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Oxford City

Bicycles Everywhere!

The first day we took the double decker bus out to Oxford City on a prophetic mission. To see C.S. Lewis’s house. We were not disappointed. We also got to eat at the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien etc. ate and talked about everything under the sun.

C.S. Lewis's House

Eagle and Child Pub

Some children on Lewis Close

I thought it was cool that I saw these little boys walkin’ down the street on Lewis Close because all day I had been looking for a bookstore to buy C.S. Lewis’s Book ~ Letters to Children.

The next day we blazed through London on high speed tourist mode.

Outside Buckingham Palace watching the Changing of the Guard

The Parliament Building ~ I think

Big Ben

The London Eye

We also went to Ascot to visit some of Anthony’s relatives and then it was time to say goodbye the next morning. So after counting our currency from 4 countries:

Money from 4 different countries

we cried and said goodbye to each other Just kidding, there was no crying but it felt like there should have been.  Jordan and Anthony flew back to KC and Calgary and I flew back to Warsaw, Poland. The next day I flew to Frankfurt and spent the night in Marburg with some amazing folk (friends of Allison and Samuel Moseley) and who’s children I had met at IHOP but didn’t know it until I “met” them the next morning. They showed me around their town where the story of Hansel and Gretel was written.

Marburg

Me in front of Allison Moseley's favorite Germany door

Window in the Castle in Marburg

When we drove into Marburg the night before, it was dark and the castle which sits on the edge of a high hill was all lit up. It was breathtaking! Really. My camera unfortunately, wasn’t quick enough to capture it. But it is etched in my memory. The next day we hiked up the hill into the castle. It was beautiful but the first glance in the night was by far the best!

From there, I took the train to Karlsruhe to meet up with this beauty who quickly won my heart. Not that it took much. I already liked her just from the pictures I had seen when she was first born…

Olina

Betcha can’t guess who she belongs to?

This proud papa…

Thierry and Olina

She has a proud mama too but unfortunately all the pictures of the 3 of them I took are on their camera. And they have not e-mailed them to me…yet.

We took a trolley to the Black Forest.

The Black Forest

And we had lunch in a community garden in Karlsruhe.

The Community Gardens

The next day I took yes, another train, to another amazing family in the Bavarian Forest. But you will have to wait til later for that adventure.

We will begin in Old Montreal.

Old Montreal

Restaurant in Old Montreal

Latin Quarter In Old Montreal

Next we will head to Poland…

In Gliwice, where Jordan grew up

At Auschwitz

Jordan had this striped sweater on and it reminded me of the movie about Auschwitz, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It made the pictures he was in so eerie that day.

A Jewish man visiting Birkenau

Birkenau

It is hard to share what I saw and felt on this day.  I just don’t know if I have the words to express it at all, let alone the right ones. I think the pictures say more perhaps anyway. So I will let them speak for themselves.

This tiny plant was growing out of the ashes at the Birkenau crematorium.

The next day, we went to Krakow. It is a BEAUTIFUL city.

Wawel Castle in Krakow

Nuns outside Wawel Castle. There is also a Cathedral attached to it.

Krakow was Pope John Paul II’s home before he became the Pope.  I would love to go to Krakow again. Wish we would’ve had more time there. Next time.

I will share more tomorrow but here’s a taste of Europe for you tonight.

Love, Pam

Boys team…

Girls team…

Polish children playing a game at camp!

This is the main lodge at the Camp.  It is called Wiatraki – I think it means Windmill but I am not sure.

We are having a great time. The Lord gave us breakthrough last night with the children! It is hard to gain trust and shift paradigms with a huge language barrier but we are breaking down the barriers!!!  The children are really tenderhearted.  They are sweet kids.  They were not expecting to come and have teaching everyday so we were fighting against FOOTBALL (soccer!) and wanting to play outside as well. But last night as they sang to the Lord the atmosphere shifted.  I love watching how their hearts change as they meet with the Lord. I am so thankful to the Lord that I got to come to Poland.  It’s so different and yet it feels so much like home. Even though they are speaking Polish all around us, I strangely feel at home.  Which is awesome.  I suppose it helps that even though they sing in Polish, it is a Misty Edwards song!!!! Ha ha!

I’ll try to post some more pictures of my adventures soon!

Well, here’s a link to my May Newsletter.

Love you all,

Pam

May 2010 Update

If you want to read the newsletter, you can click the link below…still trying to figure out how to get the little icon   #bloggingfordummies

Jan 2010 Newsletter

So much to say so little time.  Three of our key people have been in New Zealand for 2 weeks so I’ve been helping hold down the fort…

As for the 4 month blog hiatus, well, IHOP is just a crazy busy place and blogs are not always high on the priority list but I will try to do better.  I was working on an update/support letter but I wonder if it’s better to just blog regularly and direct people here.  If you have an opinion, leave me a comment…then I’ll know if you’re still even reading this thing!

Well, I’ll leave you with this:  We have been experiencing a move of the Holy Spirit here since November 11, 2009.  We have baptized 990 people, yes, almost 1000…probably by this time next week, it will be 1000.  Not all new converts but certainly a number of them are…It’s been so good for my heart and I know I am here for such a time as this.  Many people have been watching via webcast…you can too: www.ihop.org and click on the IHOP-U Student Awakening icon and  you can see for yourself. People have been watching in 183 countries around the world and many have been healed physically, emotionally and spiritually just watching it online!  How kind is our God!  It’s been a sweet time for us as a staff/family and we are looking forward to the “MORE” of the Lord…His presence is so good.  His nearness is our good!  So tune in from Wednesday – Saturday nights from 6pm-Midnight CST and you will see for yourself. Psalm 34:8!  We are tasting the goodness of the Lord.

But it’s not just for us, we’ve been challenged to take it out into the marketplace and to our friends and family.  It’s taking me out of my comfort zone  and challenging me.  Oh God, that You would fill me with boldness to speak the words of life!

Here’s a couple to keep you reading…if indeed you still are!

The MECHANICAL Gardens…

Yup, there’s a story about the Mechanical Gardens.  Bethany and I were trying to decide what to do one day and she thought of going to what is actually the Overland Park Arboretum. But what she asks me is if I want to go to the “mechanical gardens”.” The “mechanical gardens?” I say? I’m like, “where’s that?” She describes it and I figure out where she’s talking about. What she meant was the “botanical” gardens.  HAAAAA! I laughed all afternoon about that one. But we had a great time!

Here she is, one of my favorite people!  How cute is she?  It was so lovely and I love being with Bethany.  She’s just fun!

There are lots of beautiful flowers and trees at the MECHANICAL gardens   I’ll try to post some more later.

We also got to see some elk. There is a native animal enclosure at the lake. Apparently there are buffalo too but we didn’t see them. We went hiking instead.

Some more people joined us after hiking and we had some delicious grilled food and homemade chocolate cake!

Here’s everybody enjoying the picnic.  Afterwards we went to the Canoe Club and enjoyed some BLUE GRASS music.  (Laura Lee, that’s my attempt at enjoying country hehe). I actually do like Blue Grass music (Steve Bell, Ricky Skaggs). The group last night were really good musicians but even they threw in some twang

It was nice to be out enjoying nature.