This entire week has been so full with new relationships. I thoroughly enjoyed Wednesday night getting to celebrate Wiesiek's birthday with him and his family and many friends whose lives have all been touched by this household. In this family I have really seen a picture of the type of environment I wish to have for my family in the future. This family has been so obvious in how much they love and has been very open in not only learning about me but discussing my plans for the future in a caring way. For the birthday we had a barbecue here at the house and ate cake with mascarpone and fresh blueberries. All who were here were interacting together and just enjoying relationship and I feel so priveleged that I got to be here for the occasion. Before this week none of these people knew me and yet there I get to be celebrating with them.

Since that night I have spent the last two days here at the house with them sharing in their daily life and enjoying each moment of this time. Their children are full of life and interest in their visitor and they are a testimony to the love and attention they have been shown by their parents. Throughout the days there are many visitors and visits to neighbors in this area. They also keep a garden so there are vegetables to be picked for the day's meals and eggs to be collected as they have chickens also. It is really quite an incredible environment especially for someone who has lived in the city for so long. I have really been made to feel at home here and that is so encouraging. I know that these are people I could always come and visit in the future as their home is so open for that. Tomorrow when I leave here I do so with sadness that I must go but at the same time feeling so refreshed to have been a part of this family and their life for a few days. Hopefully tomorrow I will be going to spend more time with Kasia's family. I am hoping to stay at her aunt's house for a day or two before leaving the area.

I have added a new gallery from my time here. The first pictures are of Wiesiek and two of his sons when we roasted some sausage and hot dogs over the fire last night. There are also pictures there of the house. In the third row those are pictures of the family's other guests who are staying in the guest room next to the main house. Their names are Marcin and Milka and their son Nicodem is pictured also in the fourth row. Where they live is not far from Krakow and I am going to stay with them after I leave there and go towards Slovakia. The last picture in the album is of Nancy. Hopefully I will get more pics in the morning before I leave. I should have taken more earlier but forget because I get caught up in enjoying the time.

As I said in a previous post I was invited to return to Hel with Kasia, Veronica and some members of the family. We took the ferry there from Gdinya on Monday afternoon and spent the day eating and wandering around Hel for souvenirs. It was a beautiful day to be out and I of course enjoyed the company. I got to practice my Spanish with Veronica and she was teaching me plenty of new words. By the middle of the day all of us were tired because even though it is nothing like as hot as Phoenix it is very humid and so does zap a lot of your energy. We could not return to Gdinya until 9pm though because the tourism is at its peak this time of year so the ferries are normally booked up. After our day in Hel I went with them to the family home in a village east of Gdinya. I was supposed to go that night to stay with friends of theirs but at that point it was already late so I stayed at their house for the night.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I spent the first part of the day at their home sharing breakfast and then going to the airport as today was the day Veronica started on her way back to Guatemala. It is sad to see her go but also I feel blessed for the time that I got to spend with her in her last days in Poland. I will be able to stay in contact with her hopefully in the future and at some point she hopes to move to Europe so I'm sure we will meet again. After the airport we returned to their home for lunch and I also got to see pictures from Kasia's missionary journies through South and Central America and Africa. She is at the moment attending music school in Guatemala and when finished with school plans to return to missions. In the afternoon we came here to meet Nancy and her family. Nancy and her husband (I will put his name in a later post but don't yet know how to spell it) have five children and have been missionaries here in Poland for many years. He is from Poland and she from Chicago but born to Polish and English parents. They are an extremely loving and welcoming family and the children are interested to find out about their new visitor. When the family found out I was traveling through they wanted to meet me and have me stay and so I spent the night here last night and will be at least tonight also. Throughout the year they open their home to missionaries traveling from different parts of the world and to people who want to be in the area during the holiday time. In my short time here I have so enjoyed meeting them and seeing the way that they live focusing so much of their time and energy on building relationships with other people and pouring into the lives of their children. This is a wonderful experience for me because my heart and my focus is for the family I will have in the future so this time is very encouraging. Today is Nancy's husband's birthday (I must find out how to spell his name) and so tonight will be a celebration with them and friends in the area. Something more for me to look forward to and enjoy. Each time I open my heart to new relationships it always allows for such amazing experiences with people that I cannot miss these opportunities that each of us are given each day. I added a few more albums to Lovable Quirks so take a look. Some are older pics from Berlin the day after the World Cup final and then their are pictures up until yesterday.

I had intended on setting out for Krakow yesterday but now have had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with a family here in Gdansk and their friends. On Saturday night I was feeling really overwhelmed as I watched people in Sopot going to clubs and some of the couples sitting together at the park. It is so hard for me to watch couples together who cannot and will not communicate with one another. I feel that that type of relationship with someone is such a gift and so to watch people who in some cases have spent a life married together be are totally unable to communicate it grieves my heart. I was also seeing so many young people going to the clubs and so many I could tell were there just to try to look cool and were acting so fake with each other. It reminded me of the emptiness I felt as a teenager trying so hard to fit into all of the molds that young men and women are pressured to conform to. I am so saddened to think that for many of them these years shape their lives because it is so difficult as a teenager in Western society to try to be yourself, to not conform to rigid roles. The end result of living this way and trying so hard to be someone else is a profound emptiness but many young people know of no alternatives. I felt overwhelmed at asking myself what I can possibly do to offer hope to people in these situations as their seemed in that moment to be so many who needed it. At the end of that day I was just hoping that by being at a Church Sunday I would be encouraged being around other Christians.

As always God far exceeded what I could have hoped for or expected. I had a really difficult time finding my way to the Church and had nearly given up looking for it but eventually I got there. When I did the pastor, whom I had spoken to for the directions, asked a woman named Kasia to translate the service for me. Kasha has lived as a missionary and is now studying in Guatemala but she happened to be there for this service and was also translating the service for a friend of hers from Guatemala. Well after the service had ended Kasia and her parents invited me to have lunch with them and of course I accepted since at this point I had met no one since leaving Germany. It was really wonderful to spend the day with them enjoying not only the company of Kasia's immediate family but also Veronica from Guatemala and members of Kasha's extended family also. The family asked me many questions about my travels and especially why I was leaving the United States. This time with them was so refreshing after the way that I had felt the day before. I did not leave them until late in the evening and this after being invited to join them the following day in going to Hel on the ferry.

When I arrived back at the campground I was so full emotionally from my time with the family and was ready for bed when the Polish young people camping next to me in Sopot asked me to join them. I had been camping next to them since Thursday and we hadn't spoken but this night we chatted. They were excited to speak English to me and to try to teach me some Polish songs and words. It was so nice to find out from them what it is like living in and going to university in Poland and also to share with them about what I am doing. God really overwhelmed me this day in allowing for me to spend so much time building relationships with other people. I could never have expected this day to be so full and I was so blessed by it.

The United States media has done stellar work in not only trying to convince the US public that President Bush is a fool and to blame for all the country's problems but also trying to convince people outside the country of the same. I have met many people over here who are convinced of his foolishness because of the one sided information they have heard. This portrayal of our leader abroad promotes disrespect not only for the President but the government that he represents. It undermines the authority of our government and its ability to function already in the United States and will have the same result abroad if this portrayal is allowed to continue.

I remember as a senior in high school learning about our government and the three branches of government that are designed to balance one another. When I see the news or hear the arguments made against the President it is so clear that the structure of the government is neglectfully forgotten. United States society and world society has grown to love scapegoats. When people's lives are failing or their decision making is on par with a child's they look to blame their DNA, or their parents, or in this case the government when many people don't even exercise their right to vote and are completely unaware of what the government is doing. I would hate to be in the President's shoes right now because the attention span of the people is so short. One minute I hear people stupidly saying they want our government to go after anyone in a turban and supporting the war to the next when they hate the President and cannot understand why we ever went to war. When I was a teenager for a while I loved the WWF because of the drama of it. The hero one show is the arch enemy the next and it goes back and forth constantly. Our media presents the news in this fashion now and it seems the public eats it up like candy. Many people rely purely on what they hear in the media and that information is so jaded by a desire for ratings. We want our news to be like our movies and never mind if all the while especially young people and the rest of the world are adopting an attitude of disrespect towards our leaders and our government as a whole.

Any country that maintains the attitude that "All politicians are crooks" and allows the media to turn the executive leader into a jester is promoting poor leadership. It is the responsibility of the people in a democracy to bring about change in their government. Sitting at home watching television and bitching about the government does nothing. It is when the people in a democracy neglect their role that incredible problems emerge. Our next generation of "leaders" (frightening thought) have grown up, many of them, with the attitude that leadership needs not to be respected. Why would they think any differently when they turn on the news or open a newspaper? I know that I have probably said more than enough but it was so sad to me to know that such disrespect is filtering out to the rest of the world. I believe that at points in history other nations looked to ours as somewhat of a standard but I could hardly think this is the case now or will be in the future.

I have added some new pictures to Lovable Quirks. They are from my last week in Germany. The pictures in the middle are from my day trip to Wittenberg. I also finally updated the map in my "Where am I" section. I will write more tomorrow about my time in Gdansk since Sunday.

I have another experience to share from my time here in Poland. The other night I was reminded how wonderful it is that in the United States you never have to pay for grocery bags. I had realized that campgrounds here in Poland do not supply toilet paper always so I went to a local store to fetch one. This is also a time to mention a dynamic about the Polish people which is that they are very curious. I have been surprised at the level of eye contact people will make with you even as a stranger and that wherever I go I see people looking at me very curiously. I thought it was because I am a foreigner but I noticed that they do it also with each other. That said, I purchased my roll of toilet paper and a loaf of bread and realized of course that I had forgotten to bring a bag and was not going to get one. I then walked back through town, a small town thank goodness, and was very aware of the looks I got from other people. It would be a strange site to me to see anyone carrying around toilet paper and bread so I understood their curiousity. I am glad that I am light on the old feet and got back to the campsite with much rapidity to avoid more of the curious stares. I must remember to always bring a bag with me to stores so I don't have a repeat experience of this.