It's hard to believe that a week ago today we were waking up after a long flight's journey back to the States. First we didn't almost make it out of Berlin due to not having the correct papers that proved we were legally in Poland for those 11 months. Then upon arriving in Chicago we had delay after delay just trying to get down to St. Louis. Alas, after waiting 8 hours, we boarded our 43 minute flight to St. Louis and arrived there at 11:30pm. We were greeted by tired, yet excited family of Josh's in their RV. Our Journey to Poland had come to an end.
It's weird seeing pictures on facebook now of summer camps at Zakosciele. They had their first camp this week of the summer. It was a junior (youth 7-14) multi-sport camp. It would've been a perfect way to end our time there, but unfortunately, our Visa's only allowed us to be there until the end of June. The girls have been anticipating playing with their cousins and needless to say, they've been enjoying every minute of it this past week.
Mixed emotions? Yep. It's hard to say "See you Later" (as we don't believe in goodbyes!), when you don't know exactly when the "later" time will be when you get to see them again. However, we are very confidant it will be sooner than later. The reality is that we'll probably be making trips over (hopefully with teams) and have to break the family up in doing it since tickets alone are so expensive. The relationships made are forever intertwined with ours and below I have a few names that I want you to continue to be covering in prayer.
And although we are no longer physically serving with ProEm on the frontlines of their ministry, we are convinced more than ever that prayer is the foundation to see His glory experienced in individual lives. We got to see first hand prayers being answered and now we'll be praying for others that entered our lives right at the very end.
What's next in timeline for us (should any of you wonder?!)?
We'll be spending the remaining month of July in IL and WI and then heading back to NH the 1st of August. We are still needing to live on our monthly support as we won't be receiving paychecks until the very end of August (as far as we know at the moment) when we return to our schools. I have to be honest and say it's a weird feeling to be living on support when you aren't physically in the country. AND... $50 spent at the grocery store hardly gets very far compared to $50 in Poland that can fill our cabinets for a week's worth of food. Thankfully, staying with family, we don't have a whole lot of groceries that we have to buy. :) For those of you who follow us on our blog, thank you for taking this journey with us, for praying for the people of Poland and hopefully falling in love with what God is doing there. Please don't stop praying!
So, how can you still be praying specifically? Well, pray for a woman named Gosia... she is a caretaker for a local orphanage and a dear friend of a lady (also named Gosia who is a new believer at the Tomy Church). My friend (Gosia) has been praying for her friend, Gosia, for a while now and has had some pretty awesome talks and prayers together. Recently, I met Gosia because a friend from our old church in Rochester, IL came to Poland to do some exploratory work for an orphans and adoption ministry. I was able to tag along with her to some of our visits. It didn't take long for the three of us (my friend Gosia, Sara from IL and myself) to see that Sara's visit was an important link in Gosia's journey. AND, not just for Gosia's, but for two young ladies who grew up in the orphanage and starting the transition process of having to leave the orphanage because they are 18. The two girls's names are Weronika (pronounced Veronica) and Daria. Gosia and the two young ladies went to church at Tomy for the very first time last weekend! The girls want to go back. Pray for Gosia, Weronika and Daria!
And, continue to pray for our friend Rodick. Although they are older than us, we became very close to the family. We will miss our times together and the memories made when our families got together (often for Alicja taught me how to make some great traditional Polish dishes) are forever imprinted in our hearts and memory.
If you receive automatic emails whenever I post something, that's good because I hope to continue to post things for you to continue to pray for and updates on lives of people there.
Pray for the camps... pretty much every week of camp is maxed out in numbers. Pray for the counselors and staff as both Josh and I know from being camp counselors ourselves here in the States (blast from the past!) that week after week of camps can take a toll.
Pray for the ProEm staff because summer has traditionally been the busiest time of the year for the ministry. Funny thing, with the expanding ministry in Lodz and a grant that the Tomy church just received from the city to do a "community center" type of outreach after school to the neighborhood children, every day life for the ProEm Staff has been getting increasingly busier. BusYness can slowly rob those in ministry of FOCUS on WHOM we do all things for. Most of you know, we get it... and we can't let great ministry outreaches take precedence over KNOWING Him.
I will wrap up this post with a prayer for you... one I often prayed while in Poland thinking of all of you who have been our faithful prayer warriors... it's from Philippians 1:3-6
"I thank God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
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