Aren't you afraid about bird flu?

That's a question that has been asked of us lately from people in the states. We can understand the question since there has been a lot in the news about bird flu showing up in Europe and specifically showing up in Hungary. What little news we get from the media here and the government, it seems that Hungary is doing what it can to take precautionary measures. Supposedly, there have been isolated incidences of bird flu showing up in some swans that were found in south Hungary. And the government has cautioned everyone to not be worried.

But, we know, as you probably do, that there could be a real danger in the future concerning this situation. And not just in Europe. In the states, too. So it makes sense to be aware and informed and to certainly be careful in what we eat and where we go.

We could stockpile some Tamiflu here or maybe refuse to eat chicken for a couple of years. But we have found in the 2 years we've been here that God has graciously protected us. And we probably will be amazed when we get to heaven and God shows just how well He protected us! We get the feeling that there have been dangerous happenings around us and God has put His protective shield around us. Probably you could say the same thing!

So, the answer to the question is that we're not afraid of the bird flu but we're staying aware. And we're also just trusting God to watch out for us. Thank you for your prayers for our safety and protection!

brannons@scsonline.com

Happy Spring!

It's really funny to look back on our previous posts and see how many of them refer to weather! Why are we so preoccupied by the weather?? Sometimes, it seems, that the success of the day depends on whether the weather is good. How's that for a tongue twister??

But some of you have told us that your computer's homepage is the weather.com page and that you have it set to Budapest. So you wonder about our weather, too! You'll be happy to know that today and the two previous days have been gorgeous. Abundant sunshine and just a little bit chilly. But nothing uncomfortable. Could Spring be here to stay? We certainly hope so.

Also, in this part of the world, Daylight Savings Time comes a week earlier than the states. We push our clocks forward THIS Saturday evening instead of next week like most of you do. So that means that we are EIGHT hours ahead of you instead of the usual seven. It will be encouraging to us to see it stay lighter and lighter a little longer each day.

Happy Spring!

BSF Friends

L-R: Shari Volk (BSF Team Member), Bette Willet, Shay, and Debbie Gibson (Class Administrator) This was a group picture taken at BSF Class today.

Since last Thursday, we've been enjoying a visit with our good friends, Gary and Bette Willett. They are fellow BSFers. Until last June, they used to live here in Budapest and had been in Budapest for 4 years. We got to know them because of their love for BSF and their desire to have BSF begin in Budapest. Both Gary and Bette had benefitted from BSF in the states and both of them had come to know the Lord through BSF back in the 80's. While in Budapest, they served as missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ. In late 2004, they felt the Lord calling them back to the states and we hated to see them leave permanently to return home to Kansas.

Even before we arrived in Budapest in March 2004, Gary and Bette helped us in so many ways. Curt met them on his survey trip to Budapest in Fall 2003 and they were a wealth of information. Gary played a major role in securing for us an "inviting organization" so that we could come in and work in Hungary. Gary even met us at the airport when we first arrived and helped us with our 11 suitcases! Those first few weeks and months, we felt attached at the hip to the Willetts as we tried to feel our way through the culture adjustment. They were so patient with us and all our questions! Then, when the Ladies' BSF class began last Spring (2005), Bette was willing to play any role she could to help get the class off the ground. We owe them both a debt of gratitude!

So, when we heard that they needed to come back to Budapest for a week to do some work with Campus Crusade, we jumped at the chance to have them stay with us. We've had so much fun catching up on each other's lives. Although we've only known them for about 2 1/2 years, it seems like we've known them for years. It's just a connection that people have in the body of Christ. When they leave this Thursday for the states, we don't know when we might see them again. But we'll keep up through email and letters. Who knows? Maybe we'll get an opportunity to see them as we pass through Kansas!

brannons@scsonline.com

Doing Well!

Thank you to those that have sent emails to check on us while Curt and Meredith are in the states! We are doing well and seem to be keeping up with our duties and ALL the stuff that Curt and Meredith do when they're here. Whew! It takes all 4 of us to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Everyone seems to have their areas of "expertise" and that helps us all. So when two of those "experts" are gone, we feel it!

If it were not for Curt, it's doubtful that the bills would be paid, the car taken care of, the yard maintained, the math or science taught, or the computers kept running. Not to mention all the ministry he does on top of that! If it were not for Meredith, there would be half the chores done, the pets would starve, and we would never get biscuits from scratch or her homemade spaghetti sauce! So we are appreciative of those two family members and are anxious to have them back.

Thank you for your prayers for us here in Budapest and prayers for Curt and Meredith while they are in the states.

Love,
Shay and Olivia

brannons@scsonline.com

Time in the States

Curt and Meredith are heading out of Budapest tomorrow morning. Their destination: Decatur, Alabama, and other areas around that great city! Curt has business responsibilities and Meredith has a couple of important doctor visits that she needs to take care of. They'll be there for about 10 days before returning to Budapest. Hopefully, they'll get to see a lot of family and friends during their stay. They'll be at First Bible Church on March 12th.

That leaves Shay, Olivia, and the 3 pets to hold down the fort while they're gone. Olivia and Shay are beginning to wonder if Meredith will actually miss them or her dog, Tessa, the most! Hopefully, Tessa won't have puppy withdrawal from Meredith and will behave herself. The other 2 pets should be pretty easy to take care of.

Olivia has a full week ahead with her Hungarian ministry responsibilities (FEK). Plus, she has her school to keep her busy. Shay has BSF responsibilities plus getting ready for some good friends from the states that are coming to stay a week. So maybe the time that Curt and Meredith are gone will seem to go quickly with so much going on here in Budapest.

If you think of the 4 of us, please pray for our safety as we scatter to different places. Also, please pray for a productive time for all of us during the next couple of weeks.

Through Curt and Meredith, Olivia and Shay send hugs and thanks for all you do for us!

2 year Residence Permit!!!

We are praising the Lord that we received our residence permit renewal for 2 more years! Yesterday we went to the Immigration Office to find out what we would receive. We were praying and we know so many of you were praying with us that we would get renewed for another 2 years. And we did! We don't have to think about going through this process again for about another 20 or 21 months. Then all the paperwork gathering begins again. Curt is glad about that! He did a terrific job making sure all the needed information was submitted correctly. We don't know what the next 2 years will hold but we pray that God would be willing to use us in some small way in His purposes and plans for this part of the world. Thank you for standing with us!

brannons@scsonline.com

God is STILL Good and Faithful

Our last post was one of celebration! It was a day that all of us were reminded of the undeserved blessings that we receive from God. How expectant we were to see what God had planned for our week.

No one in our family would have guessed that Monday would be a challenging day. We were robbed. Our car was broken into and much was taken from it. Somehow they were able to get in without breaking a window. Curt and Shay had just finished up at BSF Leader's Meeting on Monday morning in Budapest. We dropped off a team member on the way back from the meeting. Then we did an unusual thing. We decided to grab a quick sandwich at McDonald's before heading home. It was unusual because we never do that on Mondays. There are too many things to do on Monday afternoon to prepare for Tuesdays' class. But we decided to go to a McDonald's not far from our house for just a little while.

We parked, went in and ate, and then returned to our car. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and we left for home. Then when we got to the house and opened the back of our minivan, there was nothing there. We never leave things in our car because we know it's just not safe. But Curt had been working on some things during the meeting and had brought his laptop, digital video camera, and other electronic things. We knew we wouldn't be long in McDonald's so we left that in the car. But that wasn't a good idea because we lost all those things. We lost a laptop, digital video camera, Shay's cell phone, all the BSF materials for today's class and beyond. Shay lost a good leather tote with all her BSF work in it---plus her Bible.

We know all these things can be replaced but there were many sentimental things that can't be replaced. So we're sad about that. But we are thanking God for many things. At least they didn't take the car! At least it wasn't a home robbery. At least they didn't get any of our visa/residence permit paperwork that is needed for our renewal meeting this coming Monday. That would have been terribly difficult to have recreated. So, we are rejoicing despite this small trial! God is faithful and gracious to us in all things.

We did call the police. That's another whole story! Maybe that story will come later.

We would humbly ask for your prayers that we can be creative and wise in our efforts to remember all the things in the bags we lost and to somehow get by until we can replace them. Also, pray for those that stole our things. Obviously, they are in a desperate place of disobedience towards God. They need Him. And then, lastly, please pray for our protection here in this place. We know that God has answered so many prayers in the past 2 years for our safety and protection. Please keep praying...

brannons@scsonline.com

A February 19th Celebration!

What is a February 19th celebration?? We don't know. We're making it up as we go along! :-) But, we're celebrating today for several reasons. So we thought we would go to one of our favorite restaurants here in Budapest. It's called Iguana's and it's Mexican. Yeah, for Mexican food! As far as we know, that's the only Mexican restaurant in town. It's located just a few yards away from the American Embassy. We can walk to the door of Iguana's and look over and see the American flag! What a wonderful sight.

What are we celebrating? Here are a few things:

*It's the Lord's Day. We love Sundays! We only get to go to church one morning a week.
*The sun is shining beautifully and it's 51 degrees. There's hope for Spring!
*Youth group is at our house tonight and we love the thought of our house being used for ministry. (Plus Olivia makes delicious Chocolate Chip cookies for the group and shares them with us! We only use Chocolate Chips on special occasions.)
*We get to watch the Olympics on TV this year. We have better TV now!
*We have a new week stretched out before us and we know God will be faithful once again.

How can we not celebrate when we have all those things to be thankful for?? We're thankful for all of you, too, and appreciate your partnership in the Gospel with us.

Have a blessed February 19th!

brannons@scsonline.com

Update on Visa

Some of you have asked about the status on our visa process. Thanks so much for keeping up with us and checking to see how that's going!

We had a little bit of a "glitch" when we went in on the 9th to submit our paperwork. Everything was in order but the law had changed just that very week. A birth certificate, the original, was needed to prove that Olivia and Meredith belonged to us. Of course, some would say that both girls look so much like their two parents that we couldn't deny them! But, obviously, not official enough.

Prayer came through. We were able to quickly contact my sister, Kim, and she was graciously willing to go to our safe deposit box in Decatur to retrieve these documents. Within a mere 2 hours after finding out we needed these documents, Kim had gone to Decatur, gotten the birth certificates, and sent them off by DHL! We received them this past Monday. Currently, the documents are being translated into Hungarian and we will submit them this week.

Our date to return to the immigration office is February 27. Hopefully, we will receive a renewal on our visa and we will be able to stay in Hungary for another year. We're praying for a 2 year renewal! Why not ask Him is our philosophy?!

Thank you for your prayers. We'll update you soon.

A Field White For Harvest

Here is a picture taken from the roof of the facility that Bible Study Fellowship meets in. It's KEGy church (Evangelical Free) and it's a facility that the leadership of the church hopes that God uses for many ministries. So much is going on in this former theater built during the Soviet era! It's exciting to see how God is opening up the area around this facility to His Word and the good news of the gospel.

From this picture, you can see the lakoteleps that house hundreds of people. These buildings were built during the communist era. There are so many of these buildings surrounding the KEGy facility. People in these buildings need to know Christ and KEGy is doing a terrific job in seeking the Lord's direction on how to reach them. We're thankful that BSF is allowed to meet in this facility and to be a part of the outreach of this church.

Please pray for the leaders of KEGy and for opportunities to reach out to the people in these buildings. Please pray for BSF and that those that know English or desire to know English will come and be a part of studying God's Word.

Friends From Home

We have some visitors staying with us this week that are from our home church in Decatur, Alabama (First Bible Church). Scott Dubach, pictured on the left, and Pete Bromirski, on the right, have come to encourage us, to discuss potential mission opportunities in Hungary, and to visit Serbia with Curt this week to explore other mission avenues.

As part of their encouragement of us, they brought us "stuff" from home! Thank you to those that sent fun goodies to us via Scott and Pete's luggage! Your cards and notes meant so much, too. Your assurance of your prayers for us is a real boost to our spirits.

They'll be with us until this coming Sunday morning and then they have an early flight out. They will have packed a lot of things into a short one week period. We are thankful for First Bible Church's interest in this part of the world and how they want to partner with people in the Hungary/Serbia region to further the cause of Christ.

Visa Date Set

This is LAST YEAR'S picture of when we got our official renewal of our visa. As you can tell, we were happy!! We had gone through a lot, spent a lot of time and money to get the opportunity to stay another year in Hungary. We got our renewal in mid-March 2005.

Even though it's just January 25, now is the time to get all our paperwork in and set our appointment to go in and submit the paper work at the immigration office. Then it usually takes about a month to hear back to see if we are renewed. We found out today that our immigration office appointment has been set for Tuesday afternoon, February 7th. There's a chance that that appointment will be changed to Thursday, February 9th. Since BSF is on Tuesdays, it really would be easier to do it on a Thursday. But we're not complaining! Whatever it takes to get in there and get things going.

If you think about us in the next few days, please pray for this appointment to go well and for all our paperwork to be in order. Because of some different things we did this time, we hopefully won't have to wait a month to hear back and hopefully we'll get a 2 year renewal instead of a 1 year renewal.

We'll keep you posted on the progress and maybe we'll do another picture of the 4 of us holding our passports that are stamped with a brand NEW visa!

Praise Team

We attend Danube International Church here in Budapest. (www.danubechurch.org) Our pastor is Ronnie Stevens. He originally pastored a church in Memphis but has been on the mission field for several years. We are blessed to have him pastor this church. Up until recently, Ronnie was the only paid staff we had. In the last couple of months, we have benefited from an Executive Pastor who feels called to make Danube Church his missionary service. Translate: he doesn't get paid by the church! This is a totally different situation for us since we come from a church that has several paid staff positions and each staffer is trained for his/her particular position.

Here at Danube Church, we have no worship leader. The worship team changes from week to week. We have several gifted volunteers in our church who agree to head up one week a month and be in charge for worship that day. Makes for interesting worship! Olivia and Meredith, for the last 2 Sundays, were asked to be a part of the praise team for that week. They seemed to really enjoy that! Coming home from church today, they mentioned what a blessing it was to look out and see people really worshipping the Lord through the music. It's a different perspective looking out to the audience instead of being IN the audience. Maybe they'll have some more opportunities in the future to be a part of the praise team.

Some Prayer Requests and General Info

1)We now have a newsletter that Bible Study Fellowship sends out for us. The newsletter is also posted on their website: www.bsfinternational.org The newsletter comes out about once a quarter. If you would like to be a prayer partner with us, you can access that newsletter on the website or you can email us and we can put you on the mailing list.

2)Did you know that the girls also have a personal blogsite? Here are the addresses for their site:

www.oliviabrannon.blogspot.com
www.meredithbrannon.blogspot.com

3)You can email us at either of these two addresses:

brannons@scsonline.com
shaybrannon@hotmail.com

4) Here are some current prayer requests:
*Smooth process for our visa renewal. We are due to be renewed in March and have already started the process to get our visa renewed. Please pray that we will get at least 2 years of renewal.
*Pray for new leadership in the ladies' BSF class. We have a great need for a children's leader.
*Safety for Curt and our two guests from the states as they go to Serbia next week. Two men from First Bible Church will arrive next week to go with him to explore mission opportunities.

Happy 50th Anniversary

Today is the 50th wedding anniversary of Shay's parents. That's them standing next to Curt. David and Carolyn Beach were married on January 15th, 1956, in Trussville, Alabama. They have 4 children. Although the Brannons couldn't be there, a family luncheon was held today in Birmingham in their honor. Family from Arizona and Chicago joined in the celebration. Being married 50 years is quite an accomplishment in this day and age! We congratulate them and send our love. Wish we could be there to help you celebrate!

Turkey and Dressing

Yep! That's the title of this blog. Shay actually cooked a Thanksgiving/Christmas meal last night for dinner. We had turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, orange fluff, and rolls. Not the most nutritional meal in the world but it was good! What's so unique about this meal is it's just now happening. It's been almost 2 months since Thanksgiving and 3 weeks since Christmas. That's usually when you have the traditional turkey meal. But with so much going on and such hectic schedules, this is the first chance we've had to have turkey and dressing! The "bird" has been in the freezer. So we thawed "him" out for a couple of days. Then, we made cornbread for the cornbread dressing. The dressing is what takes so long. The meal seemed to be a success and we've got turkey for leftovers. We'll just have to pull out those recipes that you usually see around Thanksgiving that shows you how to use up your leftovers. Oh well, better late than never! Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy 2006!

Is it really 2006 already? It's hard to believe that it's a new year and we've started back into our regular schedule. Homeschooling for the girls started back yesterday. Also, BSF began again with our first leader's meeting of the new year. We had our first class of 2006 today. There's just something about a new year to make you think of new beginnings and fresh starts. A clean slate with a new year stretched out before us. What will we write on that slate? More importantly, what will God write on that clean slate? Maybe all of us need a clean slate in order to re-order our thinking and to examine our hearts.

We would love to hear from you in 2006. It's so very interesting to us to hear what's going on in your life and the life of your family! It reminds us that life is still going on back in the USA despite the fact that we're on the other side of the ocean. At times, we tend to think of everyone as being in the same spot that they were when we saw them a few months ago. Obviously, that's not the case! So, when you write and tell us the everyday things of your life, we feel that maybe we're not missing out on so much after all.

This will be our official blogsite now and a place, if you desire, for you to check out what's going on with us and what our latest prayer requests are. Also, our sending organization, Bible Study Fellowship, now has our current newsletter posted on their website. That website is:
www.bsfinternational.org You can go to that site and click on Foreign Resident Ambassadors. Then click on our name under EUROPE.

Blessings to all of you and may 2006 be a year filled with spiritual triumphs!

Christmas in Hungary

Christmas morning 2005. Celebrating in Budapest the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Christmas Eve spent with Shay's parents and our BSF team members. We enjoyed being together.
Shay's parents, Dave and Carolyn Beach, came to visit for Christmas. Here the "girls" are in a McDonald's near Vienna, Austria. We stayed a couple of days in Vienna celebrating Christmas and returned in time to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Budapest.
During the Christmas holidays, we bundled up and went into Budapest to visit the outside Christmas market. It was so cold that day! Alot of the booths have handmade Hungarian crafts and some booths have delicious food. A few days before Christmas, a live nativity was set up. Camels, donkeys, and actors portraying the characters of the Christmas story. We rejoiced to see Christmas celebrated this way!

Birthday Pictures

Happy 13th Birthday, Meredith! We love you and are so proud of you!


13 Birthday candles to blow out! Look at all that fire!

Decorating for Christmas

Here's a picture of the girls decorating their own Christmas tree upstairs in our house. They decided to pick out their own tree and put some of their decorations on it. Guess what color they decided to use as their main color? Purple!! Purple? For Christmas?? Oh well, to each her own. Maybe one could argue that purple is the color of royalty and we are celebrating the birthday of the King!

Most Hungarians don't put up their Christmas tree until Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is a huge family day where they gather for a big meal and decorate the tree together. So the American custom of putting up a tree early in December is very different to this culture. Let us know some of your Christmas traditions. We would love to know how your family celebrates the birth of Jesus.