food for fish

Feel free to print this and give it to whoever would be interested�

I�ve been here for 20 days now, something should have happened by now right? Well here�s the scoop�

I arrived here on the 7th just two days shy of Alexis� birthday, I had no problems traveling halfway around the world. I really love the landscape here, although the mountains are not as high, and the rivers not as big, and the trees not as tall; God is the same. When I arrived in Krakow (pronounced Crakoof in Polish) I sat in the Airport for about 30 min waiting to be picked up by the missionaries I have joined here, at first I was little scared that I may have told them the wrong date or something, but everything was fine.

I spent two nights in my new room in Zakopane (pronounced Zok-o-pon-e) before I left for Bratislava, Slovakia for a seven day conference on the Holocaust and how that has affected Eastern and Central Europe. What I learned was that even today we need to not forget what happened here, if we do something like the Holocaust could easily happen again. People of all races and religions need to understand each other, but not hate the person for what they believe or for who they are. We should always be looking to make relationships with people outside of our �culture�, we should never seclude ourselves to the point that was have no contact with people who believe differently than us, otherwise how would Christianity ever be seen for what it truly is. Christ left us the responsibility to do as he did, and frankly we have screwed that up quite a bit, but his Grace and Mercy has also let us continue to open up to him.

So, what am I doing here? Specifically I�m working with the young adults of our church plant here, the first Foursquare church in Poland. My roommate (Chris, who is Polish) and I are going to make relationships, and be examples of men following Christ. This means that both of us will be sharing messages and our hearts with these people of our age, to show and guide them in their walks with Christ, and our own walks with Christ.

We are currently looking for a church meeting location, other than the apartment Chris and I are living in. We have three possibilities, one of which we are bidding on this coming week, but it is our third choice, but currently the most possible, and the smallest, at the most we would fit in it for the next six months. Last night we had dinner with a British guy who has had Zakopane on his heart for the last 15 years, he is hoping to start an �Alpha course� here, which is a discipleship type of program being used by protestant and catholic churches. It was a great encouragement to talk to this man, he�s a business man so he was able to tell us what we can do to maybe get the rent prices of the other sites down to something we can afford, especially since they are just empty locations which are not being used, but have to be heated which is extremely expensive around here. Please pray that we get what we have dubbed �the dream place�, it is a three story building w/ plenty of room for the ministries we would like to start. Including a caf�, Christian counseling, and of course whatever events we can plan.

Another ministry opportunity I�m starting next week is, conversational English at a local English school here in Zakopane. Its going to be a stretch for me, since I don�t speak Polish, but they do speak �enough� English, please pray that I can be effective in showing the gospel and being a light for Christ.

Please remember that I only have four months of support, which may end up being less because of some unexpected costs (like needing to buy a desk, stuff for our bathroom, the apartment deposit, and we need to get a washing machine). Chris is working for a local college, but only gets paid once a month and it doesn�t start until next week, so that means no paycheck for the next month. So if you have something left over, please send it to the address on the right! God bless.