Thursday, 6:00 am in Poland

(Wed. 9:00 pm in California)

It's hard to sleep in when you're on the east end of the European time zone this time of year. It starts getting light by 3:30 am, and the official sunrise for this part of Poland is 4:35 am. Since it's a beautiful clear morning and my room is on the east side of a high rise apartment here in Opole, Poland...well, you get the idea.

By being up early, I've have some time to write for the blog and prepare some photos...

Wednesday was another long travel day, as we continued to work our way south. We left Nowy Tomysl after a wonderful breakfast in the church, and proceed south to the next town where the vans made another visit to a Christian mechanic.

Pastor Jan had taken the white van to him Tuesday night after our concert, and they worked on it until after midnight. Then we all stopped there Wednesday morning so he could do some work on the yellow van. (So where's the red van, you might ask? We swapped it out in Piła when Jan rejoined us.)

For all the hours of work, including late into the night, the mechanic charged us only 50 zloty, which is about $17. The least we could do was sing him a song, which he seemed to appreciate greatly. I regret not getting his name, but we trust the Lord will bless him richly for his generosity.






























Other than that, the vans caused us no delays as we drove south (at rush hour) through the bustling city of Wrocław (VROHTS-wahf) and on to the almost-as-bustling Opole (oh-POH-leh), (50° 40' North, 17° 56' East) where we presented a program in a modern lecture hall in the Uniweristet Opolski (University of Opole).














The program was sponsored by two small but active local evangelical churches as a community outreach. In addition to our posters, they had made small flyers which were handed out all over town. I was told that there were many in the audience of over 100 that belonged to neither church, and they got a good dose of the gospel, not only from our songs and dramas, but from testimonies by Amy and Luke who pulled no punches.

After the program, Colin and Caleb got into an extended and deep conversation with a university-age young man who is clearly seeking. He said that he related strongly with our dramas that depict the struggles of sin and the release that can only be found in Jesus Christ. The team separated to various homes immediately after, so I'll need to get more information about the conversation later this morning. In any case, the pastor with whom Jan and I are staying intends to follow up with the young man. Please pray for him.

One last note about the concert: I believe it was Sasha who pointed out that, as we joined hands just before the concert to ask the Lord's blessing on it, no one interrupted the prayer with a cough, a sneeze, or a nose-blowing! Praise the Lord for renewed health! We don't take that for granted!

Wait! Here's another note: We had a nice reunion with a young lady named Dorota, who became a close friend with both VISION X and VISION XI, even translating for us in some school programs. She is now married to Mateusz and lives in Wroclaw. The two of them came to our concert in Opole.




Members of VISION X (2002) pose with Dorota and her husband Mateusz





Today we continue south and east to Jastrzębie (yahs-CHEM-byeh). VISION X'ers will remember the white barn out in the country that was remodeled into a church. We got to participate in its dedication service back in 2002.

Thanks again to all who are praying with us!