Misc Pictures

Soccer Outreach:
Soccer:
Sundays we dress up for church:
Riding the bus:
Keith:
The cemetary fence:
Group shot:
London:
Danley + Drywall mud:

Saturday June 3rd

Today we had a busy schedule! We did Kids Games, a carwash, went to an ophanage, youth groups, and an anniversary celebration for Henryk's church.

Having a free carwash creates an interesting reaction from the people in Poland. Its pretty revolutionary here that anyone would want to wash their car for free, and its really amazing to explain to them why we are washing cars just to show our love for their community!

Steve participating in the balloon popping game at Kids Games (you want to pop other people's balloons but not have yours popped):

Karolina helps us blow up balloons for the above game while the other kids do motions to an american song:
Henryk's Church's 50th Anniversary Celebration: they had lots of food to eat including an assortment of salads, smoked cheese, and sausages. Everyone loved the food, there was something for everyone!

Henryk translating as Keith explains about a song he wrote:

Jessica & some of the kids we met at Kids Games:

Steven, one of our Polish friends, and Dave:

We have been continuing to do more outreaches and service projects this week. Progress on the sanctuary here at the Oasis Center is continuing well--we are almost ready to paint the entrance-way to the santuary and have been blessed to be able to paint the downstairs hallways and childrens ministry rooms and are starting to build a wall in the coal room to prevent water from seeping into the children's ministry room through the walls.

Another of the service projects we did this week was to remove vinyl lettering from this bus and its accompanying trailer.

The bus will be used to tour to schools to share about why the bible is important and share Jesus with kids. The hard part though wasn't actually removing the letters though, but removing the residue from the where the stickers had been. Afterwards we washed the bus to make it all pretty before its premier departure on the bible tour next week.

An outreach we did today was to go to a halfway house in Bielsko-Bilao (check spelling?) the "big city" an hour away. There we helped them out with a little painting, a wall, some cabinets and varnishing door frames.

After that we got to spend the afternoon sharing with the "clients" there our testimonies and about Jesus. Since most of the people there do not speak very good English, one of the people who understands English well translates for us so they can understand clearly. The doctor who runs the facility is firmly planted in his faith, but most of the men who stay there do not know Jesus personally, so it was really exticing to get to plant seeds in their hearts about how Jesus helped a couple of us in our group overcome their drug and alcohol addictions. This picture is us in front of one of the doors we varnished.

A local pastor speaks with us about his evangelistic ministry and Asia translates:

We have been blessed to use this mini-van to get to some of our outreaches:

HSE2 band plays their first gig at the senior center, followed by a gig at the hospital:

Rest & Relaxation Day

It's hard to believe we have only been here for one week; Wisla feels like home. Today was our first "day of rest". Many of us caught up on sleep and spent extra quiet time with God reading our bibles and praying. A few of us woke up bright and early to explore the great outdoors; we hiked up a mountain to a viewing tower where we could see three countries at once (Poland, Czeck Republic, and Slavakia), shared devotionals and spent time in prayer. Some of us went into town for lunch and enjoyed the leisurely pace of Wisla. We were all able to enjoy bonding time with our Creator and classmates. God truly romanced our whole group with his unique love for each of us! We are serving our hearts out, physically and spiritually, and today was definitly needed to absorb all that He has been teaching us and to be replenished for the extraordinary week ahead.

Sunday Church Visits

Today, being sunday, we split up in groups and went out to make visits to several of the churches in Wisla.

Seven of us went to the town's pentecostal church:

I signed up for the group going to the Pentecostal church because I'd met several people at an evangelism workshop yesterday that said that was which chuch they attend, and was quite surprised when we walked in the door to see the whole group of kids I met at the Oasis center a couple days ago! Talk about divine appointments...no wonder I was the only person around the other day who was in the right place at the right time to be available to play with those kids while a meeting happened.

Polish Worship is very much like American worship, they mostly did songs that are familiar and popular in America, but translated into polish:
American worship by Keith. After a couple songs the pastor requested a particular favorite and Keith played it and the lyrics in polish were put up on the projector:

Most of the churches in Wisla are small by American standards. This is taken from the front pew:

Cisco delivering a message about faith and promoting the festival of life and Asia (say: Asha) translating

After the service we were blessed to be able to pray with the congregation for members who were suffering from afflictions. The service included many prayers. It is such a blessing how prayerful they are:

After service, we went out for "dinner" (lunch as we Americans call it) with the pastor, and then they took us up to see a nice view of the valley. It was beautiful, but also a bit freezing cold by San Diego standards up in the mountains. But its not snowing.

Nick and Asia: