Girls just want to have fun

On Tuesday after lunch, the women split into two groups as we prepared for a women’s craft time at Kasia’s house.  Tracy and Mary went to the grocery store with Damaris to prepare the food for the party.  Beth, Clancy and myself (Nicole) went to Kasia’s where we began to work with the women creating candleholders from old jars.  

Kasia invited two of her childhood friends who do not know Jesus.  Beth and Tracy had the opportunity to share their life stories with the women over dinner.  As a result of the festivities both of Kasia’s friends are open to attending more women’s groups in the future.  Kasia and Damaris are excited for the possibility to continue building relationships with these women.  Damaris’s daughter also took the time to teach us some Polish phrases like, I love ice cream!

On Wednesday after lunch, Damaris hosted for a women’s craft night.  This time the crowd was from the local elementary school (where her children attend school).  There were more than 6 women and more than 10 children.  Clancy and myself (Nicole) shared our stories of Jesus’s love with the women.  We ate some yummy food, prepared and joined in fellowship with one another.  Mary and Clancy spent time with the children creating flower crafts, coloring and watching the Polish version of Frozen.  (Make sure you ask them to sing it for you…in Polish!)

Hope in the Flowers

What a fantastic day! It feels like we had a week packed into one day. 

Every day we start out together as a team spending time reading and studying the Bible. This morning we dug into Philippians. We clung to Philippians 4:6-7 during our prayer time around the Otremba's neighborhood. 

It was great to see where they live and pray over their street, their kids' school, and the important buildings in the area. 

One building was a huge apartment complex that over looked a good portion of Cieszyn. It holds hundreds of people and has the communist-era feel about it. 

The view from up top was spectacular and really gave us a feel for the make up of the city the Otremba's have grown to love. 

The apartments showed the heart of the Pols in the flowers that spewed out of almost every apartment. It's a sign of the beautiful things that Polish people relish. 

Only half our day was spent there, praying over that part of the city. The other half was spent at the Otremba's, preparing for about 15 women to come over. 

The Otremba's and the ladies on our team hosted a craft party for Damaris' friends and acquaintances. They had such a fun time! 

Please pray for the language barrier. It often times poses an opportunity for frustration on both sides due to a great desire to communicate. Please pray that Tomek and Damaris would have continued energy to translate and continue hosting our team. Also please pray that our team would have a rejuvenation since we're about halfway. We all got very tired today!

Our first "official" day

Tuesday, July 22, was technically our first full day in Cieszyn. And all we can say is, wow!

The day started off with a great night's rest for most of us and a breakfast almost worth writing home about. Then Tomek and Damaris picked us up and took us downtown to the town center.

The Catholic Church kicked off our prayer walk. What an amazing display of art and culture! It also broke my heart to see how so many other things are highlighted over Jesus. That was the theme of most of our prayers: that Jesus would become the focal point of the Polish people's faith (can you join us in praying for that?).

Our team split off into three groups from the town center. My team walked to a couple different churches and prayed over them. Above is the Franciscan church. 

We all met back up and debriefed at Cieszyn's oldest building, The ???. It's over 1,000 years old! The Otremba's have connections so we were even able to sit inside. 

Afterwards, we ate lunch (which Jake will tell you about later) and the girls set off to prepare and host a ladies time at one of Damaris' friend's house (which Nicole will tell you about soon). 

Oh, we also got to re-enter Poland. The town of Cieszyn is actually split by the Poland-Czech Republic border. It's an open border, so we took advantage of it!

That's all for now :)

Running on Fumes

We landed. Safely, soundly, and sleepily. Tomek picked us up at the airport and ushered us into a cozy van. The team's excited buzz quickly turned into a calm purr.

After a two hour ride, we made it to our hotel in Cieszyn where Damaris, Tomek's wife, was there to meet us. She helped us get checked in before we all met up for a quick lunch. Our slightly delirious sleep-deprived minds helped bring out the best in us. 

Once we finished lunch, everyone stole away to freshen up and catch a nap. We met back up at 4:30 to head over to the Otremba's house.

Our time with them was so wonderful. Their 9 year old daughter had prepared some snacks for us so we indulged in those while getting the week's plan from Tomek and Damaris. It sounds like it will be an action packed week!

Our night ended with a viewing of a 3D video of the history of Cieszyn followed by a nice meal. We all dressed up and had a wonderful time meeting one of the Otremba's closest friends, the . 

After the long meal, we walked around the historic town square to take in the sights and pray for our week. We are so grateful for the safe travels and the comfort in knowing we are in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you!

And now it's time to sleep! Tomorrow will be our first official day. 

Please pray that we will be open to how God will use us!

Please turn off all electronics.

The countdown til they make us turn off our only hope for communicating with the world outside this aluminum tube has started. We're in out seats on Lufthansa's flight 417 and waiting for the captain to pull away from the gate.

We are headed to Cieszyn, Poland where we will serve with a missionary couple that out church supports. Our team of 7 is so excited!

We will post an update daily from our team blog: polandbacc.blogspot.com. Please tune in there to stay uptodate on what we're doing. 

This is mine and Clancy's first missions trip together and we're humbled to be leading it. Pray for us!