Of safety classes and praying in the park

This is from about two weeks ago....

Today proved to be rather interesting and somewhat unusual. As Polish workers, the teachers at GTE have to take a class on workplace safety. Today Ria and I went to a local school where we listened to a 2 1/2 hour lecture on safety. it was all in Polish, and we HAVE to pass the exam at the end of the class. Good news, though; everybody passes this test! The test was handed out, the teacher read down through the questions, and all the students shouted out the correct answers! I didn't understand the test, and I understood only the general gist of the lecture, but that's ok, I still passed with flying colors:) When Ria and I left, I just started laughing, the whole thing seemed so crazy and ludicrous:)

As we were walking through the park on the way back to Gateway, we passed a lady and her daughter on the path. Polish people are more reticent than what I'm used to, so usually when I say hello to the people I meet on the street, they don't respond. But this time when I said, "dobry wieczor", I pleasantly surprised when replied to me. We kept on walking and had gone about 20 feet past the woman when she started hollering for us to come back. We walked back to her, and I immediately told her that I don't speak much Polish.

She commented on the fact that Ria was wearing a dress and had a veiling. She told Ria, "You must be a saint, because you are dressed like that". (All of our conversation was in Polish, of course.) This lady thought that Ria must be a nun, because of how she was dressed. It's not uncommon for Polish people to think that of Mennonite ladies, actually.

Anyway, this lady, Ania, started telling us about her father, who is an alchoholic and desperately wanted Ria to pray for him. I thought she said that her father had died from alchoholism. I was desperately trying to think how to explain that we don't pray for dead people, and I just didn't have the vocabulary, so Ria called Lolita and the lady talked to her for a bit. She got quite emotional on the phone, and we decided it would be good to pray with her, even if the lady didn't understand what we said. So, after Ania got off the phone with Lolita, Ria and I prayed for her. Ria started praying and Ania immediately grabbed her little girl's hand and we stood in a circle and held hands while we prayed. After Ria and I prayed, Ania and her daughter recited a Catholic prayer together, ending of course with, "Holy Mother of God have mercy on us". We had our own little prayer circle in the Minsk park:)

After we prayed, this lady asked, "now am I good?". Oh man, it was incredibly frustrating to try to explain even the simplest aspects of salvation to this lady. The language barrier was just so inhibiting. She kept commenting that we have good hearts and she can see that. We were able to tell her that it's God that lives in our hearts, and that's what makes the difference. We talked for a few minutes more, and I gave her John's (Smucker) phone number. So far, we haven't had further contact with this lady, but I hope that we will have more opportunity to talk with her. It's experiences like this that remind me of what I'm really here for, not just in Poland, but in the world.

My alarm started ringing at 7:40. As I groggily rolled over to hit the snooze, I noticed a strange white glow outside the window. What!? What!!! Hey, that's snow!!! Indeed, the ground was covered with about 6 inches of snow. The birch and pine trees that surround our cabin were also covered with snow. All morning, we kept hearing tree branches snapping off under the weight of the snow. The good part of all this is that school was canceled today, due to unreliable power at the school. So, bring on the hot chocolate and cookies!!

New family member!

We congratulate the girls on the recent addition to their family. With money donated by friends from the U.S., they were able to purchase a car! We're very grateful to have been able to get this car; it came just as school was beginning, so it was a very timely purchase.