Polska Perspektywa

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Czesc!

As somebody has already mentioned, I was supposed to post my thoughts on this fine blog to give you a glimpse of how the Polish team sees things and how important the presence of the American team is to us.

The last few days have been pretty tough for everybody here. A couple of us have felt sick after our excursion to the swimming pool and at some point I personally felt like running out of gas, as the weather stayed merciless and kids kept being restless. Still, one of the first things I got once I realised my sickness meant missing some of the activities, was a deep feeling of disappointment and eagerness to leave the bed. It made me realise that every minute with these wonderful kids and leaders is dear to my heart.

In the face of the indisposition of some of us, the Americans were ready to jump right in and help us in spite of the fact that they still had to prepare their own classes. By the way, I suspect Pam, Diane and Judy of being cyborgs, since they used to be still up everytime I was going to bed in the middle of the night. The amount of heart everybody puts to this camp is remarkable, which brings us to the very crucial question that Pam and me kept asking ourselves as veterans at the camp (it's my eleventh time already!).

What keeps us coming back each year? God, people and the unique atmosphere were the answers we both agreed upon. As a young kid, I always appreciated that one factor that made the camps organised by Peter stand out among hundreds of camps organised in Poland, namely the feeling of being important and genuinely cared for. Today Peter gave us all a beautiful example of dedication and sincerity. Being locked inside a building (the rain is relentless!) serves as a great opportunity to observe the kids both in they relations to us and to each other. It was only today that some of us realised, independently of each other, how important the kids were to us and how much concerned we were about what influenced their minds and spirits, as we discovered many of them listened to foul music and behaved in a very improper way when they thought we weren't keeping tabs on them. In reponse to that, Peter preached to them during our daily worship, but instead of accusing them of doing wrong, he stressed the importance of the fates of each and one of them to us (it would be to hard for me to repeat all of his words, especially since I believe they were truly inspired by the worship songs we had sang). Anyway, what is of utmost importance is the way his speech affected the kids. Some of them seemed moved, some seemed to be happy that they are actually being cared for, and I can only guess that some of them felt remorseful, but not guilty. I think this is the thing that made me stick to these camsp as a kid and then decide to come back here and strive to become a true leader for t kids - each time you care for somebody and voluntarily do something for them, there's a huge chance that they will do the same for somebody else. I believe that people who have been leading these camps throughout the years (both from Poland and the US), have showed me some of the best examples of how to live my life "for the joy of the Lord". May it stay that way.

All in all, the whole Polish team wants to thank our American friends for all prayers and material support. It's priceless. Keep praying for the weather to get better, because we would all love to use the two remaining days to the maximum!

Dziekujemy, and may God bless you all.