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.