Tasty Eggs & A Happy Easter

Or "Smacznego Jajka" as they say here in Poland. It means "tasty egg" sometimes they'll say "Happy Egg" to...and then of course there's always Wesołych Świąt which means "Happy Easter/Happy Holidays". We love Easter in Poland. Poles take Easter seriously...as it should be. It's a big family holiday...and for this family, it will continue to be even after we move home. Anyway, here's a short clip of a traditional Easter ritual here that occurs on Saturday. Families take their Easter baskets to the church and have them blessed by the priests. The baskets are filled with the things they will be eating for their family breakfast the next morning. Some are symbolic...typically eggs, meat, bread, salt & pepper.

After church today we headed to Wojtek & Aga's for Easter dinner. There were 8 of us...9 counting Dawidek (Dah-vee-dek). Again...I'm smitten with this kid. Here are some clips & pics.

HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL! Please take at least a moment to remember the reason for this precious day...I know I take it for granted all too often. Chwała Bogu! He is risen! :)

I can't resist.

Have I mentioned that I ADORE this kid? I'm trying to conjure up a way to sneak him in my luggage on my way home. Shhh...don't tell his parents. ;)

A short clip...

Here's just a short clip of the guys (David, Andy, & Scott) practicing "What If God" for the Teczowa concert last Wednesday. :) My camera doesn't take long clips...but at least you can hear about 30 seconds. The girl in the video is Sara, David's sister. Both of them will be visiting us in the States in August...YAY!!! :)

Busy as Always...

Today is officially the "First Day of Spring." It's been snowing ALL DAY LONG! ;) For months we've had no snow...just consistantly cold temperatures, but it started snowing yesterday and hasn't stopped since. However it hasn't really stuck much because the sun is out so it just melts right away, but nonetheless...we have snow. :) Now when I'm ready for spring to be here. Oh well, I'll take snow over rain & wind any day!

Things have been busy here, but really good busy. We have had three incredibly sucessful Friday nights at "The Well." It's become one of our favorite parts of the week...but makes for a very long Friday! This week we're taking a break because it's Good Friday and our students have all gone home to celebrate and be with family. In addition to The Well, we have meetings here at the flat on Wednesday nights called: "Deeper Waters." The past two weeks we've had about 6-7 students! That's GREAT! These are students who missed The Well on Friday night and want to rewatch the video and students who were there but are wanting to talk more about what they saw. We had a GREAT meeting last night. Each Wednesday night I cook dinner and dessert for our students, we enjoy a meal together and then rewatch Friday's video and that has lead into really good discussion each week. I can't explain how we've seen the Lord bless this ministry! We couldn't be happier with the outcome. :) Wednesday nights are my favorite because I LOVE LOVE LOVE cooking dinner and dessert for these students and making them feel at home. One student in particular has a job as a postman and for about the past month his only meal on Wednesdays have been the meals that I've cooked for him...before we knew exactly what his job entailed, he called me and said, "I'd love to come to your Nooma meeting, but I've had a long day and I'm very hungry. Nooma would be good food for my soul, but if you could prepare some food for my body I would be grateful." *lol* So from that night on I've prepared dinner each Wednesday night. This student works 12 hour shifts a day and DOESN'T get a break for lunch...or a break at all. Incredible. Anyway, this is what I love to do. :)

This week is "Recollection" week in our high school - Teczowa. This is where we lead English Clubs every other week and we are in very good standing with the teachers and director of the school. The religion teacher asked us last month if Scott and I would prepare an EVANGELICAL concert for this week. In a public school....holy cow...what a wide open (and frankly- scary) door! Teenagers can be brutal...especially the ones here. But we said "yes" and Scott, Dawid, and Andy put together an incredible program! The day before the students had a similar assembly, but it was put on by a local Charasmatic Catholic church and lasted for 4 hours. 4 hours of charasmatic praise & worship and testimonies. Our program lasted 45 minutes. Scott had the idea of presenting the Bible as a love story and picked out 7 songs that went along with what he was wanting to say. These three guys gave a GREAT concert and the stories that Scott told inbetween each song went perfectly. It was honest, relevant to their lives and no "churchy" words were used that nonbelievers wouldn't be able to understand. We did use some Derek Webb...and that made us happy. (Though we would have gotten kicked out of the school if we'd done this in the States.) The lyrics were edgy and strong...but so honest and relevant. It was a beautifully constructed program which could only come with a Devine inspiration. I'm pleased, as were the guys, Wojtek, and Basia - the religion professor.

So something real fun! We suprised Lauren this week with - HER MOM! Yep! Sneaky people we are. Her mom had secretly bought tickets to come to Poland and let Scott & me know. We picked her up from the airport on Tuesday and brought her to our flat where Lauren was "meeting us for lunch" COMPLETELY oblivious to the fact that her Mom was in the country. It was fantastic. Here's her reaction. :) Listen closely!

I love suprises. :)

Also one more fun thing...not quite as exciting, but I'm having fun. I'm learning how to knit! I'm in the process of making a scarf right now, but I love it...and it's pretty darn addicting! :) I love the yarn that I picked out...but I think I should have started with some thicker yarn. Oh well!

Okay, well Happy Easter to you all! We'll be spending it with our church and we'll be having a big Easter Dinner at Wojtek & Aga's with Lauren and her mom and Andy. It should be a good time. We're thinking about taking the Monday & Tuesday after for a short trip to just get away for a couple days. Maybe going to Warsaw since we've never been there. We'll see!

Yesterday

We woke up this morning kinda tired, it’s been sort of a long weekend with The Well and all. Yesterday was a nice day. Scott took me out to dinner and we went to see one of our students who sings in a choir. They’re concert was at this lovely cathedral about 20 minutes away from our place (on foot). She had invited us to the concert so we went to support her. Something about it struck me. Here in this place we’re surrounded by what seems like cold, lifeless, giant cathedrals where things have just become routine. Easter is coming up so the concert included songs about the crucifixion of Jesus. I think that as Protestant Christians we usually allow ourselves to just become “comfortable” with Jesus. We tell people about how He’s our “good friend” and we can talk to him about the most ridiculous things…which I do. BUT, I think we allow ourselves to forget…the Lord is REGAL…he’s the King of all kings. Sitting in that church last night listening to the choir sing, it just sent a chill through my bones. I imagined the angels mourning over the death of Jesus while that choir was singing. The sounds filled that big, cold, somewhat lifeless building with the presence of the Lord. I found myself with goosebumps every now & then. I just let myself forget how big the Lord is, how righteous and perfect, how immaculate He is. And the thing that touched my heart the most: Sitting all around me were Polish babcza’s (bab-cha’s) or little old lady’s…some with friends, others by themselves. I’ve never said that we’re here to bash the Catholic church or convert people to the Protestant faith…it’s not about that for us. It’s about helping people deeper their relationship with Christ and hopefully deepening our own while we’re here…which I believe we have. To look at those little old ladies…they’re something else, truly. They are committed warriors of their faith. Whenever I see them on the trams, it’s guaranteed that they’ll be praying whenever they pass a church…I hear them. They love the Lord. Sure…there are some things about the Catholic faith that well…are questionable as far as putting Mary on such a high pedestal or all of the rules and regulations that they must follow to be good Catholics…but who’s to say that the Protestant church is any “better off” or “are TRUE Christians.” That’s bull if you ask me. When I see someone following Jesus, living like He lived, teaching what He taught…those are the people I recognize as Christians. Denomination is the furthest thing from my mind. I’ll leave you with a video of that choir singing last night. The quality may not be fantastic.

A Saturday Update!

I love Saturday! Today is National Women's Day here in Poland...so HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY! Today I'm sure we'll see lots of guys carrying around flowers. :) Today are plans are to be lazy, get some blogging & emailing done, and later go to an Easter concert at one of the cathedrals here...one of our students is singing in the choir. :) Okay...a bit of randomness that I didn't get a chance to blog about! So, my favorite type of juice here is called "Red Oranges from Sicily" and it is YUMMY!! It's my mom's favorite too! We were at our giant indoor market the other day and what did we stumble upon...Red Oranges from Sicily! Yep...they're real...red oranges! And they are just as yummy as the juice! I'm sure we could NEVER find these at home, so we're going to enjoy them while we're here! Here's a pic to prove it...

Okay, and so The Well...last night was our second week for The Well! YAY! We've been so excited with the turnout and our students' responses. Last night's video was called "Polluted" and it talked about how maybe the church or its people don't always give a good representation of the life that Jesus lived while he was here. It was pretty good. We had several new students this week who sat around and chatted with us after the video for at least an hour or so. It was great! We couldn't be more pleased! :) We are looking forward to the following weeks. We actually had a bit of a "scare" yesterday as we were setting up. We (me, Scott, Lauren, and Andy) were at the chuch from around 2:00 yesterday. Lauren and I decided to finally go get lunch/dinner about 4:00. So we went to pick up some "Nalesniki" (crepes) and walked back into the courtyard where our church is. Now our church is in the Triangle...which isn't exactly the best part of town, but we've never really felt unsafe there. Plus it was still light outside so it wasn't a big deal. Anyway, we were headed back into the courtyard and we noticed that 3 young (20's) guys were walking behind us. They were pretty rough looking, one's faced was all scratched up where he had probably been in a fight and they were all drinking. They were probably talking to us but we couldn't understand and when we noticed they were behind us we started walking a bit quicker. We didn't know this at the time, but luckily Wojtek was rounding the corner into the courtyard and noticed the guys following us so he quickened his pace too. When Lauren and I came around the side of the church where the door is they were right behind us and we were afraid they were going to follow us into the church. Luckily the guys hadn't locked the door back so we got right in and locked the door behind us. They started to knock on the door and whistle...we just left it locked and ignored it. Anyway, a few seconds later I heard it unlock and I thought somehow they had managed to unlock our door so I ran to it and locked it back before they could open it and I looked through the peephole and it was Wojtek. :) When I opened the door to let him in I noticed that there were more of them standing outside five or six. So, we ate our lunch while the guys were still outside the church. Wojtek decided to call our other pastor, Bogdan. Bogdan decided he would call the police because technically, drinking in public is illegal here. We just decided to pray for protection for us and for our students who would be coming that night. I was a bit concerned that they would be angry if they knew we called the police and that they might come back later that night angry AND drunk. The guys were no where in sight after we prayed and the police never showed up. :) Whew!
Looking back it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. They were just guys standing around drinking and absolutely nothing happened...but at the time, I just wasn't sure what kind of mindset they were in. You just can never tell who people will act when they've been drinking a lot. Anyway, the night was fine, students came, and we had a great time! Praise the Lord! :)
Here are a couple videos just so you can get a glimpse of how it looks on Friday nights. So, in the first video I'm basically saying: "Okay, so we're at The Well and it's the 2nd week. I'm in the balcony and I'm going to show you around." BUT, I had to whisper because the video was going and you can't really hear a thing I'm saying. In the second video I'm showing you the botton floor where the students are watching the video. :) They're not great quality, but at least you'll have an idea of what it looks like. :)