Well this has been a long wait, but Alexis and I have taken the first official steps towards being sent from our home church to church plant, train up small groups, and fulfill the great commission in full, in Krak
Tag: Poland
To the 20 or so who read this daily…
According to my feed stats about 20 people are subscribed to this place I call my blog. So for those 20 people I have a question (and hopefully more will answer)…
We are currently in the process of creating our missionary budget, or living and ministry bugets for when we take the plunge and move to Krak
Forward Motion
I’m going to get some forward motion, I am, I am, says I.
I have a number of things in regards to Poland to address, and I would love to get started, but I’m having trouble moving forward. Hopefully I can start things tomorrow once Alexis and I are back on our regular schedule. Polish lessons, mission trip prep, support letter (I’m so tired of asking for money), think of new ways to support ourselves, blog a bit about the tension of missions and being sent and the lack of perceived interest from people. Okay I think that’s all for now.
In repsonse to Marcus… let’s go wild.
Marcus got me thinking…
I’m feeling the need to go wild….
Years ago I read John Eldredge’s book “Wild at Heart” and it was, at the time, a great read. However I think I need to read it again. I remember a few of the ideas; being free to adventure and including our loved ones, allowing others to love me and allowing myself to love, while all at the same time taking hold of my inner sense of adventure and stepping out into an unknown world.
Gosh, if only I could hold onto those things each day, and remember that everyday is a step in the adventure God has put us. Every major decision we have made has been with our calling to Poland in mind. From the house we live in, to the job I have, to the ministry’s we volunteer in. Everything is for the great adventure we know we are stepping into.
But on a day to day basis, work in, work out, the adventure is lost. I have small “revivals” in my heart, times where I search far and long across the Internet at houses and apartments to buy in Krak
In rememberance, the Jews of Krak
Post Trip review
Pretty much I summed up my trip in my post called “well“. But a few afterthoughts have made their way to my head. The first real bit one hit me last night at church, we had a special children’s service called “The shared family experience”, during the worship time I cried a few tears because I realized that the joy of God and all his goodness was truly understood in these children, and that Alexis and I will be raising our child away from such an amazing ministry. We trust that God himself will be with Emma and that such a ministry is absolutely possible in Poland, it’s just that we have an amazing church here and leaving will be just that much harder now.
I uploaded new pictures to facebook (the albums are public), see part 1 and part 2.
That’s all for now! (my birthday is tomorrow, here’s my wish list).
Retreat time
Well we’re off to the retreat, won’t be writing much here, I’ll do some mobile picture posting, otherwise the next time I write here may not be until Tuesday when we’re back home. Thanks for everything! Check back for picture updates. I uploaded some pictures from this trip on my facebook, click here to see. They’re not the best shots as I was walking and sometimes running at the same time, most of them are in Krak
Connections
Yesterday Jordan and I had the privileged to meet a Polish Pastor in Krak
Well…
This has been one of the more interesting trips I’ve made, and quite an introduction for Jordan to missions and Poland. All of our flights went well, no trouble there, except for checking in in Portland (stupid “easy checkin” wasn’t so easy because it couldn’t process my passport for our international segments) and we had to wait over 20 min to get help. After the check in was complete everything was fine, we made it to Krakow with out any trouble, all our bags, everything was good.
We stayed in Krakow until about 9pm local time and ran a few errands with Denise, ate at KFC and gave Jordan a quick low-down on ministry, poland, and the week ahead.
Our first full day (Monday) was full of moving everything from the apartment the church here has been renting to Denise’s house (about 30 min away). This made for a long day, of multiple trips in her car, she stayed at her place cleaning while we drove back and fourth with all the stuff. On the last trip of the night we loaded up a desk and a table on top of the car and attached it to the rack.
We got a bit over half-way to Denise’s house and KABOOM…. something fell off… but it didn’t fall all the way off. After we finally reached a good place to pull over (about 1/2 a mile of dragging) we realized that the table had fallen partially off and we had dragged it, one of hte bungee chords we had used to hold it on had snapped. Not only did the table fall off, it busted the passenger side far rear window (not the door window but the one behind it) and at the same time gave a few scratches to the car. To this moment we don’t quite get how this all happened, especially the angle at which the table fell, it seems it woudl’ve taken out the passenger side-view mirror instead. Anyway it’s about $190 to repair it… ouch.
So today, I got the pleasure of going to the car dearler and figuring out how to make an appointment, find out the cost, and do all of this in Polish… yay me. Thankfully there was a guy who spoke English and understood my broken Polish when English wasn’t working. It was a little challenging but a good one.
Tonight I’m meeting with my old roommate from 2003/2004 who I lived with here in Poland, he’s now married and has a daughter as well, so I’m very excited to see them and have a good conversation. This is really what I thrive to do, serving physically is all great, but the relationships, the connections, and the truth that God brings out in all of it is amazing. So with the moving piece behind us (we have one last trip tomorrow, and we did one load today) and the retreat coming up, I’m excited to see Jesus in all of it.
Keep us in your prayers, the broken window I believe is a blessing in disguise for something, not sure what yet… but it will be good. The weather is yucky, it’s pretty much hanging around 32-35 making for a nice slushy mess.
Thanks for your prayers, support, and interest in all of this… I’ll have more pictures up soon, looks like I’ll have time tomorrow to upload some good ones.
Countdown to trip number 5
On the 16th I and a friend leave for Poland on my 5th trip and his 1st trip back to Poland! This will be one of my shortest trips, but I hope for it to be quite strategic as well. Alexis (encourage her to post some more on her blog) wants to go so badly, and in November we’ll be going as a family, so that is quite exciting!
Right now the snow in the southern part of Poland is not unlike being in the cascade mountain resorts. Although avalanches and those kinds of things seem to be more rare, mostly because it’s much drier which I think makes it more stable, the weather here in the Northwest can be so unpredictible and change from wet to dry and cold and warm so quickly that avalanche risks are high.
The one thing that I am most excited about is talking with my buddy Chris (Angelized form of his name), he and his wife had a baby last July, so we have a lot to share, plus the Lord has really been brining us together in vision and hope. In fact, I need to email him right now and get a few times to meet on the schedule.