Lost in Faith

Monday
arrived at noon in London took the Underground to Victoria Station and ate a delightful Spanish Tapas Restaurant. Took a bus to Gatwick Airport and flew out at 7 pm. Arrive in Warsaw at 1O:30 pm and in bed by 12!

Tuesday
Travel to Zakosciele to meet with Proem staff.

We spent the morning in a Q & A session about Shoal Creek, leadership development, volunteer recruitment, spiritual formation. After lunch we toured the Tomy Center where ProEm has started a preschool which has taken off. They have 44 kids in the preschool with a waiting list of 26. It is funded partially by the city government and the parents. The preschool shares a building with the language school which starts as the preschool ends.

Next stop the new Tomy Christian Fellowship Center which is a renovated theater in downtown Tomaszow 85% complete and need about $150,000 to finish. It is going to be a great place for them if they can get in it.

Eufuria was the next resbit. A quaint little coffee house in Tomaszow complete with free internet wireless. We spent an hour and a half with Rafal and Agneiska Piekarski. Rafal leads the Tomy church and Agneiska was 9 months pregnant. She delivered a 9 pound baby in an hour and half less that 24 hours later. We had a delightful time discussing the future of ProEm’s church planting strategy.

Dinner at Michael and Karolina’s, yes of Shoal Creek fame. The entire staff of the Tomy church joined us and the evening was an energetic discussion of why Shoal Creek does ministry the way they do. Adam is on staff at the Tomy church and he works mainly in schools. He is a former alcoholic and drug addict so he runs an anti drug program for several different public school as a church staff member! Robert is Rafal’s right hand. He administrates all the just about everything about Tomy from preschool, language school, outreach events, etc. It was fascinating to listen to Michael and Karolina explain Shoal Creek to their fellow staff members.

Wednesday

After breakfast we jumped into the car and toured several sites that ProEm is considering for their next church plant cities like Opoczno, Lodz (pronounced wooge) and several other unpronounceable cities. We talked and drove exploring each cities benefits and liabilities. These cities ranged from 30,000 to 800,000 and not one of them had more than 4 churches while most didn’t have one.

Ending up at the apartment of Przemek and Agata Dwulat. We had dinner with Przemek, Agata, Michael, Karolina and JOLA! It was a delightful connecting with them and especially Jola. After dinner we walked into the Old Town of Warsaw. Much like Kansas Citian would walk the Plaza only instead of being built in 1957 it was built in 1457. Old World, really, old world!

Listening to them talk about dreams of ministry in their country is enough to make this old heart come out of my chest. Imagine, they live in a country of 40 million with only 40,000 Christians. A country in the grip of exploding capitalism and still held captive by the legalism of old world religion.

To bed much later than 50 year olds should but walking with these young folks sharing visions of the expansion of Jesus’ kingdom in a barren land makes the adrenalin flow.

Thursday

Long breakfast discussion with Maui and Eva about the church planting strategy for ProEm and then off to Zakosciele for a pastors conference with Alliance for Saturation Church Planting in Poland. We had lunch with pastors and missionaries and discussions about the state of the church in Poland and the success of church planting in Poland. It was a depressing time. The existing church in Poland is not in very good shape and church planting efforts around Poland are not achieving much success.

A brief break from Poland for a conference call with South African folks. Fence has started in Seleni and Michael Hale informs us that the Dolphins are running of Coast of Port St. Johns.

The late afternoon was spent with John and Jaba Crozier. John is an American who met and married Jaba a Pole and now the run a language school and preschool. Visiting with Jaba is like taking a happy pill. She keeps you in stitches. They are making series inroads into Tomascov thru these two organizations.

Ate dinner with pastors and drove back to Warsaw with Maui and Eva to catch a 6:30 am plane to London. Maui and I continued our discussion about personnel and planting strategies. We are the same age and the opportunity to provide a sounding board to a colleague is invigorating.

Tomorrow starts at 4 am for an adventure across the English Channel, White Cliffs of Dover and all.