You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye

I don’t know where the time keeps going, but it’s flying by faster than I can keep up.  We are about an hour away from actually leaving a country I have not even told you about yet, and heading towards a new one.  When our team prayed about where we would go this month, God told us Croatia and Venice…and so, here we are in Poland!  It was about a week ago that we sat perplexed looking at the computer screen wondering how to get from Ukraine to Croatia or Venice.  Ukrainians apparently don’t typically travel south from their country because there was nothing cheap going that direction.  Granted my perspective on cheap has now changed since coming on the Race.  At one time, coming across a $100 airline ticket was reason for rejoicing.  Now, it brings a sigh of disappointment and a tinge of frustration at the “high” prices of travelling.  Granted, we did once travel by bus across the entire country of Cambodia for about $20 per person – so Europe seems expensive regardless.  As we searched through the various options to get us south, I found a bargain route to Venice… via Krakow, Poland.  So here we are!  Or were rather.

It really was a phenomenal week!  I absolutely loved my time in Poland!  We quickly connected with a YWAM (Youth With ùa Mission) contact in the city named Paul who got us connected with several other ministries we could help with for the week.  We had something to do every day we were here.  The ministry highlight for me was definitely helping to teach English with a Christian based school called Graceland.  Most of the students are professionals and teenagers learning English, so we acted as their native speaking conversation partners.  Because they were already well on their way to learning the language quite well, our job was mostly to just get to know them in our conversations.  It was cool to have a lot of freedom to share about our journey and our faith as well.  Graceland was a fantastic organization that is really run with excellence – they take great care to develop creative and good English curriculum, and also take seriously the privilege they have to also integrate their faith in their lessons.  I have no doubt that The World Race will be crossing their path again.

We also had the once in a lifetime opportunity to go to Auschwitz while we were in Krakow.  This was the largest concentration camp and death camp of the Holocaust.  We just couldn’t come here and not see that part of history.  It was a hard thing to see, but I’m extremely glad I went.  It’s hard to fathom that an entire country and regime can be so lost in their perception of good and evil.  How could an entire army so methodically destroy the lives of so many.  This place was run like a machine.  Methodical and coldly efficient.  God help us that we never allow such a thing to happen again.  I left Auschwitz very thankful for the people and nations who stood up against such an evil force.  As staggering as the death tolls were – they would have been much much higher.

** I’m just going to add a supplement to the end of this since I didn’t get to post this blog before we left Poland.  We are in Venice now – AMAZING!  When we arrived out of the terminal, a man had an extra ticket for the transfer bus and gave it to us.  Awesome, one less to buy.  When we got to Venice, we were approached by a couple leaving that day who had four 72 hour water taxi passes that had another 24 hours of use on them – they gave them to us for free (saving us € 72…well over $100)!  Wow…I mean what do you say to that!  God provided about as affordable of a place to stay in this city as is possible – I’m convinced there’s no where cheaper.  Everything has just been lining up beautifully.  We are still figuring out transportation out of here…so pray for that – but God is proving Himself quite faithful, so I’m not worried!