MY First Thanksgiving

In all of my years, I never imagined that the first Thanksgiving that I would host would be in another country. I always supposed that I would be married, living in my first house with at least one kid because it would take at least that much for me to not go home to my parents or go with Nick to his family. However, I am not married, no kids, and I hosted MY first Thanksgiving this week. In Poland. Weird.

Sarah and I had the three other American missionaries over to celebrate on Thursday. Though some of us still had to work at various points during day (Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Poland, after all), we made it work. Terri, Ashley and Natalie arrived around 10am with lots of TESCO bags in hand. They bought the food and brought it all over to cook. Sarah and I went to school, and the other three stayed here and started all of the food. So even though we were all all over the place, we made it work and ended up having a wonderful meal together! We had: chicken (they couldn't find turkey, but it was cooked like a turkey), mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls, stuffing!, fruit salad, and TWO types of pie. It was so nice to celebrate the day with others who understand what it is like to be away from your family. So though I missed my family and friends SO much this week, I had a truly blessed Thanksgiving.

Also, last weekend we traveled to Bratislava to celebrate Thanksgiving with the other ELCA teacher missionaries in Slovakia. It was beyond wonderful to share time with everyone to meet some new faces. Even though we don't know each other that well, it still feels like family. Sarah and I took Kamila, a friend who we meet with to teach us Polish, to share Thanksgiving with her. She was overwhelmed by having to use English all day, but she really enjoyed it and she fit in great with the group. Everyone really loved her, as they should because she is fabulous.

My first major holiday away from home went well. I've learned that I am happy here and I do love my life. I miss my people and I want to be with them, but I'm developing relationships with people here too. I would have loved to BE home to celebrate with my family this week, but I am not ready to COME home. There's still more to do and experience here, which is good because I still have 10 more months. :)

Blessings
Colleen

Miss Hetrick's Quote Book: Chapter 2: The Thanksgiving Edition

This week in class, Sarah and I are having our students make Turkey Hands. I know that this is below their ability level, but we believe that it is an important American craft. Plus, they work hard most of the time, so they deserve to color and be a kid for fifteen minutes. We tell them we don't care what the turkeys look like as long as they had the sentence, "I am thankful for. . . ," on it. Needless to say we have some pretty ridiculous looking turkeys with polka dots, stripes, tie-dye, and every other imaginable pattern. There was one with a Santa for the thumb and Polish flag on the pinkie. Whatever, he was expressing himself. I want to share with you some of the direct quotes from their turkeys.

-I'm thankful for family, friends, beautiful world!
-I am thankful for little children who make a world much happier.
-I am thankful that I'm Polish.
-I am thankful for my family, my house, my animals, and everythink. (I mean everythink.)
-I am thankful for the life God gives us.
-I'm thankful for Kamila. (by Karolina)
-I'm thankful for Karolina. (by Kamila)
-i am thankful for all the blessings I have been given.

That's all for now, but I may add more as the week goes on!

Blessings,
Colleen

The Hardest Part About Growing Up. . . .

In some of my classes last week we were working on expressing opinions. Instead of talking about the usual topics: the environment, school uniforms, or technology, I tried to be a little creative and ask students about what their futures might be like. They were to tell me what they think the hardest part about being an adult will be. Some answers were pretty basic, some examples include paying the bills, having to make money, going to a job every day, and being responsible. Two students really impressed me with their answers.

Miss Hetrick: Maciej, what do you think will be the hardest thing about being an adult?
Maciej: Jail.
Miss Hetrick: Are you going to jail?
Maceij: Yes, probably.
Miss Hetrick: Why?
Maceij: I don't know, but it will happen.

The second student that really impressed me was speaking for a group of girls. Klaudia said, "Falling in love is the hardest thing about growing up. It will be such a distraction from our studies and will give us less time to be with our friends. Our heads will be in the clouds. And if we break up, it might take a long time to get over it. Love is very complicated."

When I thought about this question for myself, I came up with two responses. One is rather silly, but the other is quite serious. My first response is feeding myself. Staying on top of my grocery shopping and figuring out what to eat every day is difficult for me. I am struggling with finding recipes that I can try with ingredients that I actually can buy. I am surviving; I am just getting sick of the food that I know how to cook. My second response is figuring out where to live. This is not so much a problem for me in the immediate future, more so later in life, post-seminary. Our country is HUGE, and I don't know where I want to be. But coordinating a place where I will have a job and where boyfriend Nick (or whatever title he takes on the following years) seems to be a daunting task. I'm sure it will all fall into place in time, it just seems scary right now.

I also wanted to say here that I have officially figured out my plans for next year. I will start studying for my M.Div. at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia next fall. I am very excited to go there and to once again be the student.

Blessings,
Colleen

Substitute Karma

So my last blog post was about how I was sick and the various adventures associated with that, one of those was that I took two days off of school. Though I do not regret taking this time off, today was a karma filled day and any remorse I felt about inconveniencing people is long gone.

Tuesdays are normally very long days for me; I teach five classes throughout the day between 8am and 3pm. Long days, but manageable. Today I was assigned three substitution classes, bringing my grand total of classes to eight AKA every period of the day.

Needless to say I am very tired. However, it was a good day. The students were very agreeable for the most part, and lunch was really good too. Good day, but a long day.

I am looking forward to this weekend. We're traveling to Bratislava to celebrate Thanksgiving with the other American teachers. It will be great to see everyone and to have some time together!

Blessings,
Colleen

Sick Days in Poland

Well, it seems to be the time of the year to get sick. At least I think that is what everyone thinks, apparently including my own body. This is my story about my first sick days in Poland.

I started feeling bad on last Saturday night, so I decided to go to bed early. I woke up the next morning with a sore throat and feeling sort of bad. I lounged around most of the day, and just braved English Worship. I woke up feeling even worse on Monday morning, but because Sarah was out of town, I decided I needed to brave school, even though I didn't have much of a voice. Teaching my classes (and those of Sarah's that I was covering for) was fine, but I did end up canceling my community conversation classes. I was back in my bed by 3pm.

Waking up on Tuesday was nearly impossible, and I realized that I was not going to be able to teach. All I wanted was my bed. I nervously called our assistant director (because our director is sick too!), Ola, and asked her if it was okay if I stayed home. She said of course and told me to rest and just work on feeling better. This conversation was at 7am.

At 8:15am, I heard my doorbell, and it was Ola come to check on me. She was nervous for me because Sarah was out of town visiting her sister and she wanted to check to see what she could do for me. The first thing she asked was why I didn't have socks on! This apparently is a major taboo! Needless to say I have had socks on my feet constantly for the past 48 hours, except for when I have been in the shower. She also brought me juice that her mother makes to put in tea to help with my fever, and then she went to the store to buy me medicine. It was so very kind and really helped me to feel well taken care of.

Wednesday was Poland's Independence Day, so everything in Poland was closed. My school, the stores, and my nose. It rained ALL day, so I felt that I missed nothing by staying in bed. One of my missionary friends, Terri, was kind enough to hop over the Czech Republic to pick me up some chicken and kept me company. I also decided to stay home today too. I am only to teach one class on Thursdays anyhow, so I decided it would be better to have one more day in bed.

This was a good decision because I woke up feeling crappy again. I decided it was finally time to give in and go to the doctor. I called one of the English teachers and spoke with her about it. She told me she would call her friend who is a doctor and then get back to me by the evening. Within an hour and a half, she called back and told me a student was coming to take me to a doctor in ten minutes. I quickly got my life together and then met the student downstairs. His father is a doctor with an office less than two blocks from my flat. Perfect! We walked right in, and I met with his father in his office. He spoke enough English for us to make do. He wrote me a script for three different medicines, and then sent me on my way. Filling the script was quick and easy, and truth be told the medicines really helped me to feel better.

On Friday I headed back to school, which thoroughly confused EVERYONE, students and the administration alike. Only 3 students out of 12 showed up to my first class, and it took a lot of convincing to assure the assistant director that I was healthy enough to be back in the classroom. Apparently, Poles take the whole week off when they are sick. After the chaos that was Friday, I will take the whole week off next time I am sick! But the good news is that I am feeling better now. The weekend was restful and has gotten me ready to go back to work. So back at it tomorrow!

Blessings,
Colleen

Going for the Gold!

This post will have little to do with my mission work here in Cieszyn and will focus more on one of my life dreams: The Olympics.

I have loved the Olympics for as long as I can remember. I love watching all of the countries compete in the various sports, displaying physical talent that I can but dream of. Over the past few years a new sport has come to my attention, and I have fallen in love. My students brought this sport up in class on Friday, so it has been on my mind a lot since then. This sport, of course, is curling!

This sport fascinates me. I love to watch it and would love to play someday. But more specifically, I want my children to play someday. I want to be an Olympic mom! However, I am not interested in having a child who is unable to do anything other than this one sport. Since there relatively fewer curlers in the country, his/her chances are exponentially larger than if he/she were to go out for any other sport. How many swimmers are there in America? 286,084 registered competitors, almost 1% of the population. How many curlers are there in America? Only 13,000 registered with the USA Curling Association. Just less than .04% of the population. In other words, there are 22 swimmers for very curler. Do I make myself clear?

So I just needed to get my feelings about this out there. Someday I will watch my child win a gold medal in curling. Love it!

Peace,
Colleen

Fire Safety in Poland

I love fire.

This is a love that I developed over my three summers working at Lutherlyn. I love creating fires out of chunks of trees that are probably too big for the fire pit with my closest friends (Merry and Jon are two of my favorite companions for this). I love bending down and blowing on the fire to get it burning and getting my hands and knees covered in ash doing this. I love making fire out of wet wood and knocking down tee-pees when they won't light. (Please note: I do make crappy tee-pee fires that don't light. This is me helping someone else.) And if the flames aren't at least four feet high, I am not interested and unimpressed. Fire is my friend. I love to create, nourish, and eventually destroy fire. I would like to share three incidents related to fire and its friends that have happened over the past two weeks.

Lighters: I am usually not an impulse buyer. In fact, I am so indecisive that shopping is often a struggle for me in America. This is alleviated somewhat in Poland because I cannot read labels, so I just buy whatever I need without worrying about the brand. Last week, while buying a chocolate bar at the corner store I saw a PANDA LIGHTER and fell in love and bought it instantaneously. A PANDA LIGHTER!!! Two of my all time favorite things in one: PANDA AND FIRE. I love my life.

Smoked Chicken: One of my goals for the year is to try a new recipe at least every two weeks. I had never had to feed myself before this year, so this task is somewhat daunting. So in order to develop my skills, broaden my scope, and have fun I have become a member on the Food Network website and I experiment. This week's recipe: Chicken Breasts in Foil. (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chicken-breasts-in-foil-with-tomatoes-olives-and-parmesan-recipe/index.html) I was so excited! Everything was going swimmingly until the pan started to smoke. . .a lot. I opened the window and the door to try to air it out. No help. My poor asthmatic roommate was forced out by the smoke so she didn't have an attack. And the pan continued to smoke. . .a lot. The entire apartment was smoky for a solid hour and a half, and my roommate avoided it for the rest of the night.

All Saint's Fire Fighter: All Saint's Day is a very big deal in Poland. Poles travel as far as they need to in order to visit the graves of their family members leaving candles and flowers behind. On Sunday evening I decided to go to the graveyard to check it out. I leave my apartment at 5:30pm, and it is already dark outside-middle of the night dark. I am unsure if the graveyard will still be open or what else so expect. When the graveyard first comes into sight, I stop dead in my tracks and gasp. The sight of all the little candles lighting up the hillside is breathtaking. The graveyard was radiating love. I spent the next half an hour walking around the graveyard in silence. There were still many families still coming and going. I saw them hug, pray, and light their candles. It was so peaceful, and I was really enjoying the experience. Until I saw the candle that had caught its holder on fire.

This luminary was burning! And in my mind if I did nothing about this then the entire graveyard was going to burn down. My first plan was to just stand and watch it burn itself out. This was going well until it caught the luminary next to in on fire. I knew I had to do something more active at this point. I didn't know who to go to tell about this AND I do not have enough Polish to say, "Excuse me. Will you come with me to extinguish this burning luminary?" I rooted around in the dark and found a stick, and then proceeded to nudge the burning luminary off the top of grave and into the space in between the grave and its neighbor. The next few minutes were spent stirring it around, stepping on it, and eventually blowing it out like a big birthday candle. I would also like to add that several people walked past me while I was doing this and no one offered help or stopped me.

I felt awful! I was sure that I had committed a sin of some kind and that my behavior was completely inappropriate for All Saint's Day. I did not go to the graveyard thinking that I would need to be fire fighter! Now that I am a few days removed from the event, I have made peace with my actions. I decided that if there was a fire on top of one of my family member's graves that I would want someone to put it out. Wouldn't you?

Hopefully the coming days will be fire free!

Blessings,
Colleen

What's your word?

Last week I started to read Elizabeth's Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. This is a book that I have been meaning to read for years. I have always heard good things about it, but for whatever reason I never got around to it. However, now is the time for this book in my life. It is the story of Elizabeth's spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical recovery from a painful divorce and, well, life, and an account of her year abroad spent in Italy (eat), India (pray), and Indonesia (love). While in Italy she meets with a young man to practice her Italian. This is how she explains on of their conversations about the word of a city.

"Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be- that is the word of the city. And if you personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there."

They go on to discuss the words of various cities. Rome=SEX. The Vatican=POWER. New York=ACHIEVE. Los Angeles=SUCCEED. Stockholm=CONFORM. Naples=FIGHT. Then he asks, "What's your word?" This is a very difficult question for her to answer, and in fact, she hasn't yet answered it at all in the book. (I'm with her in India now). I was immediately struck with this question as well and spent the next few days pondering this question for myself. I knew what the words of my past were. Senior year of college=SAVOUR (class, friends opportunities). Summer 2009=PREPARE. But my word now, here, in Poland, did not come so quickly.

At first I could not even decide what part of speech my word would be. Is it a noun (state of being), verb (action or movement), or adjective (description of my state)? I settled on a verb; this is a year of action. I then went through several different verbs. GO. TRY. WORK. MEET. MEET was close. I'm meeting God in a new way, new people, a new culture. Yet, meeting was still too simple. Then I realized my word.

FIND.

My word is FIND.

Things that are found already exist. When explorers were charting the world, they were not creating land or island. Instead they were simply recording what already what out there. Likewise, I am not creating. I am not the mastermind behind life's journey or even this simple year abroad. I am merely uncovering and discovering what God has placed in His creation and within me, as I am a part of God's creation.

Just as I am not the creator, I am not bringing God to Poland; I am finding Him in a place that is new to me. He has always been here and has always been at work in the Poles. As a missionary I serve to witness what is happening in a place far from my home and to tell the story to the church at home.

In addition to finding God, I also am finding things about the culture I am living in, as well as things in my person. I am learning a new and challenging language and finding out how another group of people communicate and express themselves. I am finding love for this language, and for food, people, students, and new friends. Within myself I am finding characteristics that I did not know I had or to what degree I had them. Strength, confidence, and and above all patience.

FIND.

My word is FIND.

What is your word?