All from Ice Cream

As I've mentioned before, Scott and I sponsor a little boy living in Uganda through World Vision. Isaac is his name and he is precious precious precious! Scott and I have something we call an ice cream fund. Last year we heard the statistic that Americans spend enough money on ice cream in one year to eliminate world hunger. So how do we take that info and put it into practical use? Not eat ice cream? That wouldn't do anybody and good! Plus we love ice cream! But, it is a scary statistic...so we decided to set up an "Ice Cream Fund." We decided that YES INDEED we would eat ice cream, but we would keep track of each cone and every zloty spent on ice cream and put that same amount into a separate fund and we would decide how to spend it at the end of the year. Last year the two of us spent roughly 100 bucks on ice cream alone. We decided in December that we would see if we could somehow give that money to our sponsored child, Isaac and his family. At Christmas we sent the gift through World Vision. What a precious gift we received this month. We just got a letter in the mail this month from Isaac and his family. With our measely $100 he bought what you see in this picture. Here he is with his uncle (whom he lives with). With the money he bought a school uniform, a backpack, new shoes, a matress, extra food for the family (he has 5 siblings), and a "she goat" who they say is pregnant. :) Scott and I teared up while reading this letter from him. He and his family have been in our life for 2 years now. This is most precious gift we've ever received, to be able to help provide for this family and see how excited he is about his new uniform and just this excited look on his face...worth a million dollars if we had it. I'll say it again...if you aren't sponsoring a child through World Vision I can't promote it enough. :) Our precious Isaac and his family have enriched our lives and blessed us abundantly. One day, we will go to visit him. :)

On another fun note...today is my birthday! And a lovely one it's been! I woke up this morning to a beautiful card made by my wonderful husband. He gave me my birthday present (a new rainjacket YAY!) and made me some INCREDIBLY YUMMY vanilla/cinnamon pancakes for breakfast!

I got emails and phone calls from my family and friends from home. :) :) :) This evening friends came over and we had a great time! Today is also Elaine's birthday so we decided to throw a party and celebrate together. :)


A great day. :)

ADORABLE...

We spent last weekend in Opole, a city about an hour away from us. This summer, we'll be working in an elementary school there with our summer team so we went there last weekend to stay with a missionary family there to work up some plans for the summer and Scott was invited to preach at our church plant there on Sunday. (He did wonderfully, by the way!) Anyway, while we were there we just spent a lot of our time with the family...Gary, Ewa, and their children Tommy & Kalena. Gary is Austrailian and his wife Ewa is Polish. Their children are bi-lingual. This little girl is precious! And Scott is just adores her. I have to admit when she's speaking in English and throws in a random Polish word...it's pretty darn cute. She followed him around all weekend...he's going to make a pretty adorable dad one day. :)

Land of Jazz Bistros & Sushi Bars

A couple weekends ago we took a two-night retreat to Warsaw. :) Last year we had the chance to visit several places outside of Poland...this year we've stayed at home. But, we did get to take a mini-vacation just to get away for a couple nights. The Poles around our area don't seem to be too keen on Warsaw because it's big and modern...to them it doesn't really feel Polish. We noticed a couple things about Warsaw...

1. You have a big modern-skyscraper skyline on one side and old European architecture on the other....strange, but we thought it was pretty cool. :)

2. Warsaw is VERY international...we spoke English the whole time *she says sheepishly*

3. There's a jazz bistro and a sushi bar on every corner!

4. They have a Hard Rock Cafe!! And we totally ate there. The giant building in the background was a "gift" from Stalin (the Russians). The Poles hate it. The Russians meant for it to be a "gift" to them to remind them that their "big brother" was always watching. Now, it's a movie theater. (okay okay, not ONLY a movie theater but that's what you enter through the main enterance. Scott and I thought it was pretty cool.

5. The squirrels there have long ears! Crazy! They'll eat right out of your hand too.

So...it was a fun trip! You can see all of our pictures from Warsaw here...http://picasaweb.google.com/ScottandJackieNewman/Warsaw