Castles and Snow covered mountains

Hey everyone! Sorry for such a late update... 

Happy 2009! I know it's almost Feb and I haven't updated this thing in forever. I apologize. Time just gets away, especially over the holidays! They were good though! It was my first Christmas away from home, so I decided to treat myself to a little vacation to Romania to see a friend. We had a lot of fun and it was a great time to fellowship and catch up!

We traveled a few hours away to the mountains. There were beautiful snow-capped mountains that we were able to enjoy for the day! My teammate went to see his friend, so the 4 of us hung out for the day and just enjoyed some of God's creation. 

We went part way up one of the mountains in this cable car. It was a gorgeous view (through the dirty windows) but a little frightening. They cram it full of people and I don't do so well with heights anyway.

  

You could see where the snow stopped, almost in a perfect line part way down the mountain. I had never seen snow covered trees like I did there... I had no idea they actually existed outside of movies!!!

New Years was also an adventure. They shoot off fireworks much like we do for July 4th, but they go off all over the city rather than just one show like we often have in the States. Imagine over 2 million people shooting off fireworks at the same time! We stood and watched the sky light up in every color. It was quite beautiful and although cold, definitely worth standing on the balcony for almost an hour. They continued shooting them off for 2 solid days and were shot off as early as 11am.

Just recently though, I had a chance to travel a little more through Southern Poland. We went to Częstochowa, a place that many Catholic Poles will pilgrimage to in order to worship in a church that has the Black Madonna, a portrait of Mary and Baby Jesus. This is a picture of it found outside the church in an arch way.

People will fill every empty space surrounding the church in August when the protective covering is taken off once a year. It was definitely an eye-opener into the culture here to watch the attitudes of people coming in such reverence to Mary. The church was packed, considering the time of year and we watched as people flooded in and knelt down at the beginning of Mass.

After that, we took back roads on our way to Kraków and stopped at a few castles. We did the same route coming home and stopped to see more castles. We saw 7 castles in 3 days! It was totally awesome. We would drive down the road, stop at a castle for a little while, drive a few more kilometers, turn the corner and there was another one. Some were rebuilt, some were original and some were in complete ruins. It was amazing to see how they built level buildings on top of uneven rock faces. I didn't realize how huge they were until you stand at the bottom and stare up this rock face that turns into a tower and walls. It totally rocked!

we had the chance to climb up some of the rocks surrounding the castle and got a great view of the courtyard side. This thing was huge and we spent all afternoon there! 

This was one of the castles we saw on our tour home. Thats me with 2 of my teammates.

The lighting was just so great that I couldn't resist doing some cool portrait shots with me and my teammates. We stood in one of the holes in the wall with one of the main towers directly behind us. You can see how the tower looks like it comes right out of the rock.

Yet another portrait... Im teaching my teammates how to use my cameras :)

Of course, I just had to have a shadow shot when we were climbing all through the rocks behind the castle!

This one had a cool legend where a priest apparently asked for a stone to be put in the ground like that. I'm not entirely sure of the legend or if that's even correct, but we referred to it as the "toothpick castle" ... you know, the one with the big toothpick rock sticking out of the ground next to it!

So those are just some of the adventures I have had in the past month or so. I have another one tomorrow morning with the Visa office. I will be going to ask for another extension. I turned everything in at one time; or so we thought. Then I go back to receive my decision of whether they will approve a 2 year visa so I can legally stay and they said I was missing 3 or 4 documents. We have turned everything in except 1 letter which is somewhere in the mail. I have to go tomorrow and ask for more time and pray the letter arrives quickly!

On that note,

PRAYER REQUESTS: 

- for my continued adjustment in Poland

- to stay grounded in God's Word daily

- opportunities to build relationships

- opportunities to share my faith

- Visa issues - I'm asking for the extension tomorrow, however they could at any point decide not to approve it and I would have to leave the country for 3 months. I have faith that God knows what he is doing, but please still lift it up!!! 

Thanks!

me

Shoeboxes

Photos from my latest email update, just incase you can't get them...

The Chistmas tree with all the gifts.

Santa giving out presents to each child.

The little boy who carried around his box just hugging it for 20 minutes without even knowing what was inside.

while others opened their boxes immediately.

All Saints' Day

I wish I could have had this up earlier, but none the less, here is the promised post on All Saints' Day in Warsaw on Nov. 1.

One of the major Catholic Holidays celebrated in Poland is All Saints' Day. Instead of celebrating Halloween on Oct. 31, as Americans do, Catholic Poles will participate in the Day of the Dead and visit graves of relatives. It is a time to remember. They will clean the graves the week before and on Nov. 1, will journey to the cemetery to place flowers and light candles on the graves of loved ones. 

It is a major religious holiday in which almost everyone will participate. Streets near the cemeteries are shut down and busses re-routed as people flood the streets and pathways, making their way to their loved ones' graves.

Our team took time to go to one of the largest cemeteries in Warsaw to walk through and pray for the people as we watched and experienced what this holiday is all about. I saw mothers teaching their children why they come and why there are so many candles at the memorials.

As I walked through the cemetery, there was a slightly eerie feeling as a faint glow from each headstone rose to create enough light to see fairly well, even though the sun was long gone. 

Some people just stood at a grave and stayed there for a while as the candles burned.

 In other places people shuffled by, stopped for a moment at an important grave site and kept moving to light yet another candle at another grave. 

The cemetery was full of people that evening. Entire families came.

I spoke with many of the people I have met here and everyone told of how important this holiday is to them. They can remember going ever since they were young children. Many will also travel to outlying cities to visit and clean parents' graves.

It is a time for us to pray and to reach out to these people who don't have the everlasting hope we do in Christ.

Pumpkins and Prayers

Hello all!

So I sent out a brief message to many of you yesterday about how you could be praying for me this evening. I am sitting down at my computer, 5 minutes before midnight to begin this post... who is staying up way too late again? me! 

However, I had to give a quick update on how things went this evening with a little background first. One day I spotted pumpkins on the road and decided I just had to have one...it's 

not fall without it, right? 

And since autumn is so short here, I figured a pumpkin would help extend the season a little. My language teacher saw it and asked, "will you eat it?" 

My first thought...well, no. It's decoration. It got my wheels turning though and I looked up what it would take to make a pumpkin from scratch (aka, a real pumpkin) since, of course, they have no canned pumpkin here. I found this site: www.PumpkinPatchesandMore.org. It seemed easy enough to make a pie, so I decided I would. Then  got the brilliant idea to open it up to others at English Club to come and cook one with me! 

Yes, I have to admit, I wasn't thinking at the time about the fact that I had never made a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin before and have no idea how to do it, nor have I ever made a pie period!

Everything went well and I am proud to say that here is pie number 1 and 2...and they're from scratch! crust and everything...there was NOTHING from a can in this pie (including the evaporated/condensed milk - that comes in a box).

I wanted to have a pie prepared before guests arrived for 2 reasons, 1 so I could do it once and actually have an idea of what to do, and 2, so if the pie we made together didn't finish cooking in time, they could still taste one. 

Overall, the evening was much a success. A good number of people showed up and things just played out so smoothly. I tried making a pie crust earlier this afternoon and it just wasn't coming together - it was clumpy and sticky and not mealy like it should be. This evening, I had a beautiful example in no time at all. Praise God for small miracles. Everyone seemed to be having fun and it was a great chance to enjoy conversation with those we have met, outside of the English Club setting. 

Does it look like I know what I am doing now?

We are scooping out the seeds and plan on roasting those later. :) yummy. 

God gave me a calm spirit and a LOT of help! The Browns were amazing and spent their afternoon helping me prepare the first pies and my apartment for guests. My other teammates helped clean up and show parts of the process.

By the end of the evening, everyone was very tired and just sat and talked about upcoming holidays, traditions, and cultures, among various other topics.

So thank you all for your thoughts and prayers as our evening progressed. They truly were felt and answered. If you would like to try making a pie from a real pumpkin, its a little mess but a lot of fun. Its actually quite easy and tastes amazing! You can't beat it when it's fresh!

I will update with more stories soon of our time during a major Catholic holiday, All Saint's Day which took place Nov. 1 and of a recent baptism of 3 new believers. 

Until then, thank you again and continue to keep us all in your prayers.

- open hearts

- opportunities to share

- relationships to be built

- needed rest

- Language

Dzień Dobry Pani!

I stayed up a little late last night trying to finish my Polish homework, in hopes to sleep in a little and go food shopping this morning before language. However, as simple as that plan seems, nothing ever works out exactly the way you planned yet still can put a smile on your face! Leave it to a beautiful little girl to put one on mine!

I woke up this morning at 6am to construction. Okay, no biggie...I've gotten "used" to it by now. Aka, when I wake up to it, I roll over and start praying that God will help me sleep a little longer. However, this morning that request was not answered. I laid in bed tossing and turning, practically wide awake until oh, my alarm went off around 8am. "Reallly?? gosh...okay, okay...im getting up!" The construction was still going. It sounded like a jack hammer, drill or something that just...wouldn't...stop! 

Well, I decided at least I had ample time to go shopping. I went to my favorite little bread place and got 2 fresh loaves of bread (I have guests - volunteers for a week, so we can finish it!) The lady helped me learn how to pronounce the types of bread I was asking for...vysh...vzys...wysh... ugh - maybe one day!

Polish lesson #1 for today - take advantage of those who will help you learn.

Then I walked around the corner and to my surprise found clementines! aaah! my favorite! mmmm... breakfast! 

After some time watching CNN, one of 2 English speaking channels and waking my guests up at 10, helping them get breakfast, out the door we went at 11. They were fortunate and fell back asleep after some of the construction. We went back to the market and shopped for dinner - what kind of meat do you want? This is chicken, duck, pork - what looks good? Nice Polish lady and free samples = perfect!

Joe (a teammate) took the volunteers to get a few things, I walked back up to my apartment. As I entered the building, the cutest little girl about 2 years old maybe, hollers out, "Dzień dobry pani!" in the most beautiful small voice. Good morning, Mam! - as her mother puts another arm in the coat and adjusts her hat before heading into the cold. The little girl kept babbling on about something as I made my way to the elevator. "Do widzenia" I responded and waved goodbye. "Do widzenia!" they both respond.

Polish lesson #2 - be humbled...even children know more of the language than I do! Yet you can still find joy in the smallest "Hello".

Now, I have 30 minutes to rest before Polish lesson #3 - Language with my tutor for 3 hours. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, masculine? feminine? what - neutral? Sure, if you say so! Chcesz - still can't say it... is there another word I can use? chiałbyś - good I can say that!

So I leave you with this question. This is the question I have asked many times and will probably ask again today. 

Wait, that's a real word? How in the world do you say that!?

Do widzenia!

Kay

Where I live!

Hey all!

So, I had a free day and decided to use my time wisely. After waking up and shopping for food in the bazar outside my apartment complex, I decided to clean up a bit and take some pictures of my place and finally post them! So here's the grand tour...

The entry way. The door is to the left, looking into the living room. The mirrored doors are a coat closet. My office, bedroom and baths are to the right.

My living room. Behind the tree is the door to my balcony. The kitchen is to the right.

My living room from the other side. Kitchen to the left, through the entry way would go to my office, bed, bath.
My kitchen. Its very open and I love it. The fridge and freezer are all the way to the right against the wall. 
My kitchen again. The window looks out to my balcony. I also have a really nice sized dish washer and oven. :)
Kitchen looking back to the living room.
My office! With a big crazy orange couch. It's really not that bright...but it's pretty bad. I need to find some cover for it. haha.
My office from the couch - i have lots of storage behind the door. Directly across the hall is bath #1.
Bath #2 - this is my sink, shower, and washing machine... 
Here's another view. Thats the washer in the bottom right corner. 
My bedroom. The window looks out over the bazar. 
Bedroom from the other side. Bath #2 is to the left, Bath # 1 to the right.
Bath #1 - the toilet. Yes, its common to have the toilet separate from the other stuff here.
The view from my balcony. These are the construction workers that often wake me up in the morning. 
Looking over part of the bazar - this is the part that stays and is open during the week.
More bazar.... and the white building in the center across the street is where the other j-man lives. It's nice being close!

More bazar (the last of it) This area is where rows and rows of vendors set up tents starting at 4am every Saturday and Sunday. They are open till about 2pm.
This kinda gives you an idea of what it looks like from my balcony. From the left to right.

The bazar is where I do most of my shopping especially for food. There are rows and rows of vendors selling everything you can imagine - fresh veggies, fruits, meat, breads, sweet breads, spices, etc. They also sell flowers, clothing, kitchen stuff, laundry/soaps, candles, antiques... It's quite the collection. Imagine going to your farmer's market..it's like that but better. There's still dirt on it sometimes. Everything is fairly cheap in comparison to the store and better quality. 

Anyway, this is just a quick post to let you know a little about where I am! I hope you enjoy.

love,

Kay

1, 2, 10, 54, 37, 99, aaah!

Numbers, names, food, family, jobs...would you like coffee or tea? yup! That's about the extent of my Polish vocabulary at this point. Things are going well though for the most part. I am over the emotional state of the Reece family leaving for the States and adjustment to Warsaw life in the process. They were good friends of mine and Steven wrote my job request...so having him leave was very difficult. 

However, I am pleased to say that I finally have an idea of how to shop for food without pointing and holding up fingers! **smiles!** My language teacher took me to a few shops and we practiced buying something. I have been in there many times and the owner asked if I was learning Polish... I went in again yesterday and was able to practice. He was incredibly patient while I struggled through my few sentences. All I have to say is praise God for patient people.

Tonight, in small group discussion, we were talking about some things in the OT and how many years the Israelites wandered, etc...time lines. Anyway, it was enough for me to pick up on the numbers every so often... 2000 years... 40 years, 1 month. I was thinking, "I understand stuff!! woohoo!!" It's not much, but its a small victory. I've realized the importance of taking hold of the small victories. By the end of the day, they are often larger than I initially thought.

Soon, i will post some photos of my apartment and various other things, however until then...this is a view from my balcony. On a good day, I have the most gorgeous golden light flood through my kitchen window and balcony doors into my kitchen and living room. I am often preparing dinner and just soak up the sun (while it lasts). Soon it will be dark in the early afternoon. Now it sets around 6. I am very lucky because my balcony looks over one of the few undeveloped sections in the area. I don't face another apartment building, only this...

Anyway, here are some things you can keep in mind when you talk with the Father...

- Continued adjustment to life here. I have only slept a few nights the entire way through.

- Language - It is clicking, but I often have headaches in the evenings after full days of Polish, English, Polish...

- That I will remain close to the Father and in His Word

- Relationships to form with Nationals who are open to the Word.

-  That my supervisor and I can find time to finish my orientation

- My supervisor - she fell and twisted her ankle bad enough to be on crutches. It's not broken, but this definitely prevents her from moving around well. Pray that she can rest and will heal quickly and not worry about all that needs to be done (apartment hunting, my orientation esp driving in Warsaw which is yet to be done), prep for a short term couple coming in.

Love you and hope that you are finding peace in Him!

Kay