International Missions

Ask people to list countries that are “unreached” and you would likely hear China, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and other “creative access” countries where the gospel is not allowed legally, but you wouldn’t even expect to hear “Poland”.

This is our church in Szczecin, Poland. We lease classrooms and an auditorium from the Music Academy in Szczecin. Szczecin, Poland(formerly Stettin, Germany before the war) has a population of about 400,000 people, and there are about 10-12 Evangelical Protestant churches in the entire city. In sharp contrast, there are over 400 Protestant churches in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. One street in Knoxville, Middle Brook Pike has more churches than the entire city of Szczecin on both sides of the Odra River. Continue Reading »

polish-friends.pdf

I could have titled this as Bartek, Grzegorz and Mariusz, and to any Polish reader it conveys the same sense of Bill, Paul and John — very common ordinary names, but I needed to make your tongue trip.

The point is that these are real people with real lives and stories — people whom God has brought into our lives for a purpose, so when you read Maciek, think of Mack whom you see every Tuesday and Thursday in the gym, and when you see Grzegorz, think of Greg who coaches your kids’ soccer team, and James who is on your floor in your dorm, and Przemysław… well just think of Dan or Josh who is always at the register of Panera Bread Company, no matter when you go in… people that for some reason God has brought into your life and you have began to build a relationship with them.

I want to introduce you to some very extraordinary people with ordinary Polish names whom God has brought into our lives. If it helps, most Polish names are apostles or saints — Piotr is Peter, Marek is Mark, Łukasz is Luke, and Tadeusz is Thaddeus, Mateusz is Matthew, and then there is Przemysław and Zbiszak… Just imagine Ian or Fred.

We asked God to bring thirsty people into our lives with whom we could share Christ and He has done this indeed! Though we miss family and friends, these and many other Polish friends have helped us feel at home and well cared-for in a new culture, when the simplest of tasks is exceedingly complicated by the language barrier.

Not only has God brought these people into our lives, but we are building trust and relationships with them, and they have become very dear to us, and people that we pray will come to know Christ personally. [Their names have been changed, but they are very real people who may even read this blog, and we do not want to violate their trust].

Meet Bartek. Bartek is one of the greatest representatives of Poland you could meet. Like 90% of all the people we know here, I met him out on the street when I was in the center of Szczecin, asking for directions and making a mess of the Polish language. In English, he offered to help me find where I was going. We talked for several minutes, and I thanked him and we exchanged mobile numbers. [It may seem a little strange to Americans, but in Poland and much of Europe, SMS is very popular and safe.]

He is a senior in Banking and Finance at the University of Szczecin, and very polite and so helpful. Every traveler abroad who has been lost needs an angel in the form of a Bartek. Since that time, we have met for lunch and dinner and he and his girlfriend have been in our home for dinner. A month later when we were looking for a car, he drove me all around Szczecin, to eight to ten different car lots and we finally found a good one– which we bought.

Bartek is one of those people who cares enough about you to correct your bad grammar and mixed up case endings, but makes you feel at home in Poland at the same time. We play billiards, and our skill levels are close enough to make it interesting, which means that we have to go back and play again. Like so many Polish students, he and his girlfriend went to England to work for the summer, and just this week, we got a post card from him in the mail.

He and his girlfriend are both the only children in their families, and both of their parents are divorced, and thus excommunicated from the church, denied communion, and the church teaches that it holds the very presence of God in the rite of communion, so they are lonely.

In so many ways he represents tens of thousands of Polish people– kind, polite, intelligent, hospitable, and fun to hang out with, and culturally Catholic, because they are Polish, but do not have a personal relationship with Christ, or understand forgiveness by Christ alone.

Another friend is Darek. Yep, you guessed it… I met him out in town, at the market, when I was buying meat. [Often you can point to what you want, but sometimes the person will ask you a question, and not knowing the main verb in the sentence can fragment your entire hard drive.] You want ground beef for spaghetti or lasagna, but you only know the word for “Cut” and you don’t have the ingredients for stew.

This time God sent along Darek, who not only spoke English quite well, but just happened to have spent the entire summer working in Food Lion in South Carolina, and just take a wild guess which department he worked in…? [God definitely has a sense of humor.] He pulled out his wallet and showed me the check stub from Food Lion. We talked a bit and then exchanged cell #s and we have been in contact. Darek is another great representative of Poland who is helpful and fun to hang out with– he went with me to the doctor and translated when I had a herniated disc in my neck and then drove me to the special store in the center to buy a neck brace, so I could stand out even more than I do already. The humiliation was much worse than the herniated disc pain. [Now I can totally relate to the dogs that have to wear that ginormous megaphone, funnelthing around their neck after surgery.] Since that time I found out that he lives just a few streets over from us, providentially close to a Pizzeria, and just between his flat and ours is a cafe with billiard tables. Imagine that.

Darek knows that I am a missionary/future pastor and I decided to just put all my cards on the table. I told him that I want to get to know him as a person, and that I want to show him Christ in my life, but that I will not push my beliefs down his throat. He seemed to really appreciate the honesty, and said that he has a friend who is Jehovah’s Witness, and he commented on how well he know his Bible. I asked him if he would be willing to dialog with me on spiritual things and if he would share his spiritual journey with me, and he said he would.

Pray for Darek from the meat market, and Bartek the banking student, and Julia, our neighbor with a small boy whom Clay dearly loves. God knows their real names. Pray that God will stir their hearts and that we will gain trust and have opportunities to share Christ boldly and clearly, in this time of plowing and learning the language and culture.

There are so many things we love about Szczecin, but one of these is the amazing architecture, much of which is original from before the war. Szczecin was formerly Stettin, Germany, before the war, and was given to Poland as reparations. The city plan of Szczecin was modeled after Paris, and is known as a “Green City” because of the many wonderful parks here, and is called the Paris of Poland.

There are eight or more institutes here, including a Naval Academy, a medical university, a polytechnical institute, business college, dental university, seminary, agriculture institute and the University of Szczecin.

Across from our apartment is an elementary school that was used by Hitler during the war as a special training center for future Nazi officers. In this very school, we have had two teachers who want to have their English students correspond with kids from one of our supporting churches in East Tennessee. All the kids from two separate English classes filled out post cards in English, to kids who participated in the Sonday Camp in Maryville, Tennessee.

The teachers requested that we interact with their students and tell them about American holidays, and one has invited us to come to her home for dinner.

When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers in Egypt, he told them “What you meant for evil, God intended for Good, to save many lives.”

One example of this is a boy who now goes to our church, who formerly attended this same school, and accepted Christ when some missionaries played Baseball there and had a Christian concert for the kids and shared the gospel.

During September, Loren’s parents and Aunt came to visit for vacation. We enjoyed showing them our city and being tourists as we visited Berlin and four cities in Poland– Szczecin, Bydgoszcz, Krakow and Łódż, where we will be living and working. [Pronounced Wooj]

There was a huge Polish festival in Łódż for the 100th anniversary of a dairy in Łowicz, a city about 50 miles from Lodz. [See the banner on the stage behind the children.] There were all kinds of ornate hand-made work, and children sang folk music and performed dances in traditional costumes from the region. It is the Polish equivalent of Mayfield Dairy, in East Tennessee, but even larger. It was a fantastic cultural experience for us.

Watch the video we showed about our work in Mexico this year. This is the video we showed at our August 12th service.

The Missions Department Staff is learning how to add entries to this website. Soon, you will be able to keep in touch with all the recent and upcoming events from this blogsite! We are learning how to add pictures and videos from recent missions trips, and even add sign-up sheets for upcoming events and trips! Finally, you will even be able to “subscribe” to this website so you will receive an email every time we add to the site! Thanks for you patience over the next few weeks as we add a number of these “test” blogs!

John Winters, Pastor of Missions and Outreach

PS - if you are a “webmaster” and would like to volunteer any of your time to help us continue to develop our missions website, give us a call at 470.2820 x 118.

One of the biggest ways the enemy prevents or hinders the spread of the Gospel is through misconceptions about missions.

When we believe these common myths, the church becomes ineffective in its calling. We are products of our culture, but we as believers have a responsibility to discern when some things are unBiblical, and then make the conscious choice to exchange our cultural lens for a Biblical one. Our actions are the natural outflowing of our core beliefs. The way we do missions is the litmus test of the way we view missions. Continue Reading »

• What if I can’t commit to regular monthly giving, can I give a special gift?
  • Absolutely. You can give a special gift, or give as you can. Some people prefer to write one check annually, or quarterly and the mission board can break it up monthly. Continue Reading »

Whether you are a parent of teens who are thinking about going on a short term missions trip, or you have been on ten trips to four continents, and want to further explore God’s heart for the nations, here are some practical steps to gain a larger world view and understand your place in God’s plans. Continue Reading »

To try, to imagine, to speak with Polish, in all infinitive verb tense, and all for wrong preposition because a preposition - on example-”on the Post office” is of course “at the post office” by English and we to translate what we to think in English into Polish, and then also be sure to mix up use an wrong pronoun, like “him”, when you really to mean to say “me”, or “her”, and then, of course, we to look at me strangely, because it do not to have sense. Continue Reading »