been back on our train sleeping happily.” But then I reminded myself that this is Ukraine, and nothing is done in such a manner as to be sensible or simple.
Well, we boarded our next train at about 5:30am, too sleepy to enjoy the sunrise, and arrived in Budapest a little behind schedule, but without further “excitement.” We grabbed a little breakfast, had some time to change our clothes and board another train that would take us to the conference center.
We arrived in Vajta at about 5:30pm; in the meantime the temperature had climbed to what seemed to be about 90F, our shirts hung limply on our backs, our brows covered with sweat. We were very thankful to have arrived, to be done with trains for the next week. We eagerly looked forward to a cool shower, eating and fellowship with other believers. But most of all we looked forward to our beds that wouldn’t be rocking with the motion of the train! That night I barely remember climbing onto the top bunk of my bed. My roommates, all from Serbia, were worried that the light or their talking would bother me. I assured them I would be fine, and to prove that, no sooner had I laid my head down on my pillow, than I was in dreamland!!!
The theme of the conference was “Keeping Yourself in the Love of God“, with our scripture taken from Jude 20, 21. Represented at the conference were about 600 people from about 11 different countries (Iceland, Moldova, Serbia, Croatia, USA, Ukraine, New Zealand, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria). Of those 600, half of them were nationals serving as missionaries either in their homeland or in another country. Some of them served in countries, like Croatia and Serbia, where they are persecuted for their faith, and are not allowed to share about the Lord on the streets. We heard many different missionary stories about faith and endurance during trials. During one of the worship times, we sang the song “I Love You Lord” each country singing together in their perspective language. Is this what Heaven will be like? Being able to understand each other without a translator? Oh how I long for Heaven!
The Lord blessed us tremendously with glorious sunny weather for the entire duration of the conference. And the conference was organized with just the right amount of teachings versus time to just relax and fellowship (most of our fellowship time was spent around the pool). I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a short hike to a sheep farm that is nearby the college/conference center. The sheep were very interesting to look at, (see picture of sheep in “my gallery”) but the journey there was not without trial as I became “lunch” to the swarms of mosquitoes that lived on the path to the sheep farm. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:25-26 “Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” I felt rather a bit like the apostle Paul as I literally beat myself to ward off, (to no avail), the hungry mosquitoes, that I might make the end goal, to see the sheep farm, and make it back to the conference center, without myself becoming a mosquito farm!
Oksana and I spent a little time together, catching up on each others lives over the past year and sharing our desires for the summer. I invited her to spend some time with me in Poltava, helping us out with our summer children’s festivals and filling in as a translator as needed. She has grown so much in the Lord over the past year and it was exciting to hear of all the ways the Lord blessed her, and how she learned to persevere during the battles. We rejoiced in the quality if not quantity time that we shared together.
As we parted on the last day of the conference, we knew that somehow we would see each other again this summer and we would keep each other in our prayers.
The train ride back to Budapest, and then on to Ukraine, thankfully went without trail (even though the border guards brought in their dogs to sniff in my friend’s 16 year old son’s coupe-you never know who might be smuggling in narcoticsJ ). And we arrived back to our perspective homes, tired, but filled His love and a new desire to share Him with others.
