In 24 hours we make our way to the airport to step onto the plane that takes us to Egypt. It is almost 9am here. I just sat down with a bowl of yogurt and a book I've been reading. Half of our team has already left for Romania, we will rejoin in three months. Its a little weird not having everyone here. Community living is so different, but almost addictive. When a bunch of people left our little community here in this house, I felt so.....naked. Its weird not constantly hearing footsteps. With 25 people living in a house.....you ALWAYS hear footsteps. Its like a loud clock at home or something, its constantly ticking.."Tick....tock...tick....tock...tick...tock..."..you get used to it and eventually dont even notice it anymore. Same thing with the footsteps. Every room here has hardwood floors that don't dampen any sound at all, and the footfall noise became like the clock. Now the clock has stopped "ticking" and it almost feels as if time has stopping too. Weird. Things have slowed down here in Budapest with half our team gone.
Ruslan's Closet....
Oh how I do not miss my room. Let me start at the beginning. For the past three months I have slept in the lowest room of the house with three other guys. If you could call it a room. It is the only room without hardwood floors, besides the bathrooms. You know when you walk into a house and take off your shoes and hang up your coat and then choose which room to go in? Thats the room we live in....not the room you chose...but the actual room you step into and take your shoes off and hang your coat up. Apparently there werent enough rooms to house everyone in the house, so they stuck the guys in the old foyer. The door to our room is the door to outside. You walk into this room, about 5 feet deep and 5 feet wide, and there we are, four guys huddled in the corner, trying to sleep. We actually never called it our room. One day I was commenting on the...err...cleanliness of our little room, talking about how someone's clothes were all over the room, and we stumbled upon a more accurate description of our little abode. "Ruslan's Closet". Ruslan is my buddy from Ukraine. At some point during his first week here.....no one was around to witness this, so the accuracy of the story isnt completely verified....but he took all of his clothes and packed them into a bag....with dynamite....and then set the clothes bomb off, completely coating the inside of our room with Ruslan clothes. Thus, we call this room Ruslan's Closet.
Inside Ruslan's Closet, the temperature stays about 5 degree warmer than outside....unless it is warmer outside, then it is 5 degrees cooler. We sleep fully clothed. Luckily, I can fall asleep in 5 minutes, so I just get all pumped up, rush in there and crawl under some of Ruslan's clothes and fall asleep to the chattering of teeth. I never actually warm up before I fall asleep, just kinda wait until the sleep hits me so I go numb to the cold. Im not sure exactly how it happens, something about the rotation of the earth and gravity and the way the house was built, but somehow or another, all the dust and crumbs and dirt from this three-story house manage to collect on the floor in Ruslan's Closet. We sweep the floor, and then wake up the next morning, brush all the dew, bugs and Ruslan clothes off our sleeping bags, and then proceed to step onto the cave-like ice floor covered with crumbs. Yummy. This room also only has one window, but there are boxes loaded up on the other side of that window, completely blocking out the light. So this only adds to the cave-like appearance.
Three of us play the guitar, and Jarrod brought three guitars with him, which brings a total of 5 guitars into Ruslan's Closet. Ben, the drummer, doesn't own a guitar, but seems to collect a lot of them on his bed. The reason for this is when you are playing a guitar, you are sitting on your bed, and when you are done playing guitar you are still sitting on your bed but dont want to continue holding the guitar, so you look for a place to set it....two choices...well, three:
1) Pull your guitar case out, open it up, place your guitar in it, and place the guitar case back under the bunk bed. NO: too much work
2) Lay your nice guitar on the cave floor covered with crumbs and wait for someone to step on it. NO: too risky
3) Lay your guitar on the foam mattress that is in-front of you where no one will step on it, and you dont have to get up to put it there. YES: This sounds like some weird Goldilocks and the Three bears story.
Ben walks in the room and almost always has a guitar on his bed. And hair. I forgot to explain that one. Jarrod sleeps in the bunk above Ben. Jarrod has long hair. Every morning, Ben wakes up to find long hair in his bed in addition to the crumbs and frost. We don't notice his hissyfit because Ben gets up about 4 hours before we do, this is because me and Jarrod stay up until about 1 in the morning and Ben goes to bed at around 6pm every night. Canadians....
Now I live in paradise. When the other team left, so did their spots upstairs in the real bedrooms. Me and Ruslan are the only guys left, and we got to move up into one of the girls old rooms. I had forgotten what it was like to go to sleep without a shirt on. It is so warm, and so cozy. The sunlight pours into the room in the morning, I wake up and stand on a clean, warm, hardwood floor and stretch my arms out, and actually smell breakfast cooking for the first time in three months. I felt like having a good cry the first morning I had this experience. I felt like a human again. Every morning in Ruslan's Closet I woke up and felt like some cave animal (not a bear, bears stay warm). The girls didn't completely remove everything that is theirs from the room. I sleep in the bed that used to be Esther's, and she left a bunch of notes taped to the slanted ceiling above my bed that read, "Good night Princess" and "Good morning! You look beautiful this morning" I pretend they are for me, I feel so pretty in the morning now. I am actually eating breakfast every morning also. When we lived in Ruslan's Closet, to eat breakfast you had to get completely dressed, shoes and everything, and walk outside in the cold and up the concrete stairs to the third floor. Now I just open my door and walk into the warm kitchen. What a blessing. We leave tomorrow, so I will have had a total of three nights in a real bedroom before I find out what desert room I will be sleeping in in Egypt. They will probably make me and Ruslan sleep outside, or with the camels. Oh joy.
Good news though. I just got word that some more support came in this week. Last week a buddy of mine (I dont know if he would like me to post his name) gave me $700 towards my trip, and a few other people gave a couple hundred dollars and my aunt and uncle sent $100, and this week someone sent in $500 and a few other saints sent some also. This brings the total up to $1,730 towards the $4,400 we need for our trip. I am being sent out anyways, even though this isnt enough to cover the cost of my tickets into these countries. Im still praying for more support. Thank you guys, I couldn't bring the good news into the countries if it wasn't for your support. I'm not sure what the internet will be like in Egypt, but I hope to post about what we are seeing and what God is doing through our ministry there. I will talk to you soon, God willing. Until then I will enjoy my final night in this amazing room, and as always will be praying for my little church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. I love you guys.
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