Hello America.  Things are going very well at camp in Poland.  It’s midnight here on Monday (Tuesday Morning).  We just wrapped up our second night of worship with the students a few hours ago – and it was awesome.  The music was amazing, the drama was moving, and the Spirit of God began moving among the students.  It’s still hard to tell how they are receiving the message being preached, but today was much better than yesterday.  They are interacting a lot with our students and asking questions and paying closer attention in worship.  Today we started our recreation times and the group building games that our recreation team led helped tremendously with the language barrier.  The karaoke night that our fellowship team led this evening helped to.  It’s amazing – no matter whether you sing in Polish or English – bad singing crosses all cultural lines.  It was a ton of fun.  By the end of the night all Polish and American students were doing a conga line around the room to some crazy Polish song.  We loved it.

Tomorrow we have a group of Polish students who are good musicians that are going to form a Polish worship team to join with our band to do more Polish worship.  So far things are going well with the singing and we have a Polish young woman singing with us and trying to do dual language on songs.  However, I think that this Polish band will not only help to involve more of them in worship, but also help connect the message more clearly to them in their own language. 

I have been trying on and off for eight hours now to upload this picture slide show of some of the pictures we’ve taken over the last few days, but I’ve been unsuccessful.  We’re using an Internet connection that must be from 1994.  However, click on the following link and you should be taken to the sight that has the pictures.  http://www.slide.com/r/MOWhQ3tVwT83dvNfKLIMRoP0Y-5bZJ_x?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

By the way,  if you’re keeping track of the Tuareg Cross that we are passing.  Here is where it’s been:  from Aimee to Jeffrey to Ashley to Katie Inclan and she gave it to Paul tonight.  See you on my next blog.  Thanks for keeping up with us and praying.  I think we’ve have almost 300 hits on this sight in the last two days.

We’ll it’s Sunday night here (around 9:40pm in Poland) and things are in full swing. I don’t know how many campers we have (maybe 50) but it’s awesome. We just finished our opening worship and our Bible study groups are meeting right now. We feel all of your prayers and appreciate it. It’s great to see the comments you leave too. It’s been hectic today and amazing all at the same time. Thanks Darolyn, (my prayer partner) I can’t thank you enough for your prayers and especially for getting up early today to pray for our worship service. It means a lot to me.

So far I’ve preached my second sermon in dual language. We opened tonight worship with the videos we created, the band singing, Katie Roberts reading scripture, Aimee Godfrey reading scripture, and Agnus Dei skit (by Rebekah, Cathy, Nic, and Chase). I very proud of all of them. In fact, I’m proud of all of our students. Today was crazy, but they came through. I can’t name all the things people did, but people were all over the place doing things to help. From cleaning the dining hall to decorating the stage area and on and on. People took up the basin and towel and served today. I’m grateful to see these teenagers growing in the walk with the Lord to the point that they are willing to see past themselves, step up, and be the leaders that God created them to be.

Hopefully later tonight I will be able to upload a few pictures of our trip. Keep praying for us. We love you all and miss everyone.

It’s 9:30pm our time here in Poland (about 3:30pm in Sparkle-City).  We’re doing great!  We just wrapped up our day of touring Warsaw, seeing Polish culture, eating great food, and getting to know our Polish friends.  Sorry moms and dads that your teens haven’t called yet.  The cards they have won’t work with the pay phone on campus.  However, we gained access to one of the office phones that they will be able to use tonight.  So, you should here from your students in the next hour or so.  But, we are all doing great – loving Poland and very excited about starting camp tomorrow.  Keep praying for us and have a wonderful day in worship with the Lord tomorrow!  God bless you all.