ala and nina

for the past month, we have hang out with our friends ala and nina as much as we can! these girls have been so great to jessica and i. i am thankful for their friendship.

they went with us for our tattoos...

...came over for mexican night...

...and birthdays.

and we even taught them 'the' dance.

the copernicus castle

this past weekend was a festival in town and it was so fun!  we got to see cinderella in a dancing format and some traditional dances from poland.  i really enjoyed myself.  here are the pictures from the dancing.  all in the same weekend we climbed to the top of the tower of the castle.  i had never seen the view of the city from up there.  it was kind of cool. it is still kind of crazy to think that i live in poland and have been for the past 19 months. i would have never imagined this on my own.

not sure if you know this info or not about olsztyn, but there is a castle that was built in the 1300's(i believe) and nicolas copernicus lived here for a short while.  so there is a short history lesson for ya!

john 3:16

so in our week in the village, we had a polish rapper come and give a concert for us.  he is a believer and it was a great way to get the community out to hear him.  so he rapped john 3:16 and i got it on video. he is an amazing rapper(atleast, i think so.) give him a listen.



last summer i learned this version of john 3:16 and asked some of the girls to sing it again so i could record it.  enjoy!

krakow

so several of us went to krakow with the volunteers.  we left olsztyn early(and i mean early monday morning and arrived in krakow in the afternoon and were able to tour the city.  tuesday we went to auschwitz and toured the camp.  it was heartbreaking.  something i am glad that i saw, but i don't need to see it again.  

after the auschwitz tour, we hung around krakow for the next several hours before heading out of town and headed to warsaw for the volunteers to fly out the next day.  so we were in krakow a little over 24 hours.  it was a very nice city.  it had a western european feel to it; something that we don't really have up north.  up north we have a little more rural european feel, so i was glad to get back.  i really have enjoyed living in olsztyn.

highlights of krakow...

...i got to see my friend sarah who is a journeyman there!  she is such a blessing! 

...getting to see the castle at night!

...eating subway sandwiches!  oh dear i loved it!  we don't have them up north so it was a great treat!

Make a Smilebox photobook

szalstry

we are back from our week in szalstry!  

things didn't go exactly as planned, but it all went well!  many of the children were not around due to various reasons but we persevered and met the Lord there.

we prayed for the weather to be rain-free; and it was.

we had a polish christian rapper, who was awesome and soon i will put up a video clip of him.

several people came out from the church here in olsztyn which was great to have them involved!

i was impressed with the volunteers that came over!  they were awesome!  for several of them, it had been their first mission overseas and i was impressed!  they did such a great job and invested their lives here!

we had community service in the morning, community outreach in the afternoon, and a community campfire in the evening. the gospel was told.  stories of Jesus Christ in our lives was shared.  

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

thank you so much for partnering with me to pray for our week! 

"great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom."  psalm 145:3

Week in Szałstry

so starting tomorrow i will be in the village of szałstry. a group of americans have come over to host community outreaches and community service.

we will be sharing the gospel in full. please be praying for us as we are there. there are roughly 12 americans and plus/minus a couple of polish people.

we have been going to this village this past spring and holding english lessons. they are very open to us being there and very excited about us being there.

please pray for the presence of Holy Spirit to be there to guide and direct. and that the hearts and ears of those in this village will be ready to hear.

Make a Smilebox postcard

the other half of my american team is going to a village called Platyny. this has been a rough community in the past, so please be lifting them up as well!

your prayers are so much appreciated, so thank you! it will be a busy week and we want to meet the Lord in where he is moving.

hel, poland

here are the pictures from the trip!  it was a nice time!  the weather was a little chilly (along with the water) but it was still very nice!

i are leaving in a few days for finland, but shortly after i return pictures will be posted!

polska

so the european soccer tournament is currently going on, and poland isn't the greatest! but there is still pride for poland!
near my apartment block, there was a tent sent up for people come together and watch the game. the tent served beverages and had a big screen with bleachers. we watched from a distance and didn't get in the middle of it all, but it was still exhilarating! in the first game poland played germany and lost 2-0. in the second game they tied with austria, 1-1. but tell me this...how do you tie in soccer? i just don't get it.

so here is a little film of what we experienced. now, i am going to warn you that i am not the best at filming, i didn't go to school for that. but the people were wild. you can hear them cheering(faintly, pay attention!) in the back ground.


poland plays croatia this evening. we will see but i know that croatia is better than poland. so if you read this in time, wear your red and white!

wolf slayer part II

so our our day of adventure, we went to another place that camped bunkers.  

can you see this one?

this one is in the middle of all of these tress

on one of the bunkers, the owners of the place had built a staircase along this outside of the bunker so you could climb the stairs to go up and then go up even further!  so here is a picture to capture the scenery.

and who doesn't need a picture on top of a bunker?  we weren't looking our greatest.  it had been a long day and honestly we were a little worried that the staircase was going to fall!  but all clear!

inside a bunker.  it was rather creepy and knowing that soldiers had been camped here.  or better get nazi's.  even creepier is that it is a tourist attraction.

so here i am standing in the door way.  if you look past the door frame,  you see white a stretch.  just take some time to notice how thick and secure the frame is.  and the yellow thing in my right hand would be the flash light we had to use when going through the bunkers because it was dark, damp, and creepy!  

wolf slayer

it isn't exactly called "wolf slayer", but in english it is called the wolf's lair.  but for the longest time i thought people were calling it the "wolf slayer"!  who knew!

really the wolf's lair is a place that hitler retreated.  he had bunkers built for protection and they were camouflaged.  here is a link with a little more information than i could give you.

my family was able to visit here last year when they came to visit but i failed to take any pictures.

here is  map of the camp.

here is one of the sides of the several bunkers.  all at this place have been destroyed.

our tour guide is the lady in the hat.  she knows her hitler information!

and even after living here for 17 months, it is still a surprise at times that i live in a foreign country.  every so often i tell myself that i live in poland.  i am not sure if it is because i am getting used to it now that it is a surprise when i remember it.  but it is also a shock to see a sign in 4 different languages.  starting in the top left and going clockwise would be english, german, polish, and russian(i think). 

kocham olsztyn

this is my home.

this is a band called Czerwony Tulipan, which means Red Tulip.

the chorus says something along the lines of i love olsztyn, my small america.

these are some sites around town including the castle, the river running through town, and the city hall. and some of the site that they show are random. but this captures olsztyn for you.

just wanted to share this with you! enjoy!

bardzo dużo słon...

...or just a really big elephant!(lyrics of some songs we sang this past week!)

so we just spent the past week having a little camp in the afternoon at a little village. it was a grand ol' time! i am stealing some pictures that jessica took. i really didn't carry a camera with me.

we had a soccer game: US vs Poland. they didn't ask me to play, which was a good thing! they recruited some of the little boys from the village to play for the US team.



here i am with some of the beautiful little girls.



look at these mischievous little faces! oh and they were mischievous, they kept us on our toes!



this little girl...there are no words! she is a cross between junie b. jones and dennis the menace. but i would take her home in a heartbeat.

this is how we roll-part 1

so we were out and about today so i thought i would snap a few shots of how people get around here. i have so many pictures that i have to make this a two-blogger.

this shot of our feet is the main source of transportation here. it is refreshing.



and these cars with the "L" on top is to signify that the car has a learning driver practicing on the open road. everyone is on the look out for when we see them coming.



here is a picture with a bus and a man driving with his door open! oh the joys! normally the bus is our main mode of transportation. the lovely summer smells on the bus are starting to come out, so needless to say, we try to walk every where.



this chick was driving on the sidewalk! we had to move out of her way.




oh and this might be the best shot of the day! jessica spotted this one. but if you look closely in the "L" car, there is a dog (and there might even be two dogs) sitting in the backseat!

this is how we roll-part 2

you better watch out for the people pushing strollers. there are nicer strollers here than there are cars! these kids have it good. i think that it is a competition with the parents to see who can have the best looking stroller to push.


we live super close to a hospital so we normally see the chopper coming and going.


and this is a large group of people getting ready to cross the busy street. many times we walk up to an intersection and forget to push the button that tells the light that there are pedestrians that need to get across so we will stand there for a few minutes until we remember!


and these "bikes" are starting to come out of the woodwork. what makes us laugh even more is seeing two men hang onto each other on the "bikes."


well, i hope that you have enjoyed the visual of the transportation systems here. i do not have pictures of the railway system.

in other news, president bush is in the area. also check out this link. this is an amazing story of a polish man that woke from a 19 year coma. his wife cared for his every need, what a woman.

in the 'hood

so there was a beautiful day last week in the 'hood and we decided to take a little walk and take some snap-shots of our area.


here is a little lake/pond near us. it was kind of gross still because the clean-up crew hadn't come through yet. when it snows, people just through the trash on the ground so it was still a little trashy here.


this is a sports arena right next door to us. we haven't been there yet but we see it all the time. we aren't really sure what is in there. kind of looks like a flea-market had set up for a few days in there. you might call it more of an expo-center.

so we start our english/bible study tomorrow. we aren't really sure what to expect. i will let you know. be praying for the boldness of students and for hearts that are ready to hear the truth. pray for more students to be reached. we are the pioneers here in olsztyn, the first ones to try something like this. we know that that LORD is going to do big and mighty things here.

today we had to go to the police station and be questioned. they wanted to check our passports to see if we were still legal or if we were "aliens." this was all in polish so our supervisor went with us. the man asked me if i liked it here in poland and i said that i did. and then he asked me if i liked it better here than in the america! that was a loaded question! i just said that it was different than in america.

i am learning a lot about myself and my personality. but i am reminded of in 1 peter 2:9. "but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light." i am His, belonging to Him.

run, run, run, run, run around

so, the visa application is turned in. i might have to add a few more documents to it, but we should know in a few days. it wasn't too hard, just a ginormous stack of paperwork!


here is the final shot of the stack!


and here i am so stinkin' excited to turn the bad boy in!

our 90 day visa expires in early april. we aren't too sure if we will get our 2 year visa by then so we might have to make a border run. we like to say that. it sounds like an undercover mission! i will keep you posted.

off the beaten path

yesterday in a local town/village was great! it was so nice to spend time with the kids. our english lesson went well and what i heard was that the Bible story went well too.


here jessica and i are doing our rendition of "head, shoulders, knees, and toes". we didn't sing it "head, shoulders, knees, and fingers on your feet." we went with the classic.


the kiddos had a craft project. they loved being able to make something for themselves with the beads. it was really fun to hang out with them even if there was a language barrier. some of them were able to speak enough english to communicate.

be praying for the town of Jankowo.

the Lord is working here in my life and in other ministries. still waiting to see how our university ministry is going to get off the ground. we are trying to work with the local church to do an english/Bible study at a local school with high school students.

"i have set the LORD always before me. because he is at my right hand, i will not be shaken." psalm 16:8

head, shoulders, knees, and fingers on your feet

so tomorrow we are headed out to do some village work. jessica and i were asked to do a little english lesson. well, we have no clue as to what english skills these students will have so we kind of made a guess and decided to teach them head, shoulder, knees and toes. we learned though, that they would not say that they have toes, but fingers on the feet. great!



so here is a picture with my pottery! i am starting to love hot tea. it is great!


but here is the best story...so lets think back to a post on feb 16. on this post was a picture of our washer and the hose leading from the washer to the commode that we have to move every time we do laundry. 
well it was bound to happen....we left the hose out of the commode and the water went on the floor. that is right folks, we had a flood. 
but we didn't know that there was a flood until our neighbor downstairs came up to tell us...you are right again, it had leaked to his apartment. he rang our door, we opened the door to him speaking polish and pointing in the direction of my room. jessica is looking at the trash that we had sitting out asking herself "why would he want that?" and i go to venture in my room to see what he was pointing at, and stepped into about half an inch of water and said "oh no! the washer!" we quickly ran to turn it off, we apologized to the man and he left. 
we pulled out every towel that we own and threw it on the ground to soak up the water. we soaked up as much as we could, but it is still a little damp. it probably will as the next few days, the forecast calls for rain so the air will be damp. we went downstairs to speak to our neighbor, but again we have the language barrier! we called our supervisor who has been so helpful, and he was able to speak to the man and apologized to him on our behalf. 

now that you all are probably laughing at us, i will close. goodnight!

you know its cold when...

10. the girls are actually wearing pants and not capri pants
9. you language teacher complains that his beard gets "frozy" from walking outside
8. you decided you can surely survive a few days without milk because you don't want to go out to the store.
7. after your weekly Raid spray, which involves leaving a window cracked for a time, you no longer have hot water in the kitchen
6. even the ice skating rink shuts down for the night
5. the little dogs wear shirts and jackets
4. you can't leave the house without multiple packages of tissues
3. the city bus drivers skip stops along the way inorder to prevent the doors opening and the cold air coming in(we fell victims to that)
2. two pairs of pants, three long sleeved shirts, a scarf, hat, gloves, boots and a jacket feels like the michelin man
1. snow drifting into jessica's room from the leak in the window

it is pointless to resist my irresistibleness

i have a new friend whose name is leo. he is in the picture with me below! and the title is one of the many random and awkward sayings that he repeats. he is a great friend though! these pictures were taken at our valentines day party! it was super fun including games, cookies, valentines, and more cookies!


leo.



here i am reading my nice valentines from mom's class! thanks third grade! i loved reading them!