Monday, July 29th

So here I am, drinking extra sugary, Polish Coca-Cola at 11:45pm so that I can stay conscious long enough to write this blog post.  To say it's been an exhausting day would be an understatement.  The day started as usual, early morning hike in the beautiful Polish country side, a quick shower before breakfast and then chapel.  Our Bible point for today was "God builds character in His children."  After chapel it was off to class.  Focus was hard to come by in the classroom today because of the extreme heat outside.  It reached a whopping 98 degrees with full sunshine and zero cloud cover.  It was a scorcher!  We stayed cool with water games at sports time though.  It's a good thing we won't have many more days to swim in the pool because we emptied about half the water today filling buckets to dump on people.

Things started to cool down by dinner time, so it wasn't quite as hot for evening games.  That doesn't mean we didn't sweat buckets though!  It amazes me how much energy these kids have.  They go to class all day, then participate in three hours of activity between sports, music and crafts, plus they're usually running around or swimming during their free time and by ten at night they're still going full force!

After evening games it was closing chapel and then bedtime for the kiddos.  But  that's when all the counselors come out to play :) Five rounds of Prawo Dzjungli later, it's time for us to hit the sack as well.
Please pray that the weather stays nice enough for our hike later this week.  It's supposed to happen Wednesday, but there's rain in the forecast.  Imagine 58 kids trapped inside for a day because of rain...imagine the poor counselors too!! :)  Just kidding, we love every minute here, but we'd really love to take our hike as well.

Thanks for reading, and for all your support of our team!
Katie

 Our team!!

Sunday, July 28th

Today was church.  The campers and us adults sang three songs in English to a very full house.  Here in Poland the parents come for the service and visit their kids.  There were 3 Baptisms and 1 One year blessing.  Here, when a child turns 1, the parents bring their child up to the Pastor  for a blessing.  There was also Communion.  Wow, what a service it was to see and experience so much!  Then you get Pastor James and Peter up doing a sermon together on how we are God's treasure, words couldn't express the feeling that went through you.  Then to top all of that off, unexpectedly Peter's dad, the Pastor here at this congregation, presented Pastor James a token of appreciation in the form of a carved wood picture.  The gratitude that was expressed for us Nebraskans and Lisa so they could put the camp on again this year was touching.  He talked about the bond between our church back home at Holy Savior and here.  How we are sister congregations in Christ and wanted to see it continue to grow.  Without us taking on coming over here on our own  without MOST Ministries, there wouldn't have been a camp this year.  Seeing and experiencing what is going on here, that would've been a great opportunity lost for so many to experience God's Love.

           It was HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That meant water balloons!  I haven't gotten this drenched
(except for yesterday when I got thrown in the pool) in a long time.  Jackie and I couldn't keep up with filling the balloons.  We got wet and it felt good.  The kids had a blast.  They enjoyed getting all the adults wet and the adults had just as much fun soaking kids.  There were a lot of screams because the water was so cold.

           Everyone is starting to run out of energy, but we get up the next day and we are ready to go.  The ankles are swollen, the headaches from being over exhausted, the shin splints, and jello legs seems to disappear and we reach out to the kids another day and share God's word with them.  Wow, what an experience this is.

Written by Sherri

 3 baptisms

 blessing of the 1 year old

 singing our songs

 the sermon

 Lincoln, Nebraska's new sister church!!

 they presented this to Pastor as a thank you to him for organizing the trip

 Water balloon time

 water fight!!

 the snowman trying to bring cooler weather

 evening rec.

July 27th

As I reflect on my 4 mission trips to Poland, I am noticing it gets harder to say goodbye every time.  We arrive a week ago today and only have less than five days left here.  

I have really liked playing with Emily, our pastors granddaughter.   She gets up in front of the chapel with me to dance and sing!  Her favorite is the "JOY" song!  She loves doing the YYYYYYYY is for you and you and you!  She is only 2 and know the love of Jesus and want to show it!

I have built so many relationships with the campers, Polish counselors and American staff.  Today I painted Marysia's nails.  I also instigated a lot of people getting throwing people into the cool and refreshing pool.  (It was very warm here today!)  

I liked our theme today, as it was better to give than to receive!  Lisa gave everyone in the camp chocolate so show this.  The campers made cards for pastor to hand out to the shut-ins or sick people of the church. It was fun watching them show their faith!  "God is love!"  

Written by Chelsea