Wittenberg

Day 13

Saturday, July 4th

We left Poznan bright and early at 8 AM so that we could make the 4-5 hour drive to Wittenberg.  At least that’s how long we THOUGHT the drive would be.  What we didn’t know was that the bus was limited to driving at 90 km/hr, and most of the time we were going 80.  Meanwhile, every other car was whipping by at 120 or 130 (the speed limit).  So it turned into a 6.5 hour drive to Wittenberg.

At about hour #5, we were getting a little crazy.

When we got into town, we made a beeline for the Lutherhaus.  The monastery where Luther and his family lived for many years is now the biggest and bestest Luther museum around.  It took a couple hours to get through the whole thing, and it was full of many fascinating artifacts from his life.

The outside of the monastery

The box used to collect money for indulgences in Wittenberg

Lucas Cranach's Ten Commandments

The only room in the house preserved in its original condition was the site of the famous "table talks".

When Peter the Great visited, he signed his name prominently on the door.

The Luther's brewing room

From there, we walked down to the Castle Church, the church on which Luther posted the 95 theses.  We discovered they were having an English-language worship service that evening, so our timing was perfect.

The outside of the Castle Church

The inside

The team got to sing a couple of songs during the service. The acoustics were even better than the church in Legnica.

In front of the famed door. The original door burned, but now there is a bronze memorial in its place.

The church's tower

After the service, we wandered around the small town for a while, and made our way to dinner at the Brauhaus Wittenberg, a local brewery and restaurant.

The streets of Wittenberg

The house beer was excellent, especially the Hefeweissen - some of the best we've had yet.

The appetizer plate: liverwurst, bratwurst, blood sausage, and goose schmaltz (lard)

The schnitzel was also terrific.

Alltogether, it was another great day of touring, despite the long bus ride.  The great chance to see Luther’s house and to sing in the Castle Church, not to mention an awesome dinner, more than made up for it.

Prayer Requests

Safe travel during this week of touring as we go to Erfurt on Monday and the Rhine River on Tuesday.

Pray that we would appreciate the historic sites of the Reformation that we are seeing this week.

Pray for continued great weather and wonderful relationships being built and enjoyed amongst the Legnica 2009 team.

For the team,

Matt Dau

Poznan

Day 12

Friday, July 3rd

Friday morning we left Wroclaw and travelled north to Poznan.  We were very grateful for a wonderfully comfortable stay at the Akira Hotel in Wroclaw.  The manager there is Rafal(sp?), a member of the church in Wroclaw.  He was very accomodating, and a swell guy all around.  Many thanks to him.

Rafal being nice to us despite our outrageous demands

We thought our group was going to stick out like a sore thumb, and then we saw the group of Buddhist monks staying at our hotel.

Poznan is another large city, though slightly smaller than Wroclaw.  It’s about a two hour drive.  Thankfully, our heat-blasting bus was replaced with a proper one, so the trip was somewhat more enjoyable.

AC-induced glee

On the bus, we began to learn a song that the Polish CREC churches sing in their worship services.  It was hard.

John tried to get us to pronounce all 8 consonants in each word simultaneously. Chaos ensued. Marek said we sounded like little children and old toothless men.

Once in Poznan, we made our way down to the market square and met up with Andrzej, and eventually Roman, the other elder in the Poznan church.  They showed us the sights of Poznan for a few hours.  Poznan is a beautiful city, receiving much less damage in the war than Wroclaw did.  It’s also a relatively wealthy city, and the sight of a gorgeous Baroque church connected with a Jesuit college.  After we saw that, we visited the medieval cathedral built on the sight of the first Christian church built in Poland.  Since Poznan was the capital of Poland at one time, the cathedral is the sight of the tomb of some of the first kings of Poland.

The market square

Andrzej with Pastor Vanderveen

The Harlows got to go on a horse-drawn carriage ride around town.

I think they liked it.

The town hall in the center of the square

The inside of the Baroque church - my favorite church so far

The pipe organ

The Catholic cathedral

The tomb of the kings

After walking around for several hours (and not eating lunch) we had worked up quite the appetite.  So we headed to a nearby Czech restaurant.  Although not quite as excellent as the previous night, it was pretty close.  We spent the next four hours raising our glasses and forks and enjoying ourselves immensely.

The waitresses worst nightmare - and the cook's (I think they only had one)

The Czech beer - Staropramen - was stupendificulous

We started with breaded and deep fried camembert - yoomy

Esther Cannon tried the Polish delicacy "flaki" - tripe soup. (tripe is pig intestine)

Some were horrified

I don't remember what this was but it sure looks pretty.

We ended with baked ice cream.

The town hall lit up at night

It was an excellent day in Poznan, and we all came back to our hostel extremely tired.  It was our last day in Poland, and Saturday we move on to Germany.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

Mmmmmmmm

Day 11

Thursday, July 2nd

Our second day in Wroclaw was all about swell sights and fabulous flavors.  We began with another hot and sticky bus ride to Ksiaz (pronounced Kshee-awnzh), a castle about 50 km from Wroclaw.  It has a wonderfully twisted history, but I’ll just give you the short version.  It was originally built in the 13th century, added on to in the Renaissance, and again in the Baroque period.  It was nationalized by Hitler and used as a garrison for Nazi troops.  When the Soviets took it over, they shipped most of the contents back to Russia.

The castle is surrounded by cliffs on three sides. Here it is from an overlook near where we parked.

The entrance, built in the Baroque style

The main salon in the castle, considered the most beautiful and the only one the Soviets didn't strip

In the basement, we got to shoot a real crossbow.

We ate lunch in a restaurant in the dungeon.

We had Sour Bread Soup - delicioso!

And Bigos - meat stew mixed with sauerkraut. Feelings were mixed.

After strolling around the castle for a couple hours, we decided to take a detour by the stables on our way back to the bus.  Bad idea.  At the stable, a thunderstorm rolled in and we walked the 15 minutes back to the bus in a downpour.  We were so wet and miserable that we scrapped our planned visit to underground Nazi factories and headed back to Wroclaw.

In order to nurse our spirits back to health, we went to a nice Polish restaurant with Marek, Bubu, and his wife Ewa.  We had not had pierogis yet, so went to a place that would have them.  GOOD idea.  It was by far the best meal we’ve had yet and was a night we will not forget.

The centerpieces were a bit odd: a stuffed chicken with a pepper and garlic necklace

Cabbage, carrots, beets. Not shown: the excellent fried young cabbage with sour cream - my favorite

Pierogis! I had 15 at least.

The meat came out hot: pork neck, ribs, kebabs, and other such things.

Our oohs and aahs pleased the chef mightily.

Bubu and Ewa

Imposing on the staff

After the meal, we saw some fire-dancers in the square twirling batons, nunchuks, and other various flaming things.

On the walk back to our hotel, we got a great view of the University all lit up.

Prayer Requests

As we continue on our tour having fun, please pray for the Polish elders as they continue the hard work of advancing the Kingdom of Christ in Poland.

Pray for a safe flight back to the U.S. tomorrow for Rachel Unger.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

Wroclaw

Day 10

Wednesday, July 1st

Wednesday morning was bittersweet, as we said goodbye to Alek and his family and left Legnica.  In many ways, we felt that our work was just beginning, that the relationships that we had developed were just beginning to bear fruit.  But Alek assured us that he was seeing great things happen.  The fact that several people had accepted invitations to church and to dinner at Alek’s house was very encouraging in a town like Legnica.  So we bade farewell.

The team outside the hostel before boarding the bus

Mariusz also came to send us off

The Bus pulls away

On the 1.5 hour bus ride to Wroclaw, a city of about 700,000 people, we discovered that although the bus had AC, it also had heat that would not shut off.  So the next 90 minutes were hot and sticky.  We were glad when we finally pulled up to our hotel in Wroclaw.

Our dwelling place for the next two days

Richard Mahar flew in to join our team, so while Bubu went to pick him up, we walked to the main square to get a good look at Wroclaw.

The beautiful and bustling city center

In the square, we got lunch at a Turkish and Polish restaurant.  The delights included the Magic Bowl of Vegetables and Pork Neck, a common Polish delicacy which was declared by Sam Thiessen to be in his top 10 meals of all time.  There, we also celebrated Theresa Unger’s birthday (we had already sung Oh Canada at breakfast).

Theresa enjoying the first sips of her birthday beer

After lunch, Bubu took us to see St. Elizabeth’s Church, the tallest in the city and one which has been associated with the likes of Ursinus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy.  We climbed the dizzying spiral staircase to the top of its tower in order to get a fabulous view of Wroclaw.

The outside of St. Elizabeth's

The staircase

The view of the Rynek (market square) from above

The inside

As you can see, St. Elizabeth's is now a Catholic church, and the kind that means business

After seeing the church, we had a chance to sing in the market square while Bubu and Marek handed out leaflets and talked with passersby, in what was probably the last “street evangelism” we will get a chance to do.In the evening, we took the bus to Bubu’s house for a barbecue.  After some excellent kielbasa, burgers, and pork neck, we got rained on and fled inside.  We closed the night with some good brandy and some singalong.Prayer Requests

Please pray for Andrzej, an elder in the Poznan church.  He is a lawyer, and had a very important meeting with the Minister of Education for all of Poland.  Pray that he would be able to use his influence to work towards more local control of schools and for greater freedom for homeschooling.

Please pray for Alek, as he rests from a very busy week and prepares to go back to work Thursday.  Also please pray for him as he follows up with several people we met during our mission in Legnica.

Please pray that God would continue to work in the hearts of those who responded favorably to the gospel this week.  This includes Mariusz, Kashia and her fiance Gregory, and others.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

Briefly

Day 9

Tuesday, June 30th

Hi all.  I don’t have time for a full post on Tuesday yet, but let me just give you a taste.  It was another good day, with the sun out and high temperatures.  More good turnout for our events.

Please pray for Garry Vanderveen, who has come down with pneumonia.  Many thanks to Alek who made him go to a doctor.  He is on antibiotics and says he is already feeling better.

Also, please pray as we travel Wednesday morning to Wroclaw, where we will do some more street evangelism, fellowship some more with the Wroclaw saints, and do some sightseeing.

Matt Dau

UPDATE!!!!

Ok, here’s the full rundown of Tuesday.

After finding out he had pneumonia, Pastor Garry showed off his lungs so much he began feeling very weak.

It was another warm and humid day, and were excited about the last day of our ministry in Legnica

Some would say TOO warm and humid

The week in Legnica together was bringing us closer than ever before

We sing Psalm 134 for the 134th time this week

Once again, Pawel was able to give several gospel presentations on the street that day, due to great weather

By afternoon, after a great day of street evangelism, even Garry was feeling good

Marek knockin' us out with that American smile

For dinner, we got Pizza - Here was the Spinach. (hey, we couldn't eat Polish every night)

After the evening meeting and John Unger's talk on Acts 17, we showed the movie Luther. Here is the girls with Patricia, a local girl who they befriended and invited to the meetings

Here Comes the Sun

Day 8

Monday, June 29th

Monday was a very excellent day all around.  For the first time since we arrived, the sun was shining all day.  The streets of Legnica, which had been somewhat empty before, burst open with foot traffic.  Turnout at all of the day’s events was much better than earlier in the week.

Monday also marked the arrival of Pawel, the pastor in Gdansk.  Although his car broke down on Wednesday, he was able to take the train Sunday night to meet us for the remainder of our evangelism in Legnica.  He is very gifted at street preaching and presentation of the Gospel on the “sketchboard.”  We took advantage of his presence and the warm weather by doing several street evangelism sessions throughout the day, instead of just one like we had done before.  A session involves the team singing 4 or 5 songs in the street to attract attention, then Pawel (and Bubu before him) preaching to the people who had gathered for 10 minutes or so, then all of us chatting with anybody who cared to stick around and talk.

Pawel making one of his sketchboard presentations

Alek translates the content of Pawel's message for us

Passersby begin to stop and see what all the commotion's about

Pawel chats with one man who stuck around for Q&A

The evening meeting was also well attended.  We were very pleased to see two girls, Kashia and Beatrice, who we had met earlier in the week.  Ken Cannon gave an excellent message, and we once again sang.  The night included a fabulous trio performance by Sarah-Ann, Esther, and Terri.

After the meeting, we invited everyone to our barbecue on the back porch of the hostel.  Bubu grilled up some kielbasa, we drank some good Polish (and Czech) beers, broke out the vodka and lard sandwiches, and had an all-around grand time.  We also had excellent conversations with Kashia, Mariusz, Beatrice, and her boyfriend Peter.  Kashia and Mariusz both expressed a desire to come to church in the future.  I don’t have pictures of Kashia and Beatrice right now, but I will post some soon.

Alek fires up the grill

Mariusz, Pawel, and John

All in all, an excellent day.  We are very grateful for your prayers for good weather.  Despite a few showers in the evening, we had sun for our work all day, and we were feeling good.

Prayer Requests

Pray for all of the repeat attendees of our classes and meetings, such as Bolek and Karoline, Peter and Beatrice, and especially Mariusz and Kashia, who have responded very favorably to the gospel this week.

Thanks and praise for great weather.  Pray that it would continue.

Thanks for Pawel’s safe arrival.  Pray that the Lord would use him mightily.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

Niedziela: Sunday

Day 7

Sunday, June 28th

On Sunday several families from the church in Wroclaw drove up to Legnica to worship with us.  We held service in St. Mary’s Lutheran Church.  It was glorious.

The choir singing before the service

After church, we had lunch with the Wroclaw saints and went to Pastor Alek’s house for some sweet fellowship.

All in all, an excellent day with much fellowship.

Prayer Requests

Pray for the arrival of Pawel tonight, that he would get here safely by train.  Pray that his street evangelism would be effective.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

Day 6

Saturday, June 27th

Apparently this day was Saturday, but you could have fooled most of the Legnica 2009 team.  It feels like no particular day of the week.  Family Camp feels like a lifetime ago.

This post will also contain no pictures.  I will go back and add them later, but it takes a very long to upload them, and I have to sit in the middle of the town square to get internet access.  Sitting out here that long is just asking for the rain to fall on me and for my battery to die.

Saturday morning went very well.  The English classes were well attended, including a few people who had come Thursday but not on Friday.  This was encouraging, as was the return of the couple from the night before.  Their names are Bolek (I think) and Karoline (pronounced with an EE-NA at the end).  They were very excited to spend more time with our North American group and to practice their English, which was pretty good already (the had come the night before thinking they were going to the English classes, but instead heard the gospel preached!).  They ended up teaching us as more Polish than we taught them English.  They stayed with us for much of the day, showing some of us their favorite Polish shops, eating lunch with us, and going with us to the town square for our afternoon street evangelism.  They watched as Bubu presented the gospel again on the sketchboard, and finally said goodbye to us that afternoon.

It was again raining off and on, and the turnout for the street evangelism was poor, since many people were rushing by to get under some cover or inside a building.  But we hope that the few who have stopped to listen will return for our evening meetings.

There could be no evening meeting Saturday, though, since there was a wedding reception that took over the hostel.  Instead, we travelled by train to the nearby town of Jawor, where we saw one of only 2 “Peace churches”, churches that Lutherans from Silesia were allowed to build because of the peace treaty that ended the 30 Years’ War.  It was required to be built only of wood, stray, and clay, but still stands over 350 years later.  Pictures will be forthcoming.

After eating and relaxing some in Jawor, we returned to our hostel and tried to block out the noisy wedding reception and get some sleep.

Prayer Requests

Please continue to pray for better weather.  The rain makes it very difficult for us to do our work effectively.

Please pray that God work in the hearts of Bolek and Karoline, and that they would continue to return to our evening meetings.

Please pray for Mariusz, Alek’s Christian friend who needs more Christian community.  He has been spending much time with us, but pray that he would find a regular place of worship.

Please pray that our worship and fellowship with the church from Wroclaw, which is coming up to Legnica Sunday, would be very fruitful and enjoyable.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictooooors.

Bolek and Karoline at the English class

Singin' in the rain

Yes, the young men sing too

Ad getting her Polski on with Bolek and Karoline

Sweet, sweet McDonalds

Ken Cannon and Mariusz

We took a train to the nearby town of Jawor. Pastor Garry was tired.

In Jawor we saw the Peace Church. Twas beautiful.

The Inside of the Peace Church can hold 5,000 people

Nightlife in Legnica: We played poker for push-ups. Sam Thiessen lost.

Internet!

Day 5

Friday, June 26th

I will do a fuller post on this day when I have more time, but here’s a quick rundown:

The morning English classes were poorly attended.  We spent much of the day inviting more people to come.

The afternoon street evangelism went well, and the rain held off for us!

The evening meeting was excellent, and a couple came who were very intrigued by Pastor Garry Vanderveen’s message.  The wife, a Roman Catholic, said that it was the first sermon she ever understood!  Please pray for this couple, that they would come to our meetings on Saturday and that God would soften their hearts.  I don’t remember their names, but I will update you with this info later today.

Please continue to pray for us.  We are definitely sensing some opposition to our work, as we have already experienced many obstacles placed in our way.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau

UPDATE!!! Here are some pictures from the day that will help fill out it’s events.

Alek with his wife Agnieszka, children Kuba, Kashia, and Bashia, and his mother before the morning English classOne of the many flyers around town announcing our events

Utter astonishment at our discovery of internet access. It was right there in front of us the whole time!

John Unger gets his flabbergastery on

We raise our voices in the streets in between cloudbursts

Alek took us on a walk through a beautiful old German neighborhood. This is a Catholic seminary we saw.

Polish Gelato

The Gawking

The Satisfactastiness of it all

Pastor Garry Vanderveen preaching on friendship, love, and the Trinity with Bubu translating

Our group singing at the evening meeting - we've never sang so much in our entire lives

Ukrainian Borscht for dinner - very yummy

The fountain next to the cathedral at night.

Present in Polska!

Day 4: The Work Begins

Thursday, June 25

After everyone slept like a rock (in a good way), we had breakfast.  A group of people stayed in the hostel for conversational English classes, while the rest got a tour of the town and the places we would be doing our work by Marek.  First he showed us the castle where we would be eating our lunch every day while we were in Legnica.

The Castle

Then he showed us the Lutheran Church where we would be worshipping on Sunday.  The Evangelical Reformed Church in Wroclaw will be coming up to worship there with us.  The building dates from 1192, and contains both Roman Catholic and Lutheran elements.  It is absolutely beautiful.  Tragically, only 5 people attend church there normally besides the pastor’s family.

St. Mary's Lutheran Church - Outside

Inside

Finally, Marek showed us the square where we would be doing the street evangelism for the week.  It is not the main town square, which is currently under construction, but about 100 meters (I’m trying to think metric, here) away from it, in front of a very busy shopping mall.  On one end of the street is the Lutheran church.  On the other end of it is the Catholic cathedral.  In the middle is the square where we set up.  The entire street is paved in hand-laid stones.  A pretty nice setting.

The Catholic Cathedral

We got a chance to check out the mall, hoping for some Polish products.  Unfortunately, everything sold in the mall is trying to be very American.  Not the right place for an authentic Polish experience.  No pictures from the mall, because apparently it is too sacred a site for cameras to be allowed inside (seriously, Peter got yelled at).

After a hearty lunch, we set out on our first street evangelism session.  We were very dismayed that Pawel, the pastor from Gdansk whose specialty is street evangelism, had car trouble on his way down to Legnica and was unable to make it.  Instead, Bubu took over.  Our group sang psalms and hymns in order to attract attention.  Many people stopped and stared, some laughed, but many enjoyed it and stayed to watch more.  Then Bubu began preaching and writing on a “sketchboard”, presenting the gospel in a creative way through pictures and diagrams.

Unfortunately, halfway through his presentation, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain.  The streets cleared immediately and our audience dispersed.  The thunderstorms continued through the afternoon.  Poland has received rain continuously for over 2 weeks, very unusual for June.  This is why the railroad tracks were flooded two nights before.

That evening, we held a meeting at the hostel, which had been advertised around town for several days.  The group sang several songs, and Pastor Jeff Harlow gave a talk on the authority of Scripture.  Among the guests were neighbor’s of Alek’s, as well as a granddaughter of theirs who was visiting from the U.S. named Nicole.  Nicole came with as we went to a very excellent Turkish restaurant for some dinner and relaxation after a very long day.  I’m pretty sure that Bubu, Alek,and Marek eventually got to eat after having to explain everything on the menu to 25 or so people.  On the way back, we passed through a very large and beautiful park which is next to the hostel.

One of several fountains in the 5 km-long park next to the hostel

All in all, a very nice first day, but with many problems.  The team covets your prayers very much.

Prayer Requests

Pray for Pawel, that he would be able to get his car fixed quickly and inexpensively.  Pray that he would be able to join us on Sunday for the rest of the street evangelism on Monday and Tuesday.

Pray for a better turnout at the English classes in the morning and evangelistic meetings in the evening.  Pray that people would notice the advertisements around town and be interested.

Pray for better weather.  The rain is a major obstacle to getting attendance at all of our events.

For the Legnica 2009 team,

Matt Dau