Another Train Post

Hey Everyone,

For those of you that have been reading our blog for some time, you'll remember our train post from this summer (If you haven't read it, click HERE to read it). Ever since that fateful train ride, I find myself trying to avoid trains at all costs. Unfortunately, trains are unavoidable here in Europe, especially when you can't afford to have your own car or to fly places. And so, we take the train. Our last three train rides went really well, and consequently, Byron and I have grown to be a little more relaxed on trains... Well, that is until this week.

But let me start at the beginning...


For the last month or so, Byron and I have been planning on going to Hungary to get visas and go to Calvary Chapel Bible College Europe for their Speakers' Week Conference during the week of Thanksgiving. Given that Byron and I really don't like the train, we were feeling a little nervous about taking the 16ish hour train ride all the way to Budapest, and then two more trains to Vajta, where CCBCE is located. We started to pray that the Lord would provide us with help for our trip, and that's when God introduced us to Berci.

Berci, a photographer for Calvary Chapel Magazine, stayed with us this last week. We loved having Berci with us... It was fun for us to show him around Ternopil and make him feel comfortable in our home. In addition to Berci being a really cool guy, he is also Hungarian, and he currently lives in Budapest. The Lord answered our prayers about provided us with help on our trip to Hungary by giving us Berci. It turned out that we were going to be on the same train as him all the way to Budapest. The Lord also gave us an extra blessing by having our friend, Aaron (We think you're awesome, Aaron!), take the same train as us, and Aaron and Berci ended up being in the same two-person bunk, which was located right next to Byron and I.

Oblivious to what's about to happen

Needless to say, the train ride to Budapest was cake. We arrived in Budapest, no problem. We made it to the Ukrainian embassy to apply for our visas, no problem. We found the mall, McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, and Subway by ourselves, no problem. We even took the bus twice on our own and the metro. We were really doing well, cruising around Budapest. We were finally feeling like things were looking up for us when it came to trains. If only we had known what was coming. haha

Tuesday morning, we took the metro to the train station in Budapest to buy our train tickets to Vajta, which is where CCBCE is located. While buying the tickets, we were given two options. We could either take the 2:00pm train to Sarbogard, change trains, and then arrive in Vajta around 3:30pm, or we could catch a direct train to Vajta, but it was a little more expensive and we wouldn't arrive in Vajta until around 7pm. Of course, we wanted to save some money and arrive in Vajta earlier, so we chose the first train, which meant we would have to change trains.

And that was our HUGE mistake.

The trains in Hungary are really confusing when compared to the trains in Ukraine. In Ukraine, every car on the train has an attendant, so there are a lot of people around that you can talk to and ask questions, such as, "is this the right stop?" or "what time will the train be stopping in the city I'm headed to." In Hungary, it felt like there was only one train attendant for the entire train, and you would only see them once the entire time you're on the train. In addition, when you buy train tickets, you actually buy train vouchers, which are good for a period of time (like a week), and you can redeem the vouchers for tickets (of course, there is a fee involved with redeeming the voucher), and when you redeem the voucher, that's when you are given a seat number. In Ukraine, when you buy a train ticket, you really get a train ticket, and your ticket says what time you leave the train station, what time you train stops at the city you're heading to, and where you should sit on the train.

So, it's 1:50 pm, our trains leaving in just a few minutes, and we get to the train headed to Sarbogard, but we can't figure out where we're supposed to sit. Determined to not miss the train, I decided to leave my stuff with Byron, get on the train, and start asking people if they speak English and to tell us where to sit. Meanwhile, Byron is looking for a train attendant to ask them the same question. I finally find someone that explains to me that we only have vouchers, and we need to redeem them to get seats. We literally have 5 minutes left before the train leaves at this point. I jump off the train, explain everything to Byron, and he runs to the ticket counter. With about 1 minute to spare, he comes back with actual tickets and we hop on the train.

We don't know what the Sarbogard stop looks like, but we figure we'll see a sign or the train will announce the stop so that we won't miss it. We knew it would take about an hour to get to Sarbogard, and that it is a popular stop, so we were also looking for other people to get off the train to help us know it was our stop.

The schedule that the young man
helping us wrote out for us

About an hour and 15 minutes passed, and Byron started to get concerned. "I think we were supposed to be there by now. We need to ask someone where we are." We hadn't seen a train attendant since we had gotten on the train, but somehow, the attendant walked into our car right when we were thinking that we needed to find him. We asked him when we would be at the Sarbogard stop, and he just shakes his head and starts talking to us in Hungarian, which we can't understand at all. We knew we needed a translator, so we started asking the people around us if anyone could speak English. One young man said that he spoke English, and he could translate for us. He explained that we had missed the stop and we needed to get off the train at the next stop, buy new tickets, and take the train back to Sarbogard. But the catch was that we only had 6 minutes at the next stop before the train we HAD to catch would be gone. To add to the stress, our friend, Aaron, and his mom, Pam, were planning on picking us up at Sarbogard at 3 pm, and it was currently 3:15pm. We knew they would be concerned about us, and we couldn't get ahold of them to tell them we were ok.
Byron and I were so frustrated. We hadn't even sensed the train stopping. We still can't decide if the train just never stopped, or if it was a really fast, subtle stop at Sarbogard. Regardless, we missed our stop, and we were in a tight spot.


Oh, and the fun details... We don't have a Hungarian sim card, so our phones wouldn't work and we couldn't call anyone. We also didn't have internet, so we couldn't email or Skype anyone. We also didn't have any Hungarian phone numbers, except for Calvary Chapel Budapest and Berci. We asked the young man that was helping us to use his phone. We tried to call Berci, but his number wouldn't work. We also tried to call Calvary Chapel Budapest, but that number also wouldn't work. We then proceeded to try to call anyone we knew with Ukrainian phone numbers that could help us, hoping that our Ukrainian sim cards would work to call Ukrainian phone numbers, but we kept getting a message saying, "Your phone is barred in this country."

The Sarbogard train station

Our only hope was to get off the train at the next stop, buy new tickets, and get on the right train all within 6 minutes. And praise the Lord, we did it. It was totally the Lord because we couldn't find the platform that our train was supposed to be at, but at the last minute, we found someone that spoke English and worked for the train, and was able to get us to the right platform and the right train. We got on the train, rode along for about 1 hour, and then got to the Sarbogard stop. Sarbogard was a smaller train station than we were expecting, which meant that no one spoke any English at all. A few hours had passed since the time that we were supposed to meet Aaron and Pam there, and we had no idea how to get into contact with them, or how to make it to the Bible College.

This was the moment when we knew we had two choices:

1. Take the next train out to Vajta and hope for the best
2. Take the next train back to Budapest, and go to Calvary Chapel Budapest for help

Feeling desperate in Sarbogard

We had made it so far, we chose the first option. We were pressing on toward Vajta. We bought tickets to Vajta and asked when our train would be departing from Sarbogard. Of course, we asked all of this through elaborate charades, because we can't communicate at all in Hungarian. From what we understood, our train would be departing at 6pm, and arriving in Vajta at 6:15pm. We had to wait for an hour, and then our train would depart. But, the train was running late. 6pm came and went, no train. 6:15pm came and went, no train. 6:30pm came and went, no train. The person working at the train station ended up taking a marker and blotting out our train on the schedule at this point. That's when we were really nervous. We didn't know if we'd be able to make it back to Budapest, even if we tried, and we knew our friends at the Bible College were going to be really worried about us at this point.

Our biggest need was for communication. So, we started chasing down anyone with a backpack (Usually, if someone has a backpack in Europe, they're Americans haha) or anyone that looked like they could be in college (most college students know a little English). We started begging people for their cell phones, desperately trying to get the two phone numbers that we had to work. But nothing worked. And no one spoke enough English to help us. We started trying to find a taxi, but whenever we asked for a taxi, people would just say, "No Taxi here." We assumed that meant that the town was too small to have a taxi service.

Right after the announcement in English

We knew that if we could get to Vajta, things would start looking up. And that's when the miracle happened. We're sitting on a bench, so cold we can see our breath, praying that somehow our train will come. Suddenly, over the loud speakers, IN ENGLISH, we both here a voice clearly announce, "The next train is a Gemenc International train. It will be arriving in two minutes and its first stop is Vajta."

Byron and I couldn't even speak at first. We were totally shocked. We just kept sayings, "Did you hear that? It was in English! How was it in English?!" There had been announcements all night over the loud speakers, none of which were in English.

The view in Vajta when we got off the train

So, in exactly two minutes (we timed it), a Gemenc International train arrived. We got on the train, and once inside, there was another announcement in English. "Next stop, Vajta, in ten minutes." We kept a close eye on our watches, and in ten minutes, we arrived in Vajta.

While in Sarbogard, we held onto the hope of Vajta, not knowing what to expect though. We thought, if we can just get to Vajta, we'll be fine. But, we quickly learned otherwise. Vajta was an even smaller train station than Sarbogard. The ticket office worker at the train station in Vajta didn't speak any english. There were no taxis. There were no lights. Once you stepped off of the tracks, everything was pitch black. We didn't know where CCBCE was in relation to the train station, we had no map, and even if we could have found CCBCE by walking, we didn't know what the CCBCE building looked like.

The moment of total desperation in Vajta

This was our most desperate point of the trip. We started to beg the office worker to help us. To call a taxi, to do anything. He seemed really frustrated with us though. He couldn't understand us, we couldn't understand him. That's when I decided to try a different language. I asked him, in Russian, if he spoke Russian, and he said he spoke a little. Even though I have limited Russian skills, I was able to communicate that we have friends at the Bible college and we needed to call them for help. I told him we needed internet to get their phone number, but he said that he didn't have internet so there was no way that we could look the number up. We asked if we could use his phone to try calling our Hungarian friend, Berci. He was really reluctant, but finally agreed. The number still wouldn't work though. That's when the office worker looked at the number we had for Berci and entered a different area code. Praise God, it worked. We got ahold of Berci, explained everything to him in English, and then he translated everything into Hungarian for the office worker. In addition, Berci convinced the man to drive us to the Bible college.

All of the train tickets we had bought
by the end of the day

So, we got into a car with a Hungarian man that we couldn't communicate with, trusting that the Lord had gotten us this far, and He'd get us all the way to the Bible College. The man dropped us off at the Bible college dorms safely. We tried to pay him for his help, but he was really kind about everything, and wouldn't accept our money. All the lights were off at the dorm, so we walked over to the nearest house with lights on. We knocked on the front door and no one answered. We were so desperate, we started walking around the house, knocking on all the doors and windows until someone finally came out (Remember, it's pitch black outside, so we're totally stumbling around). The guy that greeted us spoke perfect American English, connected us with our friends, and we were finally safe.

We were fed too, which was really awesome because we were starving.

To top everything off though, that night, I came down with the flu, and was sick all night long haha What a crazy few days!

So, I guess the point of it all, is that I really hate trains, but the Lord is so good, and if we trust in Him, He'll get us to where we're supposed to be going - whether that be a physical place in our lives or a figurative place/state of mind.

Thank you guys for all of your prayers! Honestly, I can't imagine what would have happened to us without your prayers.

Blessings,

Emily