This is why we came to Poland.
The man between Betty and me is the minister my church supports, Jerzy (pronounced YEH-zhuh (the "zh" is like the way we say the "s" in "Asia", and the "uh" isn't quite the right way to pronounce a Polish "y"--it's like the French "eu" but we don't officially have that sound in English, so "uh" is as close as I can get)). People have told Jerzy that his name is the equivalent to George in English, but they also told that to Grzegorz, whose name looks more like Gregory to me, and Jerzy looks more like Jerry to me, which makes me think they tell everyone they can that their name is George. But Jerzy likes the name George, so Betty and Cathy went with that one. But I digress...
Jerzy's church is 60 years old this month. It was started in Lidzbark-Warminski in 1946 by a German man who lived in Lidzbark before World War II (and whose granddaughter attended the Celebration). When the war ended, the German man began repairing the Christian church, which had been destroyed during the Nazi occupation of the town, and soon the Polish Christians pitched in. It was an example to the community that the bonds of Christian faith are stronger than the animosity caused by war.
Jerzy came to Lidbark in 1979 from the Warsaw area (Milanówek) as the associate minister, and when the senior minister passed away in 1993, Jerzy took over.
The Celebration service had presentations by us (our church gave them a big card with a Polish message inside and signed by many members of our church, and we gave them a communion set), the mayor of Lidzbark, and the mayor of Milanówek. They had a multimedia presentation of the history of the church, some Scripture reading, a message by one of the area ministers, and communion (not with our new set).
After the service, they served lunch, then had cake and coffee outside in a gigantic gazebo, with a demonstration of Brazilian martial arts that some of the church members are involved in. Here's a picture (Don't you hate it when the best action shot you get is also the one that some guy walked in front of?). Ignore the man who messed up my shot. The guy in the suit who is upside-down on one hand is a church member.
My favorite times during our visit were when we sat around a table and had good conversation.
We talked about politics and the war against the jihadists with one of the church families, who served us dinner. They're as disgusted by Western Europe's failure to recognize the threat of evil as we are, and I told them how pleased I am that Poland has been faithful to stand with us in the war. We also talked about the wife's private school, which she started two years ago. It's the first non-state school in the region, so she and her husband have charted new bureaucratic waters, but her school is doing well.
Over coffee and tea at the minister's house, with several different church members there, we talked about some of the activities they're involved in and how those things have become vehicles for bringing people to faith in Christ. And we talked a little about politics and the war and Bush Derangement Syndrome, and really had a great time.
The people we met there from the Christian Church (Poland is 96% Catholic) were thrilled that we had come. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome and to feed us more food than we could eat. The woman with the private school even remembered that, when I had stayed overnight with them in 1997, I had said gałumki was my favorite, and she served that for us for dinner.
Several months ago, when our church learned about the Lidbark church's anniversary, we asked them what gift they would like from us. They said the gift they most wanted was for some of us to come and celebrate with them. How could we give them anything less?
5 comments:
How would you describe the "politics" of those you met in Poland?
Do they have Muslim immigrants?
Was this a rural area?
Chris,
Some long answers for your short questions:
1. It's a little hard to say what their politics are, because we got some contradictions, but for the most part I'd say they lean conservative as we see it. There were billboards around the country with one man's picture, the name "Radem," and a couple unintelligible Polish words. the billboards looked political, so we asked David (our translator/tour guide and our Lidzbark minister's son) who Radem is. He said "Radem" is the name of the political party that was running in opposition to the second "Twin," and the main difference, for David anyway, was that Radem was opposed to Poland's being in the EU and the Twins were in favor of it, so David voted for Radem (whenever I said, "The Twins," to people, they smiled. I'm not sure if their amusement was because the Twins are known in America or just because I used that term.).
The politics we discussed most was the War against the jihadists, and they all seemed to approve of fighting the jihadists and not appeasing them. but when we were talking to some of the church members, they said that military service is mandatory (for men, I think) but some of the church members were able to stay out for religious reasons that sounded like genuine objections rather than a draft-dodging excuse. An aside: Because the country is almost all Catholic, the Catholic church provides all the military chaplains, and other denominations are not allowed to provide chaplains.
2. If I understood correctly, they don't have Muslim immigrants. There's a strange kind of cross-immigration between Poland and Western Europe. The educated Polish people (and Poland has an excellent university educational system, if they do say so themselves) tend to leave Poland for Western Europe in a middle class brain drain. David said that when Poland joined the EU, prices for everything went up to match EU prices, but wages didn't change, so now people have more trouble making ends meet. For professionals (eg, doctors, scientists, accountants) salaries in Western Europe are four times higher than in Poland, so people go there. When we had dinner with the couple who has the private school, our translators were their daughter, who lives in England, and their nephew, who lives in the Netherlands. Both of them were in Poland on vacation.
On the low end of the job market, people come from Western Europe, but I'm not as sure of the reasons. Maybe because so many young people are able to leave, there's a bigger need for workers, and they're able to fill the jobs with EU people and don't need Middle Easterners to fill those spots.
3.You ask tough questions. Between the towns is either woods (beautiful!) or farmland (or both). But the towns don't seem rural as much as quaint. Jerzy, our minister, grew up in Milanówek, sort of a suburb of Warsaw, and he had a good job in Warsaw when they asked him, "Come to Lidzbark. You will have nothing." (How could he refuse such a tempting offer?) So his mindset wasn't rural. Lidzbark itself is a large town, not a city, but the woman with the private school said her school is 15 km away in a "village." I'll let you decide if they're rural. I can't quite figure that one out.
Aren't you glad you asked?
Oops. I spelled the name of the political party wrong in my answer to Question 1.
It should be "Razem."
Welcome back Skye, the pictures are great.
The "Twins" party, is it one or two people who was/were elected? I'm confused.
Also, no other chaplains only Chatholic chaplains? I take it then you didn't see any
myrinets or gold domes lacing the landscape?
JT,
The Twins are Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Lech was President already when the previous Prime Minister resigned, and Jaroslaw was next in line for the job. Before the previous PM resigned, one of the twins (I can't remember which one) had said he wouldn't take (or keep) his post while the other twin was in office. But when the time actually came, Jaroslaw took the Prime Ministership and Lech kept the Presidency. So now Poland is run by twins.
No minarets, unless they looked an awful lot like eastern-style Catholic church towers...
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