Highlights from Poland

Never would I have imagined that someday my husband and I would lead short-term missions teams to Eastern Europe each summer. But God had plans that took us by surprise, and wow, what a faith adventure we’re experienced for the past four years!

Our team heading home via Berlin

We’ve returned home after 35 days on the road. Our travels took us to Romania, Slovakia, and Poland. The last 11 days saw us teaching English at an evangelistic family camp in Borowice, Poland. More than 100 people attended, from babies to grandmas, with every age represented inbetween.

The schedule included early morning staff prayer meetings, chapel, a grammar class, a Bible lesson based on Jesus’ parables, crafts, games, and workshops. The latter included hour-long sessions about marriage, parenting, and spiritual growth and development. Other activities included horseback rides, soccer, volleyball, hikes, roasting s’mores and Polish sausages, and even taking an excursion to the Czech Republic where we visited a site called Adrspach Rocks.

at Adrspach Rocks in Czech Republic

This morning I poured a cup of coffee and sat in my favorite spot to spend a few minutes alone with God and His Word. Psalm 26:6b-7 spoke to me: “I come to your altar, O LORD, singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your wonders.” Here’s a brief list of my highlights from this camp. Let it be a song of thanksgiving for God’s wonders!

• Teaching a youth English class. The teenagers were a ton of fun and eager to learn conversational English. They enjoyed seeing me try to understand their tricky new rules for playing Uno!
  

  Meet my English class!

• Meeting two reps from the publishing company that recently released the Polish version of Moving from Fear to Freedom: A Woman’s Guide to Peace in Every Situation. I was delighted to actually see my book in Polish, and thrilled to see the women’s response to it. We even had an impromptu book signing.
  

  “Moving from Fear to Freedom” available in Polish! Who would have imagined?

• Teaching a daily Bible lesson. What a joy to explore God’s Word with several others, some of whom had never read it until now.
• Spending private time with at least a half dozen women who requested meetings with me. They shared their personal struggles and (thanks to translators) I was able to encourage and pray with them. At the end of the week, several said, “You’re like a mother to us.”

Back home, my heart bursts with the joy of having seeing God at work everywhere we went for the past five weeks; my body feels like it needs a very long sleep. I’m looking forward to spending time with my kids and grandbabies, to enjoying the BBQ in our backyard, and to tackling my ridiculously long to-do list. Maybe I’ll even have time to take a little ride on our Gold Wing motorbike.

My focus now changes to preparing for upcoming speaking engagements, writing two articles, and doing marketing follow-up for the Moving from Fear to Freedom teaching DVD and Bible study. I look forward to getting back to regular blogging, and also to dialoging with you.

So…here’s a question to get started: What song of thanksgiving can you offer to God today?

With hugs from my home to yours….Grace

Aerial view of Greenland on our flight home.