Nearly three weeks down and one to go here in Poland!

Friday was a normal workday for our team who continued the projects at both of the buildings we have been working on. Flooring, painting, firewood stacking, and a few other miscellaneous jobs are still in progress at the “new” church building. Meanwhile, the painting project in the building where we’re staying is within a day of being finished. Miss Emma has also started sketching on the wall where our commemorative team mural will be. All of us are very excited to see the finished product.

We have been blessed with abundant and exciting sight-seeing opportunities this summer, and this weekend did not disappoint. Several of the local church members brought their personal vehicles and acted as our chauffeurs for the day. We had the opportunity to visit the museum and preserved site of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp about 15km outside of Jawor. While not exactly a restful and relaxing start to our day, it was a monumental experience that we will not soon forget. Afterwards, we stopped for an authentic Polish lunch at a restaurant that was in the courtyard of a true medieval castle before continuing on to tour a labyrinth of tunnels that the Germans had engineered during WWII. It is not really known what these tunnels were intended for, but only that they were abruptly abandoned at the end of the war. This was another sobering experience due to the thousands of prisoners who died as they were forced to dig the tunnels, but an incredible feat of engineering nonetheless. Our final stop of the day was the home of a friend of the church family that we have been working with. They have a beautiful property in the mountains near the tunnels where we took in the incredible view and grilled sausages and pork chops over the fire for our supper. Several other families from the church joined us as well and we all enjoyed a relaxing evening of food, fun and fellowship before returning home for the night.

Our Sunday morning was spent at our host church once again, and the team was asked to share (individually) their thoughts on their time in Poland. For lunch, we were asked to split ourselves into four groups who were then generously invited into the homes of four different church members who had prepared a delicious meal for all of us. We then made it back to our home base by around 3:00 in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day doing verse review, quizzing, and just hanging out before team devos and an early bed time.

The next three days will be spent finishing (or going as far as we can with) our work projects. Thursday is reserved for finishing up odds and ends, packing, and deep cleaning the building where we’ve been staying; and on Friday we will be traveling back to Warsaw to be ready to head to the airport (and home) on Saturday morning.

Please continue to pray for us as we seek to finish well and bring glory to God with everything that we think, say, and do. We have continued to experience some spiritual attacks over the last week or so, and ask for your prayers against that specifically. We know that there is power in prayer and in the Name of Jesus and we want to make full use every weapon in our arsenal! I believe that we can even be encouraged that the enemy cares enough to fight against what the Lord is doing in and through us!

We stand rooted in Christ and living for His glory! “To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 5:11