Hello all, I got back from Hungary on July 24th, almost two weeks ago! I have finally gotten organized and have some (ok, a lot) of pictures to show you. I'll just pick out the best ones, though, because I really do have too many. For those of you who don't really know or have forgotten, I was on a missions trip from July 1st to July 24th is Hungary and Serbia. In Hungary we stayed at Michelle's house. (Our leader) Her husband was in Canada because he was sick. At Michelle's house we learned the choreography and American sign language to 7 songs. Then we went an English camp in Debrecen for 5 days, returned to Budapest and did some street ministry, then went to Serbia for 4 days. (These pictures all all varying sizes, some are big some are small) I went with my friend Cheri. On our two plane rides there we had a lot of fun and took lots of pictures... 
Michelle picked us up at the airport and took us to her house where we met the rest of the team. Please meet our leader, Michelle, who is a missionary with her husband in Hungary... Molly, just turned 18, who lives in Chicago... 
Cheri, 17, my friend who is an MK in Ukraine and lives near me... 
Mya, 19. She was born in Serbia but has lived in Hungary since she was 11... 
Trudy Ann, our cook, who lives in Canada... 
And, (Suprise!!) Me! 
The first 6 days, July 1st to 7th, we stayed at Michelle's house learning the signs and choreography to all 7 songs. We worked hard...10 hours a day! But we are now buff pros. Because we were being so active and using so much energy we ate every few hours. This is the middle of the first sweaty day... 
For one of our songs ("Let It Out" by Zoe Girl) Mya, Cheri and I did a Turkish scarf dance while Molly and Michelle signed in front of us. 
We had many, many hours of practice...    
On the 6th day Michelle had a friend come over and we went outside and taped 6 of our songs.  
Later that day we did our first performance! We performed "What If," our easiest and most conservative song, in a church. 
Check out these costumes...   
The second week we went by two buses, a tram and a train to Debrecen, a city about 4 hours away from Budapest.  
That night we performed one song so advertise the workshop we would be doing.  We did a workshop everyday for 2 hours, teaching a few of the choruses from our songs.  
We did a full performance on the second night there. Everyone seemed to like it, we got lots of applause!   
During our workshop time we also made necklaces (here we are making the fobs for them) 
And gave manicures. Lots and lots of manicures. 
The necklaces had the "I love you" sign on them. Everything we did in the workshop had to do with hands. The camp was really pretty...   
Molly and I shared a room with one other roommate and Molly and Mya shared a room with 8 other roomies! 
By the end of camp (we were there for 5 days) we had made lots of friends and it was sad to say goodbye. 
A Hungarian/England couple we were neighbors with. 
Andrew, an MK in Germany who just moved back to the States.  
When we got home we had three days before we left for Serbia. Two of those days we worked with YWAM in the city with one day inbetween to just relax and pack for Serbia. We went to the Metro... 
Set up infront of a store in a walking area...  And danced for 4 hours with talking inbetween. Each of us had a talk about one of the songs we performed. Terry, the man we worked with talked and we also had breaks where we just went out and talked to people in the crowd, handling them invitations to a coffee shop run by WYAM. 
On Thursday we left for Serbia. It was so hard travelling on public transportation to Debrecen so we packed much lighter for Serbia! On the 7 hour train ride we ran out of water about 4 hours into the ride. It was really bad because inside the train was incredible hot so we were sweating a lot and we got dehydrated very fast. But we survived and still practiced...  
Mya was really happy to be back in her homeland! 
In Serbia we had two days (Friday and Saturday) to teach a group of girls two of our songs. They picked which ones they would like to learn and we worked on it for 6 hours (with breaks!) the first day.     
The next day we planned to finish teaching the two songs. HOWEVER...we had a completely different group of girls (and one guy!) so we had to start from the beginning. Both days there were around 5 people. On Sunday we went to a Serbian church. It was quite long and hot and I kept almost dropping off to sleep! Serbian is similar to Russian. I didn't know it until we got there but even the alphabet is almost the same! So I could read and understand the topic of conversation which felt really good. =) We went to Novi Sad the evening before we left...It was beautiful! We had supper, walked around then stopped at a coffee shop, walked some more then went back home. 
Mya and I. 
It's zoomed in too far so it's blurry but this man was playing both the guitar and the harmonica for money. 
The next morning we went back to the train station... 
Had a sleepy 7 hour ride back (we had extra water and not so much heat this time!) 
Aww, look how much Molly loves me!  
We got back in the afternoon and spent our last evening together. We packed, Michelle gave us gifts and we watched a few movies. I got my haircut during the second movie...Michelle is an awesome hairdresser! 
Cheri flew out early in the morning and I had a noon flight. Michelle, Trudy Ann, Molly and Mya drove me to the van that would take me to the airport and we said goodbye *sniff* and I was off. I had two flights back home and everything went smoothly. No matter how many time I fly, though, I never get used to this kind of sight...  
My parents and Melody met me at the Dnepro airport with two beautiful boquets of flowers! 
It's not almost two weeks since I've been back and I'm so glad I went. While I was there there were some really hard parts where I felt really discouraged but all in all it was a great experience. If you made it all the way through, thank you for looking at all my pictures! Believe me, there are so many more and I restrained myself a lot! I will see you all sooner or later, =Charlotte= | 
(are you shocked?)
