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!