VISION on the road in Poland

Saturday, May 16 (continued)

Saturday afternoon VISION left Camp Eden for a two-hour drive to Włocławek (pronounced vwohts-WAH-vek.), where we presented our second program in a very friendly and encouraging church that had recently celebrated its 40^th anniversary. This means that it was founded during the Communist domination of Poland. A man who spoke English quite well told me that in those days, an evangelical church could be started and registered with the government if they could muster 15 people who wanted to join together. They had to put up with nosy officials checking into their activities, but otherwise were not particularly persecuted. In general, I’m learning that Poland was one of the less oppressed nations in the Soviet bloc, and I’m thankful God’s work was less hindered, for there was and still is enough challenge in the ministry here without that extreme burden.

The pastor preferred to have music only, no drama, so we got a chance to make sure all nine of our songs were prepared. This includes five that are half in Polish and half in English, and therein lay the challenge. I’m pleased to report that this team has been extremely diligent in working, both alone and together, to master the Polish pronunciation, and they get great reviews from Poles who seem quite amazed to hear songs in their language.

After a too-leisurely, but delicious, dinner in the church basement and the two-hour road trip back to Camp Eden, we had a very short night before it was time for another road trip to our Sunday morning concert.

Sunday, May 17

The city of Bydgoszcz (BID-goh-sh-ch) was the scene for our Sunday morning program in Pastor Jan’s home church. Not only is this church a tremendous lighthouse in this part of Poland, it also houses a seminary, with some thirty pastors and leaders in training to fan out all over Poland. (Among these is Sebastian, the young man who was influenced toward salvation by Katie’s conversation with him during VISION’s 2002 trip, as reported in an early blog posting.)

Incidentally Caleb, Katie, and I got a chance to renew acquaintance with Wojciech Muranty, who was one of our main hosts in the 2002 and 2003 trips. Our VISION X and XI members will remember him well! It was great to see him, his wife, and his much more grown up son again.

After lunch, back at the camp, we prepared to head to Gniezno for a Sunday late afternoon concert, only to find that it had fallen through. So, we decided to go anyway and enjoy the picturesque town and get a little much-needed exercise walking its streets and a lakefront park. Then we undid all our exercise at a sidewalk pizza/Mediterranean restaurant called “Sphinx.”

Monday, May 18

Our last morning at Camp Eden found some of us (a) furiously squeezing all our stuff into our bags that suddenly seemed smaller, and others of us (b) furiously squeezing in a bit of last-minute kayaking on the camp lake, and then doing (a) even more furiously (trying not to make their leaders too furious!).

We had the most amazing kielbasa (yes, REAL Polish sausage) as our last meal at camp, then hit the road for three hours, heading north to the town of Chojnice (Hoy-NEET-seh).

We were to have a program at a “correctional facility” but didn’t really know what that involved. It turned out to be an amazing experience at an enclosed school-like building complex that houses boys between about 14 and 20 or so that have been in trouble with the law and are confined to this setting for some period of time. They receive education and training from what appears to be a very competent and caring staff. It is not a Christian institution, but the local pastor has built a relationship with the administrators and made arrangements for our visit.

The boys were very well-behaved (more so than usual, according to the director as he thanked us afterwards).

After the program several quite intense discussions ensued, with VISION members, Colin in particular, explaining our gospel-related dramas, with the help of an interpreter.

I hope to learn and report more about those conversations, but at that point we were whisked away to our evening concert, which was announced in the local newspapers and radio stations and held at a secular Szkoła Muzyczna (Music School) here in Chojnice.

Some of the audience were members of the local church, who also brought unsaved friends. Quite a few attenders were students at the music school, which appears to be a university-level institution with a wonderful recital hall and a beautiful concert grand piano. This mix of people seemed to receive us well. We are now separated out to various church members’ homes, with some of us staying at the church, which has suitable facilities for that.

That’s the latest, up to the minute (1:30 am Tuesday morning here)! The next update will come the next time we have internet access! Keep praying for the team and their effective ministry here in Poland!