Personal note...
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| Photo of our wedding video which we watched on Oct 20th to celebrate 4 months of marriage! :) |
We want to express our deep-felt hearty gratitude to those of you who have blessed us with your support -- whether through prayers, words of encouragement, your friendship, or generosity -- we would not have been able to make it to this point without you.
The wedding itself was poignant, unforgettable, and many called it a "fairy-tale wedding". Some posted on Facebook "the best wedding ever!" We are humbled. Yes, it was beautiful -- even more beautiful than I imagined. But the thing that made it truly beautiful was the love we were bathed in. The people we were surrounded by were evidence of God's love for us. It was a grand celebration of His love for us and His presence with us. That was our deepest hope for that day and I think that's what people experienced.
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| Ukraine, Nov 2015 |
In addition to these challenges, I've had some very challenging health set-backs which have required me to make some major adjustments in eating and our lifestyle. For over three weeks in September, my eczema and allergic rashes flared so badly that I couldn't sleep through the nights. I averaged a very broken 3 hours of sleep each night and nothing I tried helped. Finally, I underwent a new type of allergy/intolerance test and the results were both shocking and yet, considering the state of my skin, not surprising. My newly-discovered list of food intolerances is very very long. Among other things, I'm on a gluten-free, potato-free, egg-free, nut-free, dairy-limited diet -- which makes food shopping, eating out, and being a polite guest a huge challenge. But I feel better and I see that it's made a difference. Shortly after, I discovered that I have a problem with my thyroid as well but I'm taking medicine for that and the last blood test showed improvement.
Ministry continues to keep us on our toes. It's not possible to catch you up on everything in one blog post but at this time, the one area I would really like to share about is one I haven't written about in a long time. It also happens to be central to why I ended up at this church in Pruszcz. So here it is...
Youth Ministry in Pruszcz Gdański, Poland
The past three years have been focused on building a strong foundation of faith in our youth. The first academic year (2012-2013), we went through "Stomping Out Darkness" (the youth version of Neil Anderson's "Victory Over the Darkness"). It included solid teaching on our identity in Christ as well as keys to understanding and living victoriously in our everyday lives and the reality of the spiritual battle we're engaged in as believers. The second school (2013-2014) we did series on The Armor of God (Eph. 6) and had guest speakers. Last year (2014-2015) we continued inviting guest speakers to teach on Heroes of Faith. |
| Here we are with some of our wonderful youth past and present. Armia Pana helped out at our wedding reception with serving and washing dishes. :) |
As we entered into a new school year, I felt strongly in my heart that it was time to launch a new vision & mission for our youth. And that vision & mission is : SERVICE -- Faith in Action. Obviously, it's not enough to just know our identity in Christ, nor is it enough to just know about the Armor of God. Neither do we want to just listen to stories about faith heroes. We want our youth to BE faith heroes, to LIVE their identity as salt and light in this world, to be engaged in spiritual battle and marching forward rather than just lingering behind.
A secondary vision & plan we have is to renovate an area on upper floor of the church building that is not being used at present -- and transform it into a youth room. We envision it to be like a lounge room with comfortable sofas as well as another area with a counter & stools (like a non-alcoholic bar). The youth will choose the colors and will paint the walls. And we hope it will be an inviting friendly environment for their school friends to come and join us for special activities like movie night, game day, perhaps occasionally a sleepover, etc. For me, it's obviously not about the room itself but rather, helping to provide an environment conducive to encouraging deeper relationships amongst our youth as well as building bridges in reaching their friends who have not yet experienced the love of Christ in their lives.
Here's a look at some of the service activities our youth have immersed themselves in:
-- Cleaning the church:
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| Zuzia & Noemi -- Polish polishing :) |
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| Don't let his sitting fool you -- this was after a lot of work cleaning the restrooms! |
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| I got in on the action, too, of course. ;) |
-- Preparing food & games for a grill which parents were invited to:
Rain poured down for nearly the whole day but when it came time for the grill, God kept it down to a light drizzle long enough for us to go through with the plans for a little campfire. :)
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Zuzia with her lovely parents
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| Mateusz's dad (in black) doesn't usually come to our church but he had a great time as did my brother-in-law, Tomek (in the grey hoodie) and his family who were visiting that weekend. The grill was actually Tomek's idea. :) |
The rain outside didn't stop us from having fun inside ...
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-- Helping the Trybała family paint Małgosia & Piotr’s rooms:
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| The Trybała Family's beautiful new home |
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| a happy Małgosia :) |
Małgosia's dream of having her own room has come true!
She and her family lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment
for years. They took a leap of faith, took a loan, began building a house, sold their apartment and had a very tight deadline to meet in completing the move. We were so happy to be able to help this wonderful family -- especially since Małgosia is one of our active and very precious youth members.
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| Paweł painting Piotr's room |
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| all hands on deck! |
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| Mateusz hard at work |
-- Making Ukrainian barszcz/borscht
(beetroot soup) :
Polish, Russians and Ukrainians all have their own version of beetroot soup. Polish call a heartier version of beetroot soup (fortified by potatoes, carrots, and sometimes meat) "Ukranian" (although Ukrainians probably wouldn't call this Ukranian!) Inspired by our trip, we made this with our youth the Sunday we returned from visiting friends there.
Every Sunday after church, we've been offering coffee, hot cocoa, and "oreo drinks" from our personal espresso machine as well as some other goodies and strategically placing an offering plate by it. Proceeds go toward their future youth room! We're happy to see that people have been giving generously toward this. :)
Now you are a bit more caught up on what we've been doing with our youth! I hope you've caught a taste of our vision and can support us in prayer!
Love,
Amy, Krzysiek and "Armia Pana" :)
