Poland 08 Videos September 20, 2008
Posted by jonesy24 in Christianity, Internship, Mission, Poland, Re:Hope, What's happening with me....add a comment
Here’s some videos of the Poland Missions trip I went on…
Poland 08 – thoughts July 2, 2008
Posted by jonesy24 in Christianity, Church, God, Mission, Poland, What's happening with me....1 comment so far
I got back from Poland on Monday, and to be honest, I didn’t want to leave.
Not only did I make a bunch of new friends, and meet a whole load of people – but I saw a difference in kid’s lives from the year before, I saw God moving, I watched Satan attempt to interfere in what we were doing, and I saw a nation in desperate need of a Saviour.
‘Impact Poland’ is an English Youth camp, where over the course of a week, they get to practice and learn more English – with classes such as music, English conversation, sports, arts and crafts, and film making. The whole week has a Christian message behind it, and through the relationships we had with the young people, it was our aim to show them God’s love.
Pre-Poland… I wasn’t interesting in being there. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling particularly enthusiastic about teaching music and singing to a bunch of Polish Kids (70). Boy… did that change.
Poland is pretty much a Roman Catholic nation through and through. That became apparent when I visited the 7th Largest ‘church’ in Europe – a Cathedral that was built by instruction of ‘Mary’, for Mary. Anything sound ‘wrong’ with that?
—————————– rant begins——————————————
What enraged me was the fact that Mary was the centre of everything. Now where, in the bible does it say ‘Worship Mary!’ or ‘Pray to/through Mary’. Nowhere! This place had Mary above Jesus, and God. This place had Mary, with a smaller, less glorious image of Jesus and/or God off to one side, or in a corner some where. This place had Scripture such as “I AM WHO I AM” beside Mary, as if she was the Great ‘I AM’. This place had “Come to me all who are thirsty” beside Mary, as if she was the one who said it, as if she was the one to be worshipped, as if she was… God.
There’s nothing I hate more than Idol worship and stuff that God makes clear in the bible that he doesn’t like. (and that’s putting it lightly).
People where kneeling before paintings and statues. People where worshipping something/someone who WAS NOT God.
These people clearly had religion, and they clearly had no living relationship with God.
I just don’t understand how a ‘faith’ that basis it’s religion on the bible, could go so completely off the track. This isn’t some misinterpretation we’re talking about here… this is complete off-the-rail, wrong direction, God abhors stuff.
—————————– rant over——————————————
Anyway…
It was amazing to see young people who the previous year had no relationship with God, actually participating in our ‘Missions team’ meetings. It was amazing to see young people from my music class last year performing Christian worship songs that I had taught them last year. It was amazing to see young people take bibles home with them. It was amazing to see young people come to ‘Church’ (non-Idol worshipping, Bible following, Jesus loving, God fearing Church). It was amazing having conversations about God. It was freaking awesome to have the young people on the missions team declare that they wanted to get stuck into their bible, and get to know it.
Not only did this camp allow us as a team to witness and represent God to a large group of young people, but it developed a whole bunch of young leaders who want to run the race as if to win – who want to pursue God with all they have.
I’m amazed at what God has done this year at Impact Poland. I’m excited about what He’s going to continue to do. I praise God for moving in the lives of the young people, both Polish and on the missions team. PRAISE GOD!
Poland 08 June 16, 2008
Posted by jonesy24 in Christianity, Mission, Poland, Re:Hope, What's happening with me....1 comment so far
On Friday I leave for Poland (again!). Four of us from Re:Hope are going on mission to an English camp that we were involved in last year. To be honest, I’m not overly excited.
I know once I’m there that’ll be a different story however. There’s just a bit of prayer required.
This year I’ll be doing music with the Kids. It’s pretty fun. They tend to get pretty ‘into’ it.
We’ll be having a Christian message throughout the week, and will be representing God to the kids… pray that we’re authentic representatives.
Glasgow February 5, 2008
Posted by jonesy24 in Church, Community, Glasgow, Mission, Re:Hope.2 comments
“Its report predicted that half of all families in Glasgow would be headed by a lone parent eight years from now.”
“there are 170 teenage gangs in Glasgow – the same number as in London, despite Glasgow having just a sixth of the population of the English capital.”
“The proportion of young people not in employment, education or training was about 18% – 50% more than the Scottish average and roughly twice that of Manchester.”
“The critical issues are family breakdown and drug and alcohol abuse – which are very high here, with up to 15-20,000 registered drug users.”
Poland July 7, 2007
Posted by jonesy24 in Holiday, Mission, Poland, Re:Hope, What's happening with me....1 comment so far
Well, if anyone didn’t know… I’m just back from Poland 3 or 4 days ago. I was going on a Missions trip to help run an english camp for Polish kids. It rocked.
Meet the team:
(Photo: Me, Scotty, Stephen, Beth, Peter and Leah)
We arrived in Poland a couple of days early, which gave us a bit of time to chill out, and hang out as a team before we went to the camp. We landed in Krakow, and stayed in a little Hostel place pretty near the city centre. It was fun. I had to endure the torment of what could only be described as the wrong way to cook whatever the substance was, that Leah and Beth tried to feed us. 10 points for effort though.
After a couple of days, we headed (on the train) to… somewhere which I can’t remember the name of – the place where the camp was going to be held. There we had the pleasure of meeting Arek and Donna – who work/represent O.M, and who started a small church (in a pretty much totally hardcore Catholic nation). Later on, the american team arrived. Quality bunch of people. It was a case of chilling out, getting to know each other, preparing for the camp, etc.
So. Apparently I didn’t know what was happening at the camp. I knew I had something to do with music. I thought… perhaps helping out or something. But it turned out that Scott and I were completely in charge of what was happing. The days broke down into something like this:
The kids would come round about 9ish, where we’d have a sortof ‘kickstart’ or ‘intro’ to the day. Each day had a seperate theme (for example: friendship, etc.). After ‘kickstart’ the kids would break up into ‘classes’ depending on their english ability, and rotate what classes they were at throughout the day. The classes consisted of: Music (led by Scott and myself); Art/Crafts (led by Leah and Beth); Sports (led by Peter and Stephen); Conversation class; and a movie class.
It was pretty much entirely up to Scott and myself for what we wanted to do in our class. We basically read out the song (of the day), line by line, repeat after me style, so that the kids would get the pronounce-ay-ation (and yes my spelling sucks!), then we’d find out any words that they didn’t understand or know already and get that sorted. After that, we’d teach them the basic melody of the song. If they progressed quickly, we’d then get half the class to do the harmony, while the other half done the main melody. Vice versa.
This is me teaching the class part of ‘Be lifted up’. There should be better videos soon. I dislike this one. I sing bad in it.
Over all, the camp was awesome. The kids were great and really into it. One class in particular gave me ‘a new smile’. These kids sang really good, and really loud. You could pretty much hear them from down the stairs and along a corridor. Made my day. Everyday. It was awesome to have the chance to go and minister to them, and not be held back by a language barrier (despite the fact that I had to talk really slow!).
My buddy Scott wrote this about our music class, and more specifically – me.
“I was amazed when on the second day I sat back as Mark easily taught and engaged 5 classes of young people. I saw in him elements of leadership that I had not had an opportunity to witness. I watched the young kid I met 7 or 8 years ago stand as an adult in front of a class passing his love for music and for the Lord onto a room full of eager kids. It was truly a blessing to be there serving.”
Scott actually got an e-mail from one of the older guys who attended the camp. One line in particular stood out:
“I have never met people like you and rest of team”
We made a difference. At the end of the camp, kids were coming up to us with tears streaming down their eyes. They saw something different in us. Some took a ‘free bible’ and had the team write individual messages on the inside of the covers. Some of them came to church after the camp was over.
After the camp, we left to go back to Krakow. We spent a few days staying in another Hostel with our new American friends. We also visited the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz… although that deserves a seperate blog.
I enjoy working with Kids. I love representing God in a different country. I love mission work. And I love seeing the difference or the effect we can have on other people’s lives, just by showing a little bit of Love, or a little bit of God to them.
