Joyful Joyful

 The Swarthmore College Alumni Gospel Choir has once again embarked on an adventure of a lifetime with the Brockman Institute on May 31, 2014. A contingent of us are on a journey to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature". Mark 16:15. Although most of us are here in Budapest our choir director Vaneese Thomas did not travel with the group for an absolutely awesome joyous reason. She is receiving an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree at the Swarthmore College Commencement Ceremony. She will join us shortly for our first concert tmrw evening prior to our dinner cruise down the Danube.

After spending entirely toooooo much time on planes we disembarked to go on a tour through the  Buda & Pest. Just learned today that there was a distinction. Buda, somewhat hilly is the former capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and the western most part of the current capital on the west bank of the Danube. Pest is the mostly flat part compromising about two thirds of the city's territory. We got to travel on one of the only ten bridges that connect the two areas that was completely destroyed by the Germans during WWII.

 
 We also had another reason to celebrate once we actually arrived in Budapest as one of our choir members got engaged during our first tourist stop. We stopped at the Millennium Monument for the tourist photo ops and witnessed a proposal under the cenotaph. The Monument is dedicated "to the memory of the heroes who gave their lives for the freedom of our people and our national independence." The large stone column is topped with a statue depicting the archangel Gabriel. In each hand Gabriel holds a symbol of Hungary, the right holds the Holy Crown of St. Stephen, the first King of Hungary and in his left he holds a tow barred apostolic cross a symbol awarded to St. Stephen in recognition of his efforts to convert Hungary to Christianity. This "Hero's " Square also contains much like our own Washington DC a tomb dedicated to the unknown soldier. The one in Hungary is symbolic in nature as no one is buried there but the stone stands to commemorate the heroes. The stop was also marked by a rather hilarious occurrence that seems to be not just an American thing. A dancing flash mob. It was actually kind of cool.

On the more silly side of things we have realized that Budapest speaks the language of Starbucks, McDonald's, TGIFridays, ING, Burger King, Subway, and KFC. For those of you that traveled to China you may remember our hilarious interactions with locating the equivalents of our favorite fast food chains in a foreign country. The sight of them in  Budapest was no less amusing.

Follow us here to see photos of our journey along the way.

God is truly in the blessing business and our tour has barely just begun so everyone sing with me
 Joyful, joyful Lord we adore thee.
God of mercy lord of Love
Hearts unfold like flowers before thee Hail these as the sun above 

Congratulations to Vaneese, Christina, and Matthew. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us on this awesome journey.
Til Next time, NiYa