Kayaking

We had a chance to do language immersion on a kayaking trip this summer with people from our church, Misja Laski !!  We had gone on a trip like this about 3-4 years ago, and have great memories, as well as great cultural stories, as a result of that trip.  So, since we now have an even better grip on the Polish language, and our kids are now old enough to help paddle, we thought it would be a great family adventure !!!

We had a group of 11 people, and we spent most of the first day travelling to the first site by train.  Our guide met us there to orient us for the week of kayaking and camping along the river route.

Here's some of our group getting ready to set sail.....

Arin and Albert 

Kirstin and Kaleb

We usually kayaked about 12-20 kilometers each day along the Polish rivers......about 4-6 hours.  Then we would set up our tents, walk to the local shop or farms for food, cook and eat together, then fellowship until bedtime. 

The rivers and lakes were amazing!!!  It's the only way to see those off-the-beaten-path sites of our country.  Some days we had to maneuver around obstacles like fallen trees and rocks in the river.  Other days we paddled across huge lakes.  We had occasional rapids that were tons of fun, but they were small.

  

We deepened relationships, took in some beautiful sites of God's creation, and practiced ALOT of Polish.  It was a blessed trip........one of my favorite weeks of our summer !!!!

Family Camp 2015

In July, our home church of Quail Springs in Oklahoma came to help us run our first-ever Family Bible English Camp !!

The team arrived 2 days early to see our city and get over jetlag.....

Then we headed to the mountain city of Zakopane !!  The rest of our team from all over Poland met us there and we set up and got organized......

For five days, we lived in the above hotel with 95 other people from Krakow and Warsaw, Poland.  We had beautiful views of God's creation, but we "journeyed off the map" in VBS with the kids at our camp!  While our QSBC team worked with the kids, there was also a team that worked with youth and a full adult program of English classes and Bible discussion groups.

We made great connections with families from Krakow!   We had one profession of faith among the adults (one of Kaleb's teachers from school), and several others who are struggling through some hard concepts of discipleship to Christ such as forgiveness and grace.  Even our translators, (those who thought they were only coming to serve) were touched by the Spirit and moved to respond to the teaching of the Holy Spirit !!

We are so thankful for the success of this "first" for us, and the team from QSBC was such a key part of the success of this camp.  Many of the Polish parents commented on how well their kids were taken care of by our team of Americans.  We built a ton of trust during the week.  Many are already asking about the dates and location of the next camp !!!

To HIM be the GLORY!!!!

Mission Teams - Silo

Our second mission team came to us from Silo Baptist in Oklahoma...........with 4 familiar faces and 6 new servants for Christ in Poland.  This group may be mostly young people, but they came with a passion for serving and a deep desire to jump into the Polish culture with both feet !!

They had a baseball camp with the Krakow Kings baseball team here in Krakow.

They talked football strategy with Coach to help the Czestochowa Saints football team and made two trips with Al to Czestochowa to work with the team.

The Silo group shared some meals in our home and indoctrinated the girls in the ways of sports ministry.......in our living room...............

until they wised up and moved the game outside on the terrace.....

Our kids' school invited these young adults to come spend an afternoon with Kaleb, Arin, and 25 of their closest friends playing sports outside while the ladies provided and English craft class inside.

One of our close friends, Kasia, works as a supervisor at an at-risk boys home right outside of Krakow.  Kasia invited this group back out to the boys home to teach her teen boys some football.  They even gave them a memorable framed gift as a memory of the time they spent together!

This team also served our local church by painting the Sunday school rooms.........

THANK YOU meal prepared by the ladies in our church.

They worked day and night (literally) with the Krakow Tigers football team getting them ready for their season.