FBC Missions

During the last few days the teens (from Chicago & the missionary families) had begun to play basketball and soccer in the evening with the local teens.  When the locals found that our teens weren’t able to come play until after dinner because they were working on the church building, two of the boys asked if they could come help.  Those two boys worked hard and came to our farewell celebration.  Please pray that they come again to the church!

 Brandon (center) and the two Polish boys

We said our farewells to the New Hope Fellowship church members on Friday evening and left for the airport by 5:30am.  We and the Burnells flew together as far as Denver.  On our trans-atlantic flight we were informed that all our luggage had not left Wroclaw with us due to the plane being overloaded.  This allowed us to move quickly through customs (no waiting for the baggage).  After 28 hours of travel we arrived safely at the Eugene airport at 11pm. Now all we have left of our trip is for our luggage to catch up with us so we can unpack… and to tell all of you about what we have each learned, seen, and done. 

Thank you for praying for us!

Anna, on behalf of the Poland 2007 team

We have been blessed by the people of New Hope Fellowship and others in the community. They have come and worked with us on the building around their job schedules, given us a tour of their city, prepared a fabulous Polish meal for us, and welcomed us to participate in the Sunday morning service.

Each day one or two of the church members have come and worked along side us. It is great to hear their “dziekuje” (thank you) throughout the day!

On Thursday afternoon two of the young people from the church took us on a walking tour around the historic parts of the city. As we dodged raindrops around the town, we took opportunities to see a little of the insides of the buildings during the showers…

Saturday, a couple who are not part of the fellowship here (but have contact with some of the missionaries in the area) came to prepare a full Polish meal for us. They spent hours in the kitchen preparing a fabulous meal!

Sunday morning, our second one here, members of our team from Chicago participated with the worship team and Tom (the pastor from Chicago) preached the sermon. This was also the end of the Sunday School year for the church here so the children presented a skit and the Burnell’s two boys each played a special piano piece.

It seems amazing to think that our time here is over half gone. I wish we had more time to get to know these precious people and share in their ministry by assisting with the work on their building.

Anna, on behalf of the Poland 2007 team

We have now been here for five days. The last three have been very full days for each of us. We are spread across all of the floors in the building working along side team members from Chicago and the teenage children of the local missionaries. We are each on different tasks; Vern & Mike are up on the top floor installing plumbing for the floor (they have had to run it through brick walls), Randy is also on that floor (or up in the rafters) working on strengthening the air duct connections, Dianna is in the kitchen on the 2nd floor and hauling laundry from the washing machine on the 3rd floor outside to line dry. Ron, with a teenage helper, is assembling kitchen
cabinets from kits with instructions he can’t read,

Pat is down in the basement removing a brickwall he would not let defeat him,

and I had been moved from project to project in the attic until today. I started painting temporarily this morning when the group I was working with ran low on supplies (supposedly until they arrived), I think the project coordinators decided to leave me because I am pretty comfortable with a paint brush in my hand.

Tomorrow we will have a day off to tour around the local area and shop.

Anna, on the behalf of the Poland 2007 Team

Our team has all arrived safely at New Hope Fellowship. The six of us traveling from Oregon met up in the Munich airport with the Chicago team for the last flight. Upon arrival we met the EuroTeam coordinators for our project (Matt & Esther Bullock, and Bob & Elana Gonzalas) and the local missionary family (Bret & Michelle Hamilton). They took us back to the church and then showed us some of the town in an attempt to speed up our recovery from jet lag. The seventh member of our team (Dianna) arrived from her travels while we were out - everyone has now safely arrived. This morning we worshiped with the church here. They translated the service for us and the songs were all familiar praise choruses which we sang in both Polish & English (I was even able to borrow a flute and join the music team!).

Tomorrow morning we will begin our work… We anticipate the supplies arriving during the morning while we are being oriented about what to expect during this project. I took a couple of before pictures and will post one with a couple showing the progress later on in the project.

Thank you for your prayers!

Anna Fanger, on behalf of the Poland 2007 Team.

Suitcases are out and filling up fast! Most of our small team is just about to depart - and one member, Dianna, has already arrived in Poland!  We will be serving along side a team from Chicago working on construction projects.  We have received a prioritized list of projects - the top of the list is insulating, framing for walls, etc. on the top floor of the New Hope Fellowship building.

Prayer Requests for our team:

• Travel safety - we leave Eugene early Friday morning, June 15th and will arrive shortly after noon on Saturday, Wroclaw time.
• Work safety - while doing the construction work at New Hope.
• Spiritual growth & team unity - while we are working and living in close quarters with another team in the building we are all working on.
• Team members: Randy Becker, Luverne Ritter, Mike Manley, Patrick Quinn, Ron Nelson, Anna Fanger, Dianna Leach

Thank you for joining with us as we take God’s love and serve our brothers and sisters in Wroclow, Poland.

Anna Fanger, on behalf of the Poland 2007 team