Greetings from Poland!
After a long two days of travel, we finally settled down in our hotel in Piotrkow, Trybunalski. We started off our morning with a nice breakfast at the hotel and then we hopped onto the bus and headed to camp!
This campground is where we will host the Kontakt Festival, which is a week-long festival full of service and bringing Jesus into the lives of others through simply – love! I am so excited to begin with the projects that are set up, whether that be helping build in outside cities, coaching or playing in the basketball games, or helping women with disabilities get ready for a prom!
The first thing that we did at this camp was go to church, which was one of the coolest experiences I have ever been a part of. Some people in the church spoke English and some spoke Polish. We did a mash up of the languages during the service! The pastor giving the message is from a church in Savannah, Georgia. He spoke in English, and then a man would translate it to Polish so everyone in the room could understand.
The coolest part about this mash up was when we sang the worship music. Half of the people were singing in Polish, and half were singing in English. At first, it was really overwhelming, but it was so cool. People from around the world worshipping the same God and singing the same lyrics. I don’t know if I will ever get a chance to experience that again. Not everyone in that room could understand each other, but we all understood the love of Jesus and that is universal.
Also, we watched not one, not two, but NINE PEOPLE get baptized in the river! Local people from Poland were baptized, but also people from the United States that are here for the festival decided to get baptized. WOW! God is so, so good. Getting to witness people be renewed and the pure joy that comes with saying yes to Christ was so amazing.
God is doing some amazing things here in Poland, and I cannot wait to see His glory shine throughout this week. After the service, we had a nice picnic where we ate polish sausages and other traditional foods, and then explored the rest of the campground! Here are some pictures of our first few days!
Monday is day one of the Kontakt Festival which means it will be a jam packed day! Stay tuned and thanks for your support!
-Jessica Parente, Softball
Prayer Request: to give us the courage to open up our hearts to not only the Lord, but to the people we serve. Let us love one another like Jesus loves us: unconditionally.