Here I am in an “Irish” bar in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, watching the All Blacks play France in Wales on a French TV. The most surreal moment, seeing the All Blacks get beaten - our worst result ever in the Rugby World Cup. New Zealand goes into mourning and national shock - ahh, the important things in life!

The above photo is of Budapest Castle which sits atop a hill overlooking the Danube River. We spent the day filming yesterday and the evening in downtown Budapest putting the pieces of the creative puzzle together. We crossed over the Danube on our way home.

Hungary has a fascinating history. The predominant people group are the Magyars who are not Slavic - as one might expect. They are in fact most closely related to the Finnish people and their languages are the most alike. That being said Hungarian is a difficult language - in listening to locals speak there are no commonalities with English to pick up on such as there might be with French for example.

In the past few hundred years Hungary has been dominated by many outside forces. These include the Ottoman Turks, an uneasy alliance with the Habsburg throne of Austria, Nazi Germany (with which Hungary initially sided) and most recently the Soviets. Following defeat in World War I the Treaty of Trianon significantly reduced the Hungarian borders - as a result a significant population of Hungarians live in surrounding countries.

This afternoon we leave for one of those surrounding countries, Serbia. More to come.

As I write this I am sitting in CRM Hungary’s Budapest offices. We are about to film an Hungarian church planter telling his story. CRM Hungary is a partner of CRM-US and they have asked for our assistance with developing a communications portfolio (web, print, film, visual ID) for them - both for developing their work here with the Hungarian church and for their US based donors.

Budapest sits on the Danube river and is a mix of classical elements, Communist era rather drab buildings and a skyline of construction cranes that are busily building the infrastructure to support this expanding city. Tomorrow we leave for Serbia - about 4 hours or so from here.

This photo is of Peter (our photographer/designer) doing his thing in the street this morning, outside CRM’s offices.

Does change come from within or without? That tension is illustrated by Adam Werbach was the young star of the environmental movement, prior to him choosing to work with Walmart (the enemy). The angst of that change is captured well in the cover story of Fast Company in this month’s issue. In it he makes some crisp observations which can be well applied to my world - non-profit and church. (more…)

We just completed a video for our friend Mike and Susanne Brantley in New Orleans who are establishing Communitas New Orleans - an expression of faith for both a city and a generation. You can see it on YouTube.

Every month we write a Just Between Friends letter to our network of friends, family and supporters. These are now available as PDFs starting with July. For a developing archive, see our newsletter page.

Congratulations Cindy in New Orleans - a copy of Robin Hood Marketing is on it’s way to you - thanks to the author, Katya Andresen.

Katya Andresen, the author of Robin Hood Marketing, as profiled in my earlier post contacted me and offered a free copy of her book to a reader of our blog. So all you readers out there, and I know there are some, the first one to drop me an email at my andrew.taylor AT crmleaders.org email address, the copy is yours. (Spam precludes me from putting the full email address, but you will figure it out). A big thanks to Katya, isn’t the web an amazing place!

There is too much going on to write something profound. Here are the last few days in photos - from Victoria’s 6th birthday, a trip to the zoo with Grampy Joe, and the rapidly changing Alexis. Enjoy. (more…)