Camp Day 2- Sunday

From the heart and voice of Jordan Lelwica

                Alright guys, it’s my turn to blog about Poland! So get ready!

                 Day two of camp has come to an end, and it was a great day. Wait, getting a little too far ahead… typically there is church on Sunday mornings…. Ah, that’s it.. The group and I attended a Polish church this morning, and it was something else. Never have I (or most of the team) heard another language singing the same songs that we were, during our worship time, after some Polish announcements. Anyways, the lyrics for the songs were in both English, and in Polish, hearing everyone sing different words but mean the same things, was quite the feeling. The pastor (Pastor John) Preached in English, while his Polish wife translated for the rest of the congregation. Pastor John talked about what we were doing, missions trips, and about how Paul got stoned, yet kept on going. So The church service was pretty good.

                Next was a small break to change out of our titled “casual nice” clothes (because we were kind of looking nice, yet kind of casual at the same time) into our camp clothes, which need to everyday need to be something you can sweat bullets in. After our break, came camp, some kids come early so we do as well. Camp stated with some lunch, then directly after, came the camp dance. (which I myself am getting pretty good at, not gonna lie) Next in line came the English lessons, which personally I dread the most, due to my lack of teaching, but God somehow makes up for your shortcomings when you are doing his work, thankfully. God has defiantly been watching me in my weakest points, and helping me in them, looks like your prayers are working! Keep them up! Sorry about that tangent… Anyways, after English lessons came a nice game of Capture the Flag. There were three flags on either side, two counting as one point, and one flag, further back in the field, was worth two points. All of the campers and team members loved it. OH MY GOSH!!!! Then after CTF Domi, the leader person of the Polish team, brought a mean bunch of ice cream! It was sooooo goooood!!!! Like, it was fluffy and delicious and this country has some awesome ice cream!

                After CTF came the evening program, which involves both the camp dance, singing, and Abby preaching a bit. The dance went well, as we are all learning it better and better. The singing was also nice too, it was in English though which confused me a bit, but, we will be singing more in Polish towards the end of the week, which is where I suspect God will work much more in the campers. Next came Abby’s small lesson about materialistic things, and how no matter much you strive for them, they will not bring you happiness, especially in the comparison of how much God will make you happy. After that, the campers were divided into small groups which we are not a part of, but the Polish team is, another thing to be majorly praying for. We got back to base camp, ate, debriefed a bit, (where we found out that God has already been moving in some of the campers) went to the hotel, practiced our English lessons for tomorrow, then got ready for bed, which is what I am about to do as well. Oh! And I also found out that as I am writing this, y’all are probably on the progressive dinner thing! So, yeah, just a thing to think about I guess.

                Anyways, as my blog comes to a close (finally) I do ask a couple things of you all.. firstly, keep on praying, as I said earlier, its working, 3 hours of sleep has never felt so good, and the team has made it this far without too many hiccups. Also, a couple of things to be praying for… firstly, for Abby, I know this is her fourth go around, but every leader needs that extra boost of strength. Secondly, for God to move in the campers. This is why we are here after all, to help advance God’s Kingdom in Poland. And thirdly, I ask for the strength of our team, we all need more strength and energy to keep going. So keep on praying please! And I personally, thank you all for praying for us all this time as well. Anyways, goodnight! I hope everything is going well back at the homefront

Camp Day 1

Oh my word! Can we please just talk about the FIRST DAY OF CAMP for a moment! We started the day out with breakfast and a morning devotional as a team to prepare our hearts and minds for the day. We then walked to school and started getting the space set up and put together.

The campers started arriving, registering, and jumped right into games of four square and introductory conversations. At 10:30 am Domi gathered everyone into the main room to do our first ice breaker game while the students finished getting tested to determine their English class placement. After the ice breaker game we taught them the camp dance!! The campers learned the dance quickly and fun was had by all! The student I was paired up with was just so incredibly happy about everything, and little did I know at the time what was causing such joy.....this portion is to be continued.

After learning the camp dance it was time to hold our first English class. It was a great joy to jump in and see what this was really going to be like. I was excited to meet the students, and even more excited to see the start of what wild things God has in store for our time with our students. My partners and I are teaching the beginner class and I was SO proud of all of them! After everyone introduced themselves to the class, we jumped right into the lesson activities for day one. The lesson focus for today included the concepts of time and exercise; there was a point in the class when the students were given an opportunity to develop an exercise routine for us teachers in order to practice giving directions in English.....let's just say I was most certainly thankful my Polish student I paired up with didn't pick push-ups for my routine! The students were rockstars in their participation all the way around and thoroughly enjoyed the prizes that were handed out!

Then it was lunch time! Everyone split up and sat and enjoyed a meal with fellow Polish friends, which was so great! I sat with two students from our class, along with the gal from the Polish team that is the translator in our class. God blessed our time together with an incredible conversation, many smiles, and the start of new friendships.

Remember the girl I mentioned was my camp dance partner? She was one of the girls I sat with at lunch and I came to find out the cause of her joy. This young gal is 20 years old and speaks little English, but that did not stop her from sharing her story. With the help and gifts of the translator, our table was blessed with a beautiful story of God at work.

This young gal was talking about her family and mentioned she had two siblings and just recently a father. Her mother passed away about a year ago. I was a little confused about the situation with her father. When she was only 11 months old her father left her mother and their family and she hasn't been in contact with him since then. She tried to find him and contact him a year ago, but unfortunately wasn't able to.

Just two weeks ago, she accepted Jesus and began a relationship with Him! This young gal then proceeded to tell me that it was just yesterday that she was able to locate and connect with her father for the first time in 20 years!!! God is so good.....so, so good!!! Her joy.....came from God. The entire day the joy was beaming and radiating from her and she simply could not hold in her excitement of the changes in her life.....she hasn't even been able to sleep well because of her excitement! Before lunch was over, she looked at me with a big smile on her face and said, "I now have two fathers....my dad and my Heavenly Father."

The remainder of the day was spent making color team banners, cheers, and participating in sports in our color teams. Today's game was volleyball! The green team took first, red team took second, and yellow team took third. These things combined with four square, Uno, and conversations continually blessed our afternoon with our Polish friends.

We finished our day of camp with our evening program where Abby shared a message on God's grace for us and talking about His kingdom being one that is upside down compared to the world's views and standards. She closed the message with a question for everyone.....which kingdom are you living in....the world's or God's?

After camp was over we shared a great meal with the Polish team and debriefed and prepared for tomorrow. Today was a very busy day but not one that went without God's presence fully encompassing every minute. God was so clearly intertwined in every part of today. It was a beautiful sight to see two groups of people from two different parts of the world interacting with each other, learning from each other, and praising the same God regardless of where we come from or what language we speak. It has only been one day of camp and already God is moving in mighty ways. Today was truly something special.

God's blessings to you,
Kate Rennicke

Finally in Skoczow!

Well, day two is officially over. Wait, that’s not sounding right, wasn’t it our third day? Maybe our fourth or fifth? No, it was definitely the sixth day here overseas...........Needless to say, our first couple days here have wizzed by. It seems like we just got off the plane last night, but tomorrow will already be the 26^th, crazy how that works. I guess time DOES fly when you’re hard at work (and having fun).

            Today was our first day in Skoczow. We met up with the people from the Polish youth group, and man, what a cool set of individuals they are. We spent most of the day going over things for our first day of camp tomorrow. From planning the games we’re going to play, or practicing English lessons that we’re going to give, it’s safe to say that we had a busy day. Despite all of this, we did still manage some time to get lody (Polish ice cream), and walk around Skoczow’s town square.

            We’re excitedly anticipating our first day of English camp, and can’t wait to see what amazing things God is going to do. To everyone back home, if you could pray that our first day of camp go smoothly, I think that’s currently #1 on our agenda, and it’d be much appreciated.

            That pretty much tops things off. Everyone is in one piece, and we’re pumped to see how God will work through us. Please keep praying for us, we’ll see you all in a few.

Signing off from Poland,

            Ollie Erholtz

Polish word of the day: Kotek (Koh-teck), which means kitten J

            

                             The group before our fancy welcome dinner from the polish team!!!!

From the voice and heart of Kayla Herubin

            Hello, all! Today was a great day here in Poland, even if it rained for a while. The day started out a little misty, well misty enough that we couldn’t see the mountain a little ways from us. We had a great breakfast followed by a morning session. After that we had our first English teaching lesson.

            After our English teaching lesson we had a while of free team, about 5 hours. During which we adventured into town. It was a long walk down the mountain that our hotel sits on, but it was worth it. It was very different to walk around a town were you’re the tourist. I found it very educational to see a different culture. There were stalls on both sides of the streets selling a variety of things. The first thing I bought with my new polish money was a cone of mint ice cream. I have to say it was probably the best mint ice cream I’ve ever had.

            After a couple hours of being in the town we walked back across town to the bridge where we were going to be picked up to be brought back to the hotel for dinner. We had a little while to wait so we sat on the brick wall next to the river to watch the ducks. Although on any normal day that might sound a bit boring it was very calming and we got to people watch to. After returning to the hotel we had dinner and than went to our night session. It was a very sobering experience. During the session we had some time to sit and pray and than could get up and do communion then we all grouped together to pray for each team. It was great to see people from all over North America praying that God guided us in each of our English camps. Tomorrow will be a fun day for all of the teams, I’m sure.

From the voice and heart of Josh Gudahl

            Where to begin? I think landing in Poland is a good place to start. I remember very little between leaving Germany and landing in Poland due to the fact that I finally crashed from the 9 complimentary coffees that I ingested during our German layover. Getting off the plane was when things really began to feel real for me. We were greeted almost instantly by Chris (a Josiah Venture missionary) and Dawid (a Polish missionary also with Josiah Venture), who helped us with our luggage and immediately started shuttling us to Wisła (Pronounced Veeswa).

            I drifted in and out of sleep on the two hour drive, but what I noticed while riding in Dawid’s van, was Polish driving, which was so crazy it was impressive. After what felt like forever, we arrived at the Hotel where we received our first taste of Polish hospitality as they provided us with some of the best chicken wings I’ve ever had. It was 2:30 am their time when we had finished eating our meals and we all headed to our respective rooms, most of the TWood team was grouped together, however I was put in a room with a Canadian and a kid from Indiana. I stumbled around with my luggage and by some miracle I didn’t wake anybody up. To say that I was happy to get out of the clothes I had been wearing for the past two days would be the understatement of my life.

            Upon waking up it took me a good five minutes to figure out that I wasn’t in my own bed, let alone my own country. Breakfast is where we began to meet all the other young missionaries on the trip. I have never met so many people that I’ve connected with so well so quickly, and I thank God for creating that atmosphere for us which significantly helped cushion the jet lag.

            During our first training session I instantly began to feel God begin to excite my heart. Many things began to go through my head, starting with the reassurance that God is with us and will never leave us especially as we are doing his work here. Through worship and the teaching of the JV staff, I began to feel the motivation that I was waiting for, a desire for God to use my life like he has never before.

            Next on the agenda was our trip to Auschwitz. No movie nor any history book will ever come close to do the tragedy, that was Auschwitz. My heart hurt and my stomach felt sick throughout the tour. Nothing had ever been so real to me in my life. What was revealed to me was how truly tragic the Fall of Man was, to allow the evil that caused this to enter the world, and to allow the crushing pain and sorrow that the prisoners experienced. I imagine God’s sorrow watching his children in this place. A comment a man made near me still sticks out in my head. He said “keep in mind that many of these guards had been regular citizens prior” This was evil manifesting itself in the common man lead astray. I felt the fear of what sin can do in men who do not have God in their hearts.

            We returned significantly quieter than we had arrived. We all took in this momentous lesson in our own ways, but nothing raises spirits better than a meal and more worship. In the evening service we got a history lesson on Josiah Venture and got first hand testimony from how God is moving in Eastern Europe. So that’s where I leave you now as we just finished. I ask you to pray for the continued brotherly love going around this hotel, that everybody’s hearts stay God focused, and for the continued safety of everybody involved.

Great News and Bummer News

We're safe!!! That's the great news. We made it through our long flight with no hiccups other than an hour delayed flight out of Chicago. We were high in spirits even though we had to stay in the states an extra hour.

The bummer of the day- due to the delay of the first flight, we missed our connecting flight. The few flights from Munich to Krakow for the day are overbooked. We all have boarding passes for a 9:50pm flight to Krakow...which is over 9 hours from now. So when you wake up and read this, please pray for our spirits! This is definitely one long continuous day. If the movie Terminal hadn't already been created, I am sure we could have made big money from our stories that will come out of today. We've also joked about starting a twitter feed. Thankfully we're still laughing and joking with each other at this point!

We'll get into Krakow around 11:30pm followed by a 2 hour drive to Wisla.

Thank you for your prayers thus far.  Our motto the whole time we have been training and preparing for this trip has been 'open palms', being open to what God wants for this trip and not our own desires. We've tweaked it a little bit today, starting with a sunny morning of prayer at church to 'open sweaty palms'.

Blessings and peace to all of you back home!

It's here!

The day is here and the time has come!! We have a long travel day ahead of us but know it will be worth it in the end. For many it is the first time flying overseas and others it is the first time flying in general. We will arrive to Krakow Poland at 12:30pm Poland time on Tuesday.

Things to pray for::

    - Travel anxieties
    - Travel details and safety
    - Preparation of out hearts
    - Preparation of the hearts in Poland



Here we go Poland team 2014!!!