Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Powerful Playdates in Poznan...
What a wonderful start to a new chapter of our tour. We're finally in Poland-- where my heart's been desiring to return to. We got off to a powerful start. We had to privilege of ministering at the 2nd Baptist Church in Poznan pastored by one of my favorite pastors in the world-- Piotr Ozana. Pastor O?ana has such an enormous love for the Lord and His people and we were so warmly welcomed. He also set up for us to perform in a small town about 45 minutes away-- a town that had only 3 Christians. This was to be an evangelistic outreach.
In both the church in Poznan as well as the evangelistic outreach, we performed a very powerful play (in Polish) called THE PROXY. It's about a young lady who ends up witnessing to a person standing on a ledge who's on the verge of ending it all. We also sang "No Other Name" (a Covenant Players Catalyst song) which served as a very healing balm following the play. In the evening service I also shared a testimony about a very dark time in my life where I had seriously contemplated ending it all as well. It's not something I like to talk about very often but I felt the Lord had put it strongly on my heart. Later, our contact shared that he had also felt that a similar testimony needed to be shared. We both felt that it was because there may have been somewhere there in a similar situation who needed to hear the message.
I thank God for redeeming my life. I'm not exactly in the greatest place right now. There's still alot of gunk I need to process through but am not quite ready to process through. But at least I'm in a place where I have enough stability and groundedness to keep going. I trust that God will continue to reach out to me in these cloudy times and I know that He's promised to be "close to the brokenhearted" and He "saves those who are crushed in Spirit" (--Psalm ) So I have to keep trusting that He is here with me, right by my side even if I don't neccessarily feel His presence.
On a more pleasant note, it's been really good to stay with good friends of mine here in Gniezno, Pete and Bobi Dawson. I've stayed with them every tour I've been here in Poland plus part of a break three and a half years ago. It was during that break that I had my heart broken and Bobi was right there ready to comfort and counsel me. (She did a lot of counseling workin New Zealand before moving to Poland.) So they're real special to me and this is one of my homes away from home here in Poland. Next week, we'll go to another one-- Liliana's family in Kraków and the week after will be my greatest home away from home in Wisla.
That's it for now. I'm out.
What a wonderful start to a new chapter of our tour. We're finally in Poland-- where my heart's been desiring to return to. We got off to a powerful start. We had to privilege of ministering at the 2nd Baptist Church in Poznan pastored by one of my favorite pastors in the world-- Piotr Ozana. Pastor O?ana has such an enormous love for the Lord and His people and we were so warmly welcomed. He also set up for us to perform in a small town about 45 minutes away-- a town that had only 3 Christians. This was to be an evangelistic outreach.
In both the church in Poznan as well as the evangelistic outreach, we performed a very powerful play (in Polish) called THE PROXY. It's about a young lady who ends up witnessing to a person standing on a ledge who's on the verge of ending it all. We also sang "No Other Name" (a Covenant Players Catalyst song) which served as a very healing balm following the play. In the evening service I also shared a testimony about a very dark time in my life where I had seriously contemplated ending it all as well. It's not something I like to talk about very often but I felt the Lord had put it strongly on my heart. Later, our contact shared that he had also felt that a similar testimony needed to be shared. We both felt that it was because there may have been somewhere there in a similar situation who needed to hear the message.
I thank God for redeeming my life. I'm not exactly in the greatest place right now. There's still alot of gunk I need to process through but am not quite ready to process through. But at least I'm in a place where I have enough stability and groundedness to keep going. I trust that God will continue to reach out to me in these cloudy times and I know that He's promised to be "close to the brokenhearted" and He "saves those who are crushed in Spirit" (--Psalm ) So I have to keep trusting that He is here with me, right by my side even if I don't neccessarily feel His presence.
On a more pleasant note, it's been really good to stay with good friends of mine here in Gniezno, Pete and Bobi Dawson. I've stayed with them every tour I've been here in Poland plus part of a break three and a half years ago. It was during that break that I had my heart broken and Bobi was right there ready to comfort and counsel me. (She did a lot of counseling workin New Zealand before moving to Poland.) So they're real special to me and this is one of my homes away from home here in Poland. Next week, we'll go to another one-- Liliana's family in Kraków and the week after will be my greatest home away from home in Wisla.
That's it for now. I'm out.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
sleepless...
i can't sleep. i think my heart is too mixed up to sleep right now. how can a person feel so many different things at one time? i'm processing through a lot right now. .. 1) the death of the founder of our ministry, Charles M. Tanner, and 2) the death of a five year dream.
i'm not at a point where i can write in concretes-- just abstracts. i feel like i need to vent and yet i don't quite know what to say. one minute i'm fine, the next minute i'm not, one minute i'm able to rejoice in the good that's come about, the next minute i just feel sorrow, one minute i'm responding in tears, the next minute i'm acting out by snapping at people, but alot of the times, i'm just kind of numb.
it's all pretty new. so actually, things aren't all that "processed". it would probably do me good to get some sleep. i hope it'll come soon.
i can't sleep. i think my heart is too mixed up to sleep right now. how can a person feel so many different things at one time? i'm processing through a lot right now. .. 1) the death of the founder of our ministry, Charles M. Tanner, and 2) the death of a five year dream.
i'm not at a point where i can write in concretes-- just abstracts. i feel like i need to vent and yet i don't quite know what to say. one minute i'm fine, the next minute i'm not, one minute i'm able to rejoice in the good that's come about, the next minute i just feel sorrow, one minute i'm responding in tears, the next minute i'm acting out by snapping at people, but alot of the times, i'm just kind of numb.
it's all pretty new. so actually, things aren't all that "processed". it would probably do me good to get some sleep. i hope it'll come soon.
Friday, March 10, 2006
house-sitting in munich, germany...
i'm glad we're house-sitting right now 'cause we're all exhausted and we needed to have a place to just veg. we were sad to have to leave italy on monday. we absolutely loved it there and none of us were all to eager to come back to germany (--nothing against germany, mind you). we had a fabulous weekend in milano. we picked up a short-notice playdate for an int'l church so we pulled together some plays super-quick. it's a blessing to be working with liliana again and petra's a trooper too. lil and i did I WANT THE BRASS RING this past sunday and WASHING WASHING WASHING the sunday before. CPers reading this will now how impacting those plays are. both of them have characters that go through a major conversion/transformation/redemption experience at the end of the play and it's really meaty stuff. i didn't realize how much i missed performing these deeply impacting plays in my native language.
tuesday, wednesday, and thursday we had full days of ELCP (English Lang. Communication Program) in schools seeing kids from Grade 5 through Grade 12. it was our first ELCP performances of this tour so we had a hecka lot of material to put together. next week we have a full length 1 hr and 30 minute German program on Saturday night and 20minutes for Sunday morning and i can't really say i'm looking forward to it. learning german plays is really a long and tedious process for me. i know i learn pretty quickly but still, it feels like it takes forever and i don't enjoy it all that much. i guess you could say it's a labour of love.
i'm feeling pretty whiny right now and i can't say i feel all that happy at the moment. i don't know why. i just feel a tinge depressed right now and a little bit empty. and it's pretty stupid b/c i know that i'm blessed with so much and i really don't have much reason to complain but still, i just feel so blah today. i feel a little like what i think i would feel like if i didn't have Jesus in my life but the thing is that i do. so why should i be feeling like this? i guess we all have our days, huh?
i'm glad we're house-sitting right now 'cause we're all exhausted and we needed to have a place to just veg. we were sad to have to leave italy on monday. we absolutely loved it there and none of us were all to eager to come back to germany (--nothing against germany, mind you). we had a fabulous weekend in milano. we picked up a short-notice playdate for an int'l church so we pulled together some plays super-quick. it's a blessing to be working with liliana again and petra's a trooper too. lil and i did I WANT THE BRASS RING this past sunday and WASHING WASHING WASHING the sunday before. CPers reading this will now how impacting those plays are. both of them have characters that go through a major conversion/transformation/redemption experience at the end of the play and it's really meaty stuff. i didn't realize how much i missed performing these deeply impacting plays in my native language.
tuesday, wednesday, and thursday we had full days of ELCP (English Lang. Communication Program) in schools seeing kids from Grade 5 through Grade 12. it was our first ELCP performances of this tour so we had a hecka lot of material to put together. next week we have a full length 1 hr and 30 minute German program on Saturday night and 20minutes for Sunday morning and i can't really say i'm looking forward to it. learning german plays is really a long and tedious process for me. i know i learn pretty quickly but still, it feels like it takes forever and i don't enjoy it all that much. i guess you could say it's a labour of love.
i'm feeling pretty whiny right now and i can't say i feel all that happy at the moment. i don't know why. i just feel a tinge depressed right now and a little bit empty. and it's pretty stupid b/c i know that i'm blessed with so much and i really don't have much reason to complain but still, i just feel so blah today. i feel a little like what i think i would feel like if i didn't have Jesus in my life but the thing is that i do. so why should i be feeling like this? i guess we all have our days, huh?
