Open Doors

They have accepted me to teach for one year at the English school! It is amazing how God shows the way and opens doors. I wasn't going to stay in Poland as long as I have but due to some hiccups I had to book a longer trip and I wan't sure what I would do with the extra time. Now I can see what God had planned.

It is my last day in Poland, the weather is so cold. It is weather normal for Poland in November. God willing I will be back in Poland in February, the middle of their winter. I will be going from 40 degree heat to minus 30! And I get to see snow for the first time :-)

Wrosław has an interesting history. It was held by Germany but given to Poland after the war. The towns patron saint is John the Baptist so there are plates with heads on them all over the place! The town is also a town of dwarfs. You see ankle high statues in the least expected places. Yesterday we wandered a gorgeous Japanese garden and then went window shopping.

10 days till I'm home. Wherever I am I leave friends behind. Now I have friends all over the world. Please pray for me in Belgium..... I spend 2 days there and I am hoping not to get so lost this time!

Wrosław

I like Wrosław a lot, it has a friendly atmosphere, good mix between old and new and it isn't as busy or touristy as Warsaw or Krakow. I'm at Anula's house talking about the English school and opportunities for teaching. Dominika (from camp) is taking good care of me, yesterday we visited 2 Churches (one which translates to English) and I am staying at a third. One of the Churches was playing Australian music. I've got to go, more another day. Love Keren

Crying out to God

Those of you who know me realise that I cry..... often a lot! God has been doing some amazing work on me and before going on my trip I hadn't cried for 25 days. I must confess that during my travels so far I have cried-just a little each time-but I think it's ok.

The first time was on the camp. I felt so empty yet God still amazing work that day, I guess I was in awe of His greatness. The other 4 times where all on conference. The first day I was overwhelmed with how great Gods love for me is. I don't deserve it but it is such a precious gift. Second was listening to the work God is doing in Bosnia. Missionaries there give so much and I guess I realised how little I do to encourage and support my brothers and sisters in Christ. Third was when I was reminded through a powerfull story how much the world is hurting and needs Christ and the fourth was certainly tears of joy as we heard how the gospel of Christ is changing lifes and impacting communities both spiritually and practically.

I had fun on camp, ringing alarm bells (the sign was in Hungarian, how was I meant to know....) climbing on hay bales, teasing 2 of the English men-they have a great sense of humor. It was great because my adventures led to people sharing fun they've got up to on mission trip and while serving God. It really felt like family! And in a way they where.

Back from Hungary

Wow! Conference was amazing, I had an awesome room mate named Tara, from America, (it was like God loaned me a best friend or sister) and became good friends with Steve from England and Vladimir from Bosnia. We went for long walks and bike rides between learning about how God is working all over Eastern Europe, praying & praising God and eating the HUGE meals. We also had really good teaching and fellowship. I learnt a lot. The drive back took 8 hours and I am really tired so won't write more now. Tomorrow I take the train to Wrosław :-)

P.S. Happy Birthday to Gemma for today and John for the 23rd August

Anyone Hungary?

Well... not me, I ate so well today! I visited a family I had met in Australia and had a very relaxing afternoon. There was a festival on in the town they live in so we enjoyed the perfect weather and listened to The Beatles performed live.

Tomorrow I am travelling to Hungary for the European Christian Mission Eastern region prayer conference. Here I will be able to learn about ECM in other countries and speak with some people higher up about further opportunities to work for christ in Poland.

Church this morning was fantastic, 4 people I invited from camp came plus Doug translated the sermon for me. It was very relevant to my life back in Perth.

Oooh, speaking of good teaching, has anyone read the Parish directory from the Anglican Church? It was encouraging for me. I especially liked the part:

"We ask that you grant us wisdom....
to be bold in taking steps of faith in commitment and service to you in the present
and to look with excitement and expectation to what You will do for and with us in the future"

Not sure what the net access will be from here in as I will be moving around a lot. Plus I sent over 10 postcards.... only with the wrong value of stamps, so hope you all get them. Remember no news is good news!

Co to jest?

Mum, this photo of Polish Scrabble was taken for you! Hope your reading my blog :-)

The past few days have been very quiet. I have been studying my Polish and reading a lot of Christian literature-mostly about evangelism and nuturing baby Christians, prayer and encouraging my brothers in Christ.

Today I went to Zakopane, a tourist city near the mountains. On the way we saw a traditional Polish wedding. 8 horse and carts trotting down the main road. It is quite common to have traffic held up by a horse and cart in country Poland.

John 15:5b "apart from me you can do nothing" great thought! I've read it a few times recently and Doug used it in our devotions on camp. People are so quick to say you can do all things.... they almost forget the "through Christ who strengthens you". If you are feeling burnt out I want to encourage you to seek what God is calling you to do. Sometimes you might have to keep doing eveything your doing but remember to invite God to do it with you and let go. Do it in his strength not yours. It is taking me ages to learn this-Poland is certainly helping to teach me how small I am and how BIG God is.

Rabka

I slept in till almost 10! Phoned home and had a casual day. This afternoon I visited Rabka and wandered the park, they have fantastic play equipment in Poland-I love it.
Tonight we had a reunion for camp. Everyone was so happy and like one big family. What a contrast to the first few days of camp!

One thing that amazed me about camp was the weather-it changed so suddenly, but was really obvious God was in control. We had rain the first few days then fine weather during the days for our outdoor activities then rain at night. One evening we played water games and as soon as we went inside it rained again! Poland needs rain at the moment but we needed fine weather and God provided both.

On camp I did something you can't do in Australia..... I stood in 2 countries at the same time! We went walking in the mountains and stood on the Czech Republic and Poland borders. I ate lots of Polish food (including Polish sausage) and was taught how to say "I'm looking for a husband"..... I really wanted a phone card and luckily knew enough Polish not to fall for their trick.

I represented Austraila well, taught people how to spell Mum correctly and to say "gday mate". I even overheard people saying how caring, friendly and nuturing Australians are-but they only had one example to go by. I shared my vegemite with people-funnily enough no one seemed to like it-but they loved pictures of koalas and kangaroos. Sometimes my accent is tricky for people as they are used to hearing American or English accents, people even go to Scotland to study English, so an Aussie accent is something new.

Krakow

Had to see Paul (the American) off today "sniff sniff" so we visited Krakow. I've been told that going to Poland and not seeing Krakow is like going to Australia and not seeing Kangaroos!

We only saw a tiny bit of what Krakow had to offer, but it was amazing-we went to the main square and I picked up some gifts. Also visited the castle, where I enjoyed watching a toddler chase pigeons. We saw the oldest building in Krakow and drank the best hot chocolate I have ever had, in a coffee shop filled with art. It used to be that if people couldn't pay the bill they would draw or paint something in the coffee shop.

I would like to share with you a legend of Krakow:

Once upon a time there was a Dragon. It was causing problems by eating all the sheep so the King promised his daughter to whoever could defeat the dragon. A poor tailor decided he could do this so slaughtered a sheep, filled it with sulphur and left it for the dragon. The dragon devoured the sheep and because of the sulphur got soooooo thirsty he drank and drank and drank until he EXPLODED! The sheep of the town where safe and the poor tailor got to marry the princess.

I'm not sure they lived happily ever after, we saw memorials to battles and info on the world wars. Today Poland is fighting its share of spiritual battles and the economy isn't too strong. A lot of people leave the country to find better working conditions or jobs in fields they have a passion and talent for. Please pray for wisdom for the leaders of Poland.

Dobry Bóg (God is Good)

How do I write a blog about 11 days of camp, give all the relevant news and still keep it interesting.... hmmmmm.... it takes up about 25 pages in my journal!

Let me start by telling you something I discovered..... Polish is the 6th hardest language in the world! It took Doug 3 years to learn but I'm picking it up slowly and really love singing worship songs in Polish now.

We did lots of standard camp activities-walks in the mountains, games, a treasure hunt, camp fires, movies etc. Also most days I taught an English class and we had Bible study. The first few days of camp where tough-one girl walked out of my English class twice and ended up going home, groups of people where clicky and the leadership team struggled. We decided to start having an extra prayer meeting after supper and God was faithful! It seemed liked overnight walls came down. People started sharing, the girls in my dorm started talking to me and from there we saw really clear answers to prayer every day.

The highlights of camp for me:

• One of the girls saying "Maybe God sent you to Poland to help me believe in Him"
• A boy in my first English class shared that he wasn't sure there was a God, but one night he prayed, thanking God for being there-afterwards he told me he had decided the world would be a sad place without God
  
• One night during prayer I prayed straight afterward one of the boys. After prayer another leader came up to me and said that is was amazing because we prayed about exactly the same things-him in Polish, me in English
• Ola, Agata, Magda and Natalia who made me feel welcomed and loved from the start, the 2 Kasia's who shared my room and became friends too, Dominika who I was able to have more indepth girly chats with and, of course, the boys who looked after me, translated for me and lent me clean socks :-)
  
• The last night, people didn't want to stop singing "God is good"
• Notes of encouragement that people wrote to me and hugs goodbye
• Waking up each day not thinking about the past or future but knowing I was where God wanted me to be today
  
• Coming back to Rabka and finding 30 emails, including one about my friends brother coming to Christ and another about Christian outreach in schools-God is working all over the world!
  

Another thing that happened on camp was that 4 people independently spoke to me about the same opportunity for longer term mission in Poland. So when I get back from Hungary I hope to go to Wrocław (pronounced Vrotswav) to talk with the directors of a Church run English school. Thing is Doug said they usually ask people to come for two years..... so I started looking at the "costs".

First I would have to give up study and work. I don't love them but they are a sense of security I hold onto. I love to feel independent and like I can provide all my needs-but I am learning God is my security and He provides far better than I ever could. So if I gave up work the next question is would I be able to afford my mortgage. Once again came the answer "if God wants you to have it he will provide". Just look at the awesome tenants I've got now. I am blessed by having them there and they tell me they are blessed by being there. I didn't plan them-God provided.

Finally is the toughest one.... being so far away from friends and family. Every time I hear from home there are new things happening and I'm at the age where a lot of my friends are getting married and having children. Email and phone calls are not the same.... especially with my young nephew and niece whom I love very much but need interaction to build relationships. Please pray God makes it really clear to me where he wants me to be.

I am tired, so more another day.
Please ask me any questions you want and I will try and answer them!

Camp time

The family I am staying with left yesterday to set up camp so I spent the evening with their Grandmother who doesn't speak any English. She is a lovely lady and we communicated well enough.
I go today on the bus with all the other campers. Most of them are only 16 or 17 which is a very young group. It also means their English skills aren't as developed.

Phillip showed me google earth yesterday, it's a program where you can zoom in to anywhere in the world. I showed him my house and where I went to school-it was exciting to have that familiar glimpse of home.

I do leave for camp today so will not have computer access for at least 10 days.
Keep praying for the people at camp, both leaders and campers.
We want a fun, safe and life changing time.

So much to share :-)

I learnt so much today!

• I am starting to understand Polish Humour... which is different to Australian
  
• Natalia helped me read the 23rd Psalm.... in Polish
• I met Paul (from California) the final member of our team
• I was winning in Polish scrabble (Philip got bored so we stopped)
• I got a new high score with Phillip in badmington-31 hits
• I watched the Bold and the Beautiful in Polish (it's Natalia's favourite show)
  

I also taught Phillip Australian football. He is VERY good already.

I am feeling small and am glad that God is a BIG God and that I am doing this in His strength and not my own. Lila was telling me that when Paul preached 3000 people came to Christ but she feels like they have to preach 3000 sermons for one person to come to Christ. In Poland their Church is looked upon as a sect because it makes up such a small amount of the population. It is easy and exciting to continue to serve Christ when we see the rewards so please pray for Doug and Lila that God encourages them.

When I was feeling the most overwhelmed today I excused myself to take a shower. When I got out the shower Natalia was playing the "dishwasher song" on the piano. What an encouragement! The song is about giving Jesus EVERYTHING.... tears, fears, dreams, hopes..... our whole lives. It helped me through a rough patch last year. Whatever life throws at you, give it back to Christ. He can carry it, mend it, use you! Wherever you have been, whatever you have done. If you want a copy of the song please email me and when I get back to Perth I promise to send it to you.

The other thing I wanted to share with you is Supersheep. He is a Polish/German cartoon caracter from sheepworld-totally adorable! Some of his merchandise has the following (in Polish of course) "Bugs are stupid, trees are stupid, birds are stupid, sun is stupid etc..." and it goes on to finish with "everything is stupid without you" how much that reminds me of God! Especially after having read Psalm 23: The Lord is my Shepherd.

Well, thats enough for tonight. If you see my parents, remind them that I love them!

Isiah 40:31

but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not grow faint.


this verse has randomly come up 4 times in the past few days so I thought I'd share it with you.
Today I met the people who are coming on camp. I understood maybe one in twenty words.....
I also got given the English lessons I am to teach. They look really good, very well prepared.
Please pray that all who go to camp will grow closer in their walk with God.

Thank you!

Thank you to all who have been praying for me!
I was very sick yesterday.... I don't remember ever being so unwell in my life.
They thought I might have to go to hospital but the doctor gave me a large needle in my behind and today I am still weak but a lot better. I am only allowed bottled water and dry toast. If I get really hungry I may also have black tea and rice.
Usually when I get sick I also get emotionally down and homesick but I didn't-Praise God.
Your prayers mean a lot to me.