I *heart* Poland

After picking up my jacket in Köln (I'd left it in Detmold), I bussed across Germany and then on Thursday night came into Lodz, Poland.  One of the SLI students from the last SLI is really cool in that she's just super supportive.  So she found me a place to stay and I had the opportunity to share testimony and songs at the Religion class in her old school.  It was brief, but a couple people really liked it, and hopefully God will use the seeds sown.  I'm not too worried about it, the teacher, a Catholic priest, answered "God and people" when I asked everyone what they loved, so they're in good hands.  :)

But the person to person sharing in Poland was what seemed a lot more meaningful.  I went to mass with the girl I was staying with and we talked about confession and the character of God and it was really cool.   After sharing my story of how God called me to Kyrgyzstan, one of the hitch-hiker girls I met in Serbia asked me to write up the story for their travel blog.  :)  I talked at length about faith with a couple former SLI students, and I ended up being as encouraged as I was encouraging I think.  One of them wants to be a pharmicist and was wondering what she could do with that, if that would be something she could help abroad with (and I said, of course yes.) 

Praying with Polish people is really cool too.  Because a lot of them expect a rote prayer.  :)  And then I'm like "Hey God..."

Wroclaw was really interesting as well, I met a couple journalist guys through my hitchhiker friends, and one of them plays, so I had him play us a song on the street, and then they asked me to...and then I ended up playing a 40 minute show there on the street.  The moral of the story is that I need to memorize more of my own songs...cuz that's what I really wanted to play...but I was unable to, and thus unable to share the stories that go with them (although for about half the time this drunk old Polish guy was just dancing around in front of me, so...that might not have helped much...).  One of the main reasons I decided to spend so much time in Poland is because something similar happened last time...I played in a park in Lodz and then people gathered round and weird things happened like an atheist prayed for me.  So even though I moped around for a couple days in Lodz and didn't get much done (which was maybe best after bussing from England to Poland), I feel like Poland is always worth visiting.  :)  Anyways, there are some people in Poland who think I need a record label. 

I even found some books of poetry by my favorite poet in Polish and English, see an Polish Independence Day parade and play squash (never done that before)!  :)  And translated two of my songs into Polish, although I'll have to wait until next time to actually do something with them I guess.  But all in all, a great time with great people.