school-leaving

Today I spent the afternoon at my school’s Ballagas. For those of you unfamiliar with Hungarian schools it’s the ceremony marking the end of classes for graduating students. The word means "school-leaving." Their work isn’t done as they have a month and a half of written and oral finals to look forward to, starting on Monday. But I think it’s good they get a chance to celebrate never having to sit through a math class again (if they choose not to go that direction in university), or English class for that matter. Watching them file out of the school in a long line, singing their goodbye song I couldn’t help thinking about my own departure from Kossuth which is rapidly approaching.

I’ve decided that for now my time in Hungary has come to end. It’s very hard to say goodbye to my students and colleagues, many of whom I feel like I’m just starting to get to know. I’m sorry to leave my little congregation at St. Columba’s Scottish Presbyterian. And it’s sad I’ll be leaving this city and culture I’ve come to love. There will certainly be things I won’t miss (the “naplo” class books, Hungarian bureaucracy, and not having a clue what’s going on come to mind), but overall I’m extremely thankful for this season of my life and the opportunity to serve here.

My reasons for the decision are many. Some of you may not know that for almost a year I’ve been blessed by my relationship with a wonderful young woman (see picture). Marianne also serves with Teach Overseas, but her school is in Cheb, Czech Republic (a twelve hour journey from Budapest). While the distance has been good for us in some ways, we’re both very tired of the situation and feel that if this relationship is to go any farther we need to live in the same city and see each other on a daily basis. That’s the first reason for this change of scene.

The second is pretty simple: I’m homesick. I’ve always known I wasn’t a Hungarian “lifer.” While I’m returning maybe a little sooner than I expected, the return itself comes as no surprise. I miss baseball games, bookstores, good Mexican restaurants, newspapers, Bell’s Oberon and Henry’s Special Reserve, being understood, The New Yorker, and most of all my family and friends. My oldest sister is having a baby this summer – the first niece or nephew for me – and I want to be around for that. I’ve been feeling the need for a good solid dose of “home.”

The third reason has to do with my work here. I love teaching high school students because they’re full of energy and verve. But the same hormones that cause those emotions can also make them moody, sullen, and uncooperative. Going to school every day I don’t know what I’ll find, which makes me moody too! What I’m saying is I don’t think I’m cut out for this job long term. My plan has always been to go back to school so I can work with college students in some capacity. While my experience here has confirmed my desire to teach, I don’t want to teach at this level.

So what’s next? To be frank, I don’t know. I had hoped to start grad school in the fall, but that hasn’t worked out. Marianne and I are heading for either Seattle or Cleveland (her hometown), so if anybody has a lead on a job in either of those places let me know. Mar will try to find a teaching position (she majored in special ed) and I’ll look for something ministry-related but will take what I can get.

God has richly blessed my time here, so my departure, as seems so often the case, is bittersweet. When I was leaving for Budapest a friend gave me an mp3 of Sara Groves: Painting Pictures of Egypt. I listened to it a lot when I first got here, and I find myself listening to it a lot again. She says “I don’t want to leave here. I don’t want to stay. The places I long for the most are the places where I’ve been… I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacks. The future feels so hard and I want to go back, but the places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I’ve learned.” It was so hard to leave the US before, and now it’s so hard to go back. However I feel deep-seated peace (you might say a peace I don’t even understand) and assurance that this is a right and Godly decision. Thanks for your support and friendship over the ups and downs of this two year adventure in Budapest.