Poland - 2006

May 11-20, 2006, Henry Weigel

Travel and the Routine

Eleven people comprised the construction missions trip to Poland to work on the Warsaw Theological Seminary building. The trip was organized by Stan and Julie Wagner. The main group (seven people) came from the Assembly of God church, Christian Chapel of Virginia Beach, headed by Pastor Tom Conant. Those seven along with Stan and Julie Wagner, Paul Lawrence of Word of Life A/G, and I from Centerpointe Church at Fair Oaks rounded out the team. The work consisted of finishing wallboard work and painting. I learned to apply paper tape and "mud" (i. e. spackling compound) to the seams of the wallboard. Most of my time, however, was spent painting. Each workday was begun with a devotional led by one of the team members. I did the one on Wednesday, May 17.

We left Washington Dulles on Thursday, May 11, 2006, transferred in Frankfurt, and after flying all night arrived in Warsaw in the morning and at our hotel, the Arkadia, at about noon Friday. Warsaw is six hours ahead of Washington time. Our hosts were Rich and Lori McLane, the Assembly of God missionaries to Poland. We worked Saturday and Monday through Friday of the following week. On Sunday we went to an Assembly of God church in Warsaw, the one the McLanes go to. It was Mothers’ Day in the US and Tom Conant let me use his laptop to send a Mothers’ Day greeting to my wife and daughters. After church we ate at a restaurant and than went to see the "Old Town" – the former Jewish Ghetto during World War II. It has been restored. We ate breakfast and evening dinner at the hotel. A hot lunch was served at the Bible School. The food was good.

Poland

According to Rich McLane, there are 38 million people in Poland; 95% of them are Catholic and 36,000 are believers. That is about 0.1%. 21,000 attend pentecostal churches; 12,600 are members of a pentecostal church. The Catholic church does not teach hope of any kind. On Sundays (or Saturdays) 70% are in church regularly. One out of three adults are alcoholic. Wife and child abuse is widespread.

Ministry Opportunities

At the Wednesday prayer meeting before I left on this construction trip, I had the congregation pray for me. Steve price was asked to lead the prayer. He did not know it was a construction trip so he prayed for God’s blessing on my ministry. The Lord opened opportunities.

Sunday in Church

The worship was beautiful even though we did not understand the language. The speaker that morning was an American whose sermon was translated into Polish. I got caught up in the worship and gave a message in tongues with interpretation (into English). Prior to the introduction of the speaker the interpreter translated my message from English into Polish. After the service a woman from the Ukraine who now lived in Poland and was attending this church came to talk to the missionary, Rich, about the message in tongues and the interpreters translation. She seemed quite excited. Rich explained what had happened: the message in tongues, the interpretation into English and subsequently the translation into Polish. She said that this sort of thing happened in the Ukrainian church all the time but she had never heard it in a Polish church. It turned out the message tied in with the sermon brought by the American.

English Service Conducted by the Seminary Students

On Tuesday evening, May 16, the Bible School students had a service for us at the school’s chapel. Pastor Tom Conant gave the sermon. Stan Wagner sang a beautiful a cappella solo. Several of us gave testimonies. During the worship service I again brought forth a message in tongues with interpretation. After the service one of the students came up to me and said that the message had been for him. He also said that he had been given a similar interpretation (he, in his halting English, called it translation). He then asked that I pray for him for the Lord to direct him.

On the Flight Home

We flew from Warsaw to Munich and from Munich to Dulles. In Munich we had about a half hour to catch our connection. Consequently, one of my bags did not make it on board. I think some of the other members of our team had similar problems. Mine was delivered the next evening. On the plane from Munich I had an aisle seat by the bulkhead. A young lady was next to me. We each did our own thing. That was just fine with me as I am not all that anxious to make conversation with a stranger. After we had our dinner, our trays still in front of us, with some difficulty she tried to reach over her tray to put something into her bag at her feet. I tapped her on the shoulder and indicated that I would hold her tray while she stowed her things. Well, that which I didn’t look for came to me anyway. I now was getting into a conversation with her. She is Laure (pronounced, Lor) from Toulouse, France and was on her way to Washington to visit a girl fried she had made in 1998. She was interested in possibly getting a job in the US. She had an English version of her resume that she asked if I would mind looking at it and possibly making some wording suggestions – which I did. We continued talking and that "Still Small Voice" said to me, "When are you going to bring Jesus into the conversation?"

How was I going to do that without turning her off? I tried several approaches without much headway. Finally, something caused the subject of the Bible to come up. She mentioned that her girlfriend’s father had given her a New Testament in 1998, The Message Translation. She said that it was very important to her friend’s father that he give her this New Testament. Her friend went to a church that has lively music. In contrast, she said the churches in France are dead. She also said that she has a friend in France that has told her to ask Jesus Christ to help her in her problems. But, she said that she did not know how to do that. So now we were in a serious discussion about Jesus. A couple of times I asked her if I should continue this discussion (about Jesus and the Bible). She said yes she liked this discussion and that she was open. I asked if I could get my Bible and show her some verses. She agreed. We went through John 3:16-18; Romans 6:23; and Romans 10:9,10. I wrote these down for her so that she could read them in her Message N.T. Incidentally, she had not been reading it. She said when she gets back to France she will tell her friend about our conversation. I asked if I could pray for her. She thought that would be good. Please join me in praying for Laure. One sows, one waters, but God gives the increase.