Volunteers at Gietrzwald

Sorry to those that have been waiting on this. We have been really busy. All is going well and today is the volunteer teams last day in Olsztyn. They will leave tomorrow morning for Warsaw and then down to south Poland for a couple of days.

On the first day we visited Gietrzwald which is a small community about 20 minutes away from Olsztyn. In the town there is a shrine to Mary and is also a validated (I don't know if that is the right word.?) location by the Vatican where a sighting of Mary happened (I think it is the only one in Poland, but don't quote me on it!). If you want to find out more about it you can visit the website- www.gietrzwald.3c.pl


Here is the church/shrine and some of the grounds that it includes.


This picture is the focus of the church. It shows Mary holding Jesus as a baby.


The volunteer team walked along paths and prayed all the way around the grounds.


One more of most of the group.

Looks a little familiar.....

We live really close to Ameryka! - Which is pronounced just like America.

What about this Ameryka? It is nothing like the America we are used to but you take what you can get here sometimes. The main thing here is a place where people send their kids for a month or so or the summer to get some fresh air and relaxation. I just took a picture of the sign so you guy could see. We pass through Ameryka every time we go to Warsaw. Which we are doing today to get the volunteer team from our home church. We are excited that they are coming to prayer walk in different villages, cities and areas in Olsztyn. Should be good. I'll try to post some pictures while the team is here for you guys in Perkins so you can keep up with what they are doing.

Vacation to Gdańsk 2007

So here are some pictures from our vacation. It was a much needed time of relaxation and fun. We were not able to do all that we wanted because of the weather (unseasonably cold and rainy) but it was fun and will be remembered by all. Our hotel ended up being really close to a beach which we were thankful for because we could end our day there with a little playing in the water and sand and looking for amber. We went to several beaches and we liked the one by our hotel the best and the one in Hel. Yes, you read that correct. Hel, Poland is on the tip of a peninsula and we drove all the way out there just so we could say that we had been and we planted a geocache there too. It ended up being cool because there were some bunkers still intact and a it had a big gun on one of them. You can see the picture of it down below to know what I am talking about- I don't know exactly what its kind is called. Anyway... I will start off with a picture that should be in brochures!


Isn't this just a beautiful pic. We saw some beautiful sunsets. This was taken at the beach by our hotel on our last night. The waves were really choppy.


This is a picture you wouldn't want to see in a brochure! It is raining really hard in the pic just in case you can't see it really well. The rain did not stop us from getting out though. We went out armed with rain gear.


Here are the kids playing along the beach. They might be looking for jellyfish at this point - I really don't know. I pointed them out at first because there seemed to be quite a few and I wanted them to be aware of them, but after that I didn't have to say anything because Ethan would scream "JELLYFISH" everytime he saw one.


We were walking to dinner our first night after arriving and this huge green and white lion came out of nowhere and went after Ethan and Mikaila. Ethan was a little concerned but Mikaila seemed to know there was nothing to worry about.


Here are the kids while out looking for a geocache. We had to dig for this one so we were glad that we had the beach toys with us. We thought a beach was going to be nearby but we never got to it. The geocache was at the mouth of the Wisła river which runs through all of Poland. It was neat to see.


Here we are at a "good" polish mexican restaurant with our complimentary chips and salsa. Needless to say it wasn't Ted's! We miss the neverending setup that Ted's offers and the food. It was pretty good though. The salsa was the best I have ever had.


Here is the big gun that I don't know the exact name of. It was huge and sat on top of a bunker. It was neat to see. I don't know when it was last used (maybe in WWII).


Bryan, Mikaila, and Ethan wondering through the forest in Hel looking for a cool place to plant a geocache. The mosquitoes were terrible!


Here is the beach at the tip of Hel. It was the busiest beach we had seen but also the nicest day of our vacation too.

So, hope you enjoyed these few pictures of our adventures. We really had fun and we are looking at going back sometime but probably not to the same hotel since there was a robbery just 5 doors down from us on our last night there. We might stay on the peninsula. Fun times!

FYI

I am going to work this weekend on getting the pictures of Ethan's birthday party off of Bryan's computer so I can post them here - also the ones from our vacation. There are a few of those already on Bryan's website if you don't want to wait to see them here. I would recommend going and visiting his site anyway! You can learn more about Poland and our ministry at his site.

In other news....
We are so excited about some visitors coming in a week! A volunteer team from our home church in the states is coming to prayer walk several cities and villages. We can't wait.

We are going to be alone at Christmas - again. We were excited that we would finally get to spend a Christmas with our "overseas family" - our team and not be "just us" (which is good and fine) but we got word this past week that all the other team members are planning to go back to the states for Christmas. That is great for them but I am a little bummed about it. I will get over it!

School starts in a couple of weeks! For all of us. Bryan and I are looking forward to starting back to language. I am going to be home schooling Mikaila in 2nd grade and we are putting Ethan in Polish school again. He needs the socialization of school buddies since he is the only boy on our team. Please pray for Ethan. He did not like the school here in Olsztyn and really had the hardest adjustment to Olsztyn of all of us because of it. We are going to try some different things this year to see if it helps him. We'll keep you posted on that.

All for now

On the way home....

Here is a picture of one of the many lakes around our region of Poland. You can see it peeking through the trees and houses. I took the picture on the way home from church one Sunday when we visited the baptist church in Olsztynek (a church about 30 minutes away). What a beautiful sky!

What is wrong with this picture?

We were out and about and saw this interesting sign. It is totally upside down! We have passed by it several more times this past month and a half and it is still upside down. Don't know why and don't know if it will ever get fixed. Thought it was funny.

Bryan's Party and 4th of July

YES - this is a catch up post. Bryan's birthday was a while a go and the 4th of July was a while ago too. I know I need to be posting pictures from Ethan's birthday here now. I will get to it in a few days because I have to get the pictures off of Bryan's computer. We had a blast though!

Anyway, we had a volunteer team here from VA when it was Bryan's birthday so we decided to wait and have a birthday party with our team combined with our 4th of July party. We had the party at our supervisors house. We had some cookie cake and fun for the birthday part. Then had a fun time celebrating the 4th as Americans in a foreign land. We blared "God Bless the USA" from someones ipod and had a cookout complete with smores and a flag cake too. It was fun.


Here is Bryan blowing the candles out on his cake. Couldn't put the needed amount of candles on because we had already cooked the cake!


We have really got into cooking since we have moved here (it's a stress reliever) and Bryan was wanting to try his hand at chinese food. Our friends got him a wok for his birthday so he could! It has been great!


These are the 2 journeygirls who are here in Olsztyn with us - Jessica and Amber- They are a blast and were so patriotic on the 4th of July. They were all decked out in red, white, and blue!


Here is Amber "dancing" around to "God Bless the USA".


And the flaming cake! How wonderful.

Vacation, Here we come!

We are off for our vacation tomorrow morning! We are excited since it has been a long time since we have really had one. We are in need of some rest and relaxation. We will see how it goes. The weather looks to be cool and rainy for at least a couple of the days so we are taking some back up stuff to do (board games and puzzles) just in case. We will try to take plenty of pictures so I can post them for you to see.

See ya!

Visitors from the North and fun with the Wii

We were excited when we got the call that some of our friends from Estonia were going to be driving through Poland on their way to visit someone and wanted to stop by and say hey. We gladly offered them a roof over their head for the night, fun and a good American breakfast before they had to be on their way. It was good to visit and catch up with the 3 of them. Andri, Brain and Raivo had a fun time playing on the wii and we enjoyed watching them. Did you guys know that Brain is now the mayor of Keila? Very Interesting!


Here are the guys infront of our place before getting back in their car to drive some more! Raivo, Andri, Bryan and Brain.



Here they are playing something on the Wii. It might be tennis.



Raivo and Brain boxing each other. It's a real workout!

Before and After

Ethan's hair had gotten too long! We were calling him "fluffy noggin". Anyway, Bryan gave him a haircut and here is a before and after picture to show you just how much he needed a haircut and how grown up he looks now.



BEFORE.......





AFTER......

I'm FREE!!!

Today was my last day of language class for a few weeks! I am taking about 5 weeks off for the summer and I will start back in the beginning of September. I am grateful for this break. Bryan has been on break already for a few weeks and now we get to enjoy being on a break together! We are planning to take a vacation to Gdansk (on the Baltic coast) at the end of July/beginning of August. We are excited. Also we plan to do several day trips and fun activities during August as well. We will all start back to school of some form in September.

Happy Birthday Bryan!

It was Bryan's birthday on the 24th and we celebrated a bit by having some cupcakes and eating dinner out as a family. We just had a party for him with our team yesterday (4th of July) so I will try to get some of those pictures up in a few days. He had a great birthday and the kids had fun helping make the cupcakes - or as Ethan called them - pupcakes.

Welcome to.....

Olsztyn!

I think this is really cool the way it is done.

Beautiful Smiles

Here is Mikaila with her friend Rebecca. They have a great time together and I just love this picture of them. Pure joy out at the day camp in Platyny. She is just a couple of months younger than Mikaila and they get to play together alot now that we live only a few blocks away. She's the youngest daughter of the Stevensons who are our team leaders(SC).

Newest Additions to the Family

Introducing Curious George the Gerbil! Better known as George.


We think he likes his new home! He was living up in Ethan's room for a couple of weeks until one day last week Jasmine decided to get a little too interested in him and pushed his cage off the dresser he was on! The cage didn't bust open (I was very thankful for that) but the litter stuff went everywhere. We have moved him downstairs until we can figure out a better way to secure him and also something better to contain his mess in.


Jasmine was curious from the beginning but would usually just stare and follow George with her eyes. Here is their first meeting. We will see how it all goes. Do you think we are crazy for having a gerbil in the house with a cat? We must wait and see I guess.

We also added a fish tank as well. We have 5 fish including a one eyed neon. No pictures yet. It was a Christmas present to Bryan from the kids but we waited to set it up unitl our move and once we moved we really didn't have a great place to put it except in one of the kids rooms. So Mikaila got the fish tank in her room (she had the fish theme going already too) and we got the gerbil for Ethan's room. I know we are crazy!