Sunday Evening Post

Well, I've been back in Odessa a few days now and have had all kinds of good intentions to update here with some pictures and post an album of photos on facebook. But intentions only go so far when your computer is spazzing out. My computer was great until I returned to Odessa. I have no idea what's going on. I thought it was just a poor internet connection, but it's more than that. And since this computer is only 5 1/2 months old, this is not making me have happy thoughts. And on top of that, things have been interesting upon returning to life in Odessa. I've been traveling for seven weeks, with very little alone time and was instructed to simply rest upon my return. I won't go into details, but let's just say I haven't felt very rested. I'd sure appreciate some extra prayer for a good adjustment to being back here after being gone so long!

It was harder leaving Poland than I thought it would be. It was a really long, but super blessed time. Out of the forty IM staff serving in Poland, I was able to meet with or serve alongside twenty-seven of them. It was fantastic seeing and hearing about so many different types of ministry and seeing so many different approaches to serving God. My favorite times were the days spent with our interns who just finished their internships in India, Romania, Poland and the Philippines. Even though I had been skyping with them on an almost weekly basis throughout their internships, there were still so many things that I hadn't heard about. They just needed someone who was willing to sit and listen to them talk about the difficulties, joys, challenges, lessons, strange cultural things, blessings, and so much more- and help them process some of it. I was so grateful that I was able to spend those days with them, listen to them, and get to see their home towns! I survived all three camps and even seemed to have more energy at the end of the third than the end of the first. God is good. =-)

It was an extremely blessed summer- one for which I'm exceedingly thankful.

The invisible ones

    The smell stayed in my nostrils all evening: the smell of rotting flesh. As we sat at the hospital and watched him go into the room to see a Dr., we saw the trail of blood and decay that was seeping from his shoes. I tried not to gag as he lifted both pant legs to show what looked like completely rotten flesh from his knees down to his feet, as well as one hand with two swollen, gangrenous looking fingers.
   The IM team in Radom, Poland, serves the homeless in various ways throughout the week and every Sunday they go to an underpass to feed all who come. They provide them sandwiches, fruit, and hot tea or coffee. They listen to them, hug them, wipe them off, bandage them up, get them basic medications from the pharmacies, and in extreme cases take them to the hospitals. Every year, many of them experience extreme frostbite and the end result is rotting flesh. Because they live on the streets and the vast majority are alcoholics, they don't take very good care of themselves and some are literally rotting away.
   As I poured cup after cup of coffee and tea, I thought about how many times I've averted my eyes and hurried past these people. They've ended up on the streets for various reasons and have become the mostly invisible pariahs of society. As I watched the team greet them by name, shake their hands, hug them, laugh with them, and just show them that they care, I was humbled by the love of Christ that I saw demonstrated that night. They had never met the man with the rotting legs before, but didn't hesitate to put him in the car, drive him to a hospital, then back to a Dr., then back to the hospital(it's the system for those without proper ID & paperwork), then find him a place to stay the night and got up early the next morning to meet him again at the hospital.
   What love. Love for the lost. Love for the unlovable. Would I have done it? Would you? Are you able to look past the filth and see the creation of the Creator? What if He shunned us as we shun them? We see the filth and scars and smell the stench of unwashed bodies. He looks at us and sees the same and yet, opens His arms and says, "Come. Come as you are. All you who are broken and needy, come and find rest." I pray that my eyes will be opened more and more to see each and every one of God's creation as He sees them: hurting, lost people in need of a Savior.

Yes, I really did do it

For those who didn't notice the amusing conversation on facebook, or the profile picture, I thought I would post it here. Notice anything?

Fearing God

“In mercy and truth

Atonement is provided for iniquity;

And by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil.” Prov. 16:16

Q: Do  I truly fear the Lord?

     If I did truly fear the Lord, would I be choosing to mire myself in the same sins repeatedly? Why is He not more of a reality to me when I’m sinning? Why, when I’m about to consciously sin, do I not stop and have that thought of, “Oh man, what is Dad going to say about this?” It’s like I seem to think I can get away with this sin in front of the Almighty God more than I would with my earthly father. I had a healthy fear of dad and the punishment that was sure to follow any disobedience. Where is that healthy fear for my heavenly Father, the One who truly holds me accountable?

     Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. But if I’m trying to grow closer to Him, and I grieve much more now about my sins after I commit them than I used to, then shouldn’t I also be growing in that healthy fear of Him- the one that helps me make better choices and leads to less grief?? For sure!!

     “Lord, help me to grow in a healthy fear and respect of You. I want to be fully cognizant that as a loving Father, You must discipline me to help guide me and teach me. Help me to want to please You not only in my good deeds, but by choosing to walk away from that which displeases and dishonors You. Help me to tremble at the thought of the consequences that will surely come, because You love me so much that You want to see me purified and walking in righteousness. Lord, may You be more and more of a reality to me, 24 hours a day. Amen”

Festering Wounds

    Traveling by train gives me a lot of time to think and today I was thinking about gross things: festering wounds and maggots. I was thinking about how even the smallest wounds, when untreated, can become a bed of destruction; a place where a fly lands, lays its larvae, they hatch and become maggots which immediately begin to feed on whatever food source they’ve been given. The wound festers, the maggots consume, and the flesh is eaten away, leaving chaos for the body and/or a physician to attempt to repair. And all of that rotten filth and ravaging of the body could have been prevented by basic care: washing of the wound, antibacterials, bandaids, etc. But for various reasons, people become neglectful of themselves, whether it be lack of water in poverty stricken countries, or homelessness as a result of alcoholism or drugs, etc. Sometimes, they’re too entrenched in other problems to worry about what seems to be a minor nuisance. And before they know it, they’re facing another huge problem with no easy solution.

    

    And what this leaves me with is a perfectly disgusting and yet accurate picture of sin. I’ve been thinking a lot about sin lately and about the garbage that I offer up to God. I’ve got some rotten garbage in my life(most of us do, if we’re honest with ourselves) and I hate that sometimes it’s all I seem to be able to offer Him. “Here God, you said you want my burdens, so can you please carry my filthy waste around for me?” I don’t want the garbage, I really don’t, and I know that I’m growing in my relationship with and my knowledge and understanding of Him. Perhaps that’s why I seem to be more and more aware of my garbage. Or maybe I’m just sick of it. I don’t know. Regardless, sometime I feel like I’m swimming in the same garbage over and over and over again. I mean, seriously, this stinks. Festering wounds and maggots. Preventative care is so incredibly important, because once a wound is open, it can fester quietly for a long, long time- and sin is the same way.

   

    What hope is left for me, for you, as depraved humans? Ah, that’s right. I have something, or rather someone, that gives not only Hope, but who has given me the strength to withstand. I have a relationship with the Great Physician, who not only wants to take care of my current wounds, but who wants to clean and bandage and heal my old wounds. Not only that, but He sincerely wants me to let Him carry all of the garbage that I try to carry by myself, because His death covers all of my past, present, and future garbage. He died for me, because He knew that I could never get rid of that garbage on my own.

   

    What amazing love: that He would want my broken, filthy self and my inadequate offerings and that He can take all of that and turn it into something beautiful. Beauty from refuse; transforming me into what He wants me to be- bit by bit, step by step, one day at a time.

Save the Date....

for August 1st, 2012!

Cause I don't know what's going to happen between now and then, but it's going to be good!

I just passed an important milestone without any commentary: the 2 year anniversary of my move to this side of the world. And, wow, have a lot of things happened. God has allowed a lot of great and a lot of really painful things to occur, and taught me an awful lot of lessons: about His goodness, His faithfulness, His control, His provision, His sovereignty and His plans for my life. Actually, I don't really know what His plans for my life are, I just know that they're good.


Wow, did a lot of stuff happen between my first anniversary and my second, and a lot of it not so great. But you know what? I thank God for it, because it has made me stronger and more sympathetic to others. It has made me trust Him even more and helped to slough off some more of the rough edges that remain. I fully believe that I am right now where I am supposed to be in regards to ministry. 100% belief. I believe in this ministry. I feel strongly about it and the needs of other young missionaries serving with IM. I feel so blessed to be able to serve in this area. And I feel like God's going to do some BIG things in this coming year. Maybe even some BIG changes are going to occur. I don't know for sure what He's got planned, but I can't wait to see His plans unfold! Stick around for another year and we'll take a look at all the awesome things that He has in store. Looking forward to chatting with you next August!

1000 Gifts- Poland Camp #3

#440) Bonfire night

#444) Getting to know Deb & Kirsten Jordan. Deb works at the home office and did camp in Ukraine two years ago when I first moved there. But since she left two days after I arrived in Odessa, I had never had the chance to get to know her.

#449) My English class- a challenge, but fun

#456) Life talks with Szymon, former intern. It's like I have a  Polish little brother

#465) Friends, new and old: Hannah, Abby & Ryan(intern in Radom, Poland)

#466) The homeless ministry. Bob(on the right), his wife, and Ryan work with the homeless back in Radom. They brought three of the guys with them to camp. This one is fresh out of rehab, newly saved and very excited to start his new life.

#472) The beautiful Polish countryside

The Last Days

A wreath placed by a Jewish group at the end of the rail line, where the Jews were led from the train to the crematoriums.

A Jewish group singing and walking the grounds of Birkenau

 

 

Tortilla soup in Krakow!

With Abby and Hannah Zupke, friends from the very first camp I did in Ukraine 3 years ago. I was excited to find out that they would be doing the third camp with me and then they asked me to go back into Krakow with them for the 2 days before they flew home.


So, I'm hoping to post pictures from Camp #3 in the next couple of days, but for now, these were a few from the last two days. While I've already been to Auschwitz and Birkenau, several of the short termers who had been at the camp, had not. So I went along with them on Monday. It was very sobering to be there at the same time as a large group of Jews and to hear their songs and remembrances of their dead relatives. Today was a calmer day, with half of the group flying out quite early this morning. I spent the day with the others and moved from the hostel where they all are to a studio apartment, where I'll be staying for three nights to get some rest, before moving on to my next location. Rest is a good thing, a very, very good thing.

The Travel Blahs

I'm traveling for 7 weeks all over Poland, right? On my back I carry my viola case, which I veeeeerrry hesitantly brought along with me, because I knew it was going to be a pain in the rear to tote all over the country(but I was asked to by the IM staffers here). I have an overstuffed carry on size suitcase and an even more overstuffed backpack that perches precariously on top, carrying all the things that short-termers keep giving me at the camps(4 bags of decaf. coffee, 1 lg. tin of mint hot chocolate, mango salsa). It's really not that terrible, except when I have to go down escalators, or get on a metro or a bus, or quickly push my way on an overcrowded train. Other than that, it's not too terrible. =-D

To get to the 2nd camp, I had to take two trains. The first one had no remaining empty seats, so I stood in the aisle for 3 hours swaying back and forth, trying to hold on to all of my belongings. Let's just say that I was not a happy camper. Then from that camp to this camp, I was supposed to take three trains. The first train was supposed to leave at 5:47pm, so two of the guys from the camp drove me to the tiny train station and we stood and waited 20 minutes in the rain for a train that never came. Since I had to be in another city by the next afternoon to meet the next team and ride to camp with them, the guys from camp #2 decided to try to find a bus station so I could take a bus to take me to train #2. We drove for almost three hours around the countryside looking for a bus that would take me to the desired city. No such thing could be found. So we drove back to camp, went to sleep, got up at 4am and drove back to the 1st train station to catch the morning train. Again, no train appeared, so we drove an hour and a half to the next biggest town where I could catch a direct train to Warsaw. We made it there 2 minutes before the train did.

Five hours later I arrived in Warsaw, purchased my tickets for the next train, got something to eat and got on the train, very happy that nothing else had gone wrong. Two hours into the two and half hour trip, we came to a very abrupt halt and an announcement was made over a loudspeaker. I understood the following, "Attention! The train blah blah blah blah blah a car blah blah blah. We blah blah blah sixty minutes. Thank you!" Ohhhh, well that certainly doesn't sound good. The guy sitting next to me proceeded to pantomime the fact that we had indeed crashed into a car and were stuck there for sixty minutes while they cleared the tracks. I have no idea whether the people were ok, or not, and just sat praying for them and for the safety of the remainder of the trip. What a sobering thing to happen. After a little over an hour we continued on our way. We came to Radom, and I almost didn't get off, because it was such a dumpy train station. It's a city of about 400,000 people and I just assumed it would be a nice big train station. The nice man sitting with me grabbed my suitcase and basically pushed me off the train. Thank you, nice man. That was very kind of you!

Now, camp #3 is almost over. Tomorrow we'll head into Krakow with the American short-termers. I'll stay with them until the 9th and then will head over to a studio apartment to have three days of time alone, before going back to Warsaw for a couple of days and then on a longer trip to the northwestern part of Poland and then possibly back to Radom. Hopefully, the next few train trips will be a lot less uneventful!

Pollak Jokes and Jesus

Three guys- an American, a Mexican, and a Pole, escape from  a prison and are hiding in the woods. The guards are searching all through the woods and are suspicious when they hear noise in some nearby trees. They go to the first tree and say, "Who's there?" and the American says, "Meow!", and the guard moves on. He gets to the second tree and looks up into it and says, "Who's there?" and the Mexican guy says, "Cuckoo, cuckoo!," and the guard moves on. He gets to the third tree, looks up and says, "Who's there?" and the Polish guy says, "Mooooooo!"

It was a lot funnier when I was listening to it in Polish and was actually able to understand it. I've heard Will say that to him, Polish sounds like a drunk Ukrainian trying to speak Russian(or something like that). Polish is more similar to Ukrainian than to Russian, but a lot of the words and quite a few of the verbs are the same and others are quite similar. So it's been fun understanding some bits and pieces of conversations. 

Another interesting thing is that under Communism, most people on this side of the world had to learn Russian. So though many of the older people cannot speak much Russian, they understand a fair amount. Last week I had a beginning adult English class and I found myself having to give all of the instructions and explanations in Russian. Who would have thought that I would find myself in Poland teaching English by speaking Russian??


As a final note of the day: the other day when I was on a cross countryside drive to find a bus station because I missed the last train of the day(never found a bus station going where I needed to go, but that's another story), I saw the biggest Jesus(statue) in the world! He was 38 meters tall and white with his hands outstretched. It was a rather strange sight and kind of sad sight to see, since the vast majority of the extremely religious Poles don't really understand what Jesus has done for them.


I'll try to write more soon and tell you about the slight adventure that I had trying to get from camp #2 to camp #3.