food for fish

My heart is breaking for the young adults of Zakopane. I see so much negativity, so much heart ache, and so much hurt in their lives. This area is so religious, we live right across the street from a catholic chapel, and every day I see people walk by and do the little cross sign on their chests. When I talk to some of the young people though, it is so obvious to me that they want more than just religion. But they are so afraid of upsetting their families, they are incredibly dependent on them, which could be a very awesome thing, if it weren�t so damaging to their self identity. The people I know here who are on fire for God have realized their own self identity, and mostly live away from home. To tell you the truth I am frustrated, but I believe in a good way, I know this is going to require patience and we are not going to have an overnight revival. I want to make a deep relationship with each one of them, but the culture here is setup in such a way that most people make friends while they are very young, and that�s it, they don�t make new friends, because they don�t move around, like we do in the states. Sometimes I�m nearly in tears because I just want to see a smile on their faces, but instead they frown, don�t make eye contact, and are so hopeless. As I�ve mentioned in my newsletters a common saying around here is �Hope is the mother of stupidity�, how do you explain a God who gives you a hope and a future when your mentality is based on some saying like that?

Communism destroyed the ability for people to make their own decisions, it was safer not to make choices, but let the government do it for you. I�m seeing this still in the young people, even though they have lived in �freedom� for many years now, it is still a part of their culture. They feel they have no control over their lives, life is like a deck of cards, and you just have to play what you are dealt. I just want to enable them to choose their own future, have them realize that God is a dynamic God who cares about every detail of your life. There are only two young adults in our group who have a loving relationship with Christ (plus the leaders), the rest I know have other walls keeping them from knowing him. There is such heaviness here, I have come to be a light, and a light I will be.


This Saturday I�m leading the young adults group, and I think I�m going to ask them questions, to get a feeling of where they are at with God. We must meet them where they are. I think I�ll start with each of them writing down who God is to them, what they want to know about God, what about God hurts them, and how can they be personally served by us (me, Chris, Carol and Denise). Then I will ask them to share a few things they wrote down. I think I�m going to use some music too, such as Thirdday�s �Love Song�, Lifehouse�s �Hanging by a moment� and Lifehouses�s �Everything�. Each of these songs portrays man�s need for God, and God�s need for man (Yes God needs us, he desires relatoinship with all of us, he is full of love for all of us, and wants that love to be given back, just as any of us want our loved ones to love us back). The point of the night will be to look into their hearts, and for them to see the heart of God.

This is the cry of my heart; this is why I�m here!