shelleyinpoland

I've been reading in Judges this week and I'm struck by the similarities I see between Gideon and myself. Well, to an extent, anyways. He was just chillin' (okay, so maybe threshing wheat isn't exactly easy work) when an angel of the Lord came down to chill with him. (Okay, so that's never happened to me.) This angel told him to go with the strength he had to rescue Israel because the Lord is sending him. (Okay so it didn't happen quite like that for me, but I felt a clear call when God was sending me to Poland.) Gideon's reaction was like, "Dude, are you kidding me?! How can I do anything for you??" (So this is actually where I started seeing similarities!) The angel of the Lord told him that He would be with him. (Kind of like when I felt God asking me, "Will you trust me?") But still, Gideon was not convinced. He asked for a sign. (Yep, been there, done that.) God answered him. Gideon was amazed and he immediately acted on what the Lord told him to do. In this case, it was to destroy an altar to Baal and the Asherah pole and instead to build an altar to the Lord. (No, I didn't destroy any pagan shrines and build my own altar, but I did take the next step in faith.) However, Gideon did this by the cover of night so as not to create a problem among the Isrealites who surely wouldn't agree with him.

What happened next really inspired me. The Israelite mob came to demand that Joash bring his son Gideon out so they could kill him for destroying the altar to Baal. His dad, obviously a man of faith, (I've got one of those too!) basically told the mob, "You idiots!! Are you seriously defending Baal?!? If Baal is any god at all, let him defend himself. Until then, get the heck off my property!" I was surprised to see such a loud action that went directly against the flow of the culture. But he was right, and he knew he was right, so he persisted with confidence that the Lord would protect him and his family. And the Lord did.

Then God tells Gideon to do the next task. But even though Gideon has just seen God miraculously save his life from a mob of angry idiots who have neglected to honor the power of the same God who has saved them time and time again, still Gideon needs another sign to make sure God is really telling him what he thinks he's hearing. (Just take out the part with the angry mob and I can relate to that!) Well, yet again, God proves Himself faithful and true. But STILL Gideon is unsure. So he basically says, "Please don't be mad, but I still need to double check this is really YOU, God." So Gideon asks for another test and God again fulfills it. As I'm reading this, I'm thinking in my head, "Gideon, you idiot! Hasn't God made Himself perfectly clear to you the last two times you tested Him?!" And then I was quickly reminded of the poignant words of my roommate at the time I was praying about coming to Poland. It was after the third very clear and very obvious answer to one of those same requests, and I was telling my roommate about it but still not sure if God was really, really wanting me to move to Poland. Jana laughed and said, "Shelley, how many times are you going to make God tell you??" (Well, apparently the answer was three, because after that I believed Him.)

Anyway, that was all just the lead in to the cool part of the story, so bear with me. :) So then Gideon and his men are told they will defeat the Midianites. So Gideon starts off with his huge army and God looks down and says, "Welllllll, actually I was thinking it would be less men," and He sends 10,000 troops home. But then God still thinks there are too many men. And since God created us and knows our innermost thoughts and sins, He knew that with that many men, they would claim the victory was because of their own strength. So God pared the number down to 300 men to fight against the countless Midianites.

So how in the world did they win?!?! Well, in a nutshell, God confused the Midianites so they would fight and kill each other. The 300 men just stood on the hillside and watched the chaos. I'm sure they were in shock (and very relieved!) to see God come through for them like that.

And the moral of the story: God will get His victories because they are His to be had, not ours. And He will use us if we are obedient and faithful to the task. The Israelites could not claim the victory due to their own strength and numbers. It was totally and purely only because of their obedience and faithfulness to God.

This is what stretches and challenges me. Will I be that obedient and faithful to God? Will I really let go of the trust I place in my own strength, even though I've seen time and time again when God wins His own victories without any help from me??

It's Mother's Day in the States. I bought my mom a mother's day card and gave it to her a little early so I could watch her laugh when she read it. But then my nephew distracted me and I had my back turned and missed the laugh anyways. Yes, I know... bad me. My brother got that part covered.

As much as it really sucked being in the States during April because of the reason I was there... it was nice to spend so much time with my mom. For two weeks it was me and her in the condo in Williamsburg. Together all the time, going to the hospital, going to lunch, going home, back to the hospital... I noticed so many similarities between us. It was always easy to decide on a place to eat because we like the same things. (Well, mostly. She's a Diet Coke fan, though, so I draw the line there.) We could even share a foot-long at Subway because we like the same subs with exactly the same toppings. We laugh at the same things, cry at the same things, think of the same things. It's eerily similar when my mom and I talk about something and then say what our personal thoughts are on the matter. I even found us making exactly the same sounds of surprise or concern when the kids would do something. But hey, they always say that you turn into your mother. And as far as moms go, I'm pretty darn proud of mine, so that's not a bad thing.

And maybe one day I'll even think it's funny to sit in my best friend's convertible with a huge, obnoxiously embarrassing hat on and park right in front of the door where my daughter is having driver's ed lessons. And then when she walks out with everyone else in her group, we'll honk the horn, flash the lights, wave our hands and shout her name to make sure she doesn't miss us. ... Or maybe I'll never do that.
Or perhaps I'll pre-record an intimate story for the "Godly Marriages" sermon which will be shown on the jumbo-tron at CHURCH while I'm out of town but my daughter will be sitting in the audience wishing she could crawl under the seat and hide. But then again, I'll probably never do that either.
Come to think of it, I hope I'm never as confident as my mom!

Nevertheless, Mom, even through those embarrassing moments, I still love you. And most of the time I'm proud of you. :)

This one's for my brother!

I was walking downtown with my friend and there was a sand volleyball tournament set up on a plaza. Along with the sand volleyball were various inflatable fun-lands and trampolines. There were also several Coca-Cola representatives giving away free samples of Coke Zero. And Coca-Cola Light, which actually hasn't changed at all and is not new. So I wondered why they even bothered with Coca-Cola Light (think "Diet Coke"). My friend walks over to get her free sample can (it was 4 ounces, I've never seen such small coke cans!) The girl hands her a Coke Light. (it's easier than typing Coca-Cola). Since I personally detest Diet Coke, I asked for a sample Coke Zero instead. The girl just kept shoving the Coke Light into my hand and said, "No, that's only for men. Coke Light is for women."
And that was that. I took my Coke Light and just had to laugh over my astonishment. My friend and I remarked how that would never happen in America without all sorts of discrimination law-suits and women's rights activists all over it. But it's all part of the charm of living in Poland!

Do you ever feel like you lack focus? I feel like I've got so many tops spinning right now but most of them don't connect to each other at all. I feel focus-deprived. I need something that connects the dots! There are so many places to spend my time, so many people to meet with, so many projects to help with. But how is all of this attributing to the end goal? What IS the end goal?! It's changed since I've been here and I'm not sure what it's changed to. I think I'll be spending some serious time in prayer in the near future to figure all this out. Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball. But they say it's not faith if you can see it, so I will keep going to God instead of wishing for stupid things. Ugh, life is hard.

Speaking of things that don't connect with anything else, I think Solomon is at risk of getting a kitty-ulcer. This cat stresses out at the smallest things. He's so intent on protecting me from bugs (okay, that's my selfish view of it, I'm sure the reality is just that he likes to eat bugs), that he seriously stalks the perimeter of my apartment for hours, staring up at the ceiling, looking for anything that moves. Unfortunately, he gets obsessedly (ha, i just made up a word cuz I can't think of a better one!) focused on shadows and marks on the walls (from previous bug squishes) that he can't do anything but pace back and forth and meow and try over and over again to jump 10 times higher than he can. Of course, the fact that he can't reach said mark on the wall makes him completely obsessed with it. He seriously spent 30 minutes tonight meowing and squawking at a dirt mark on the wallpaper, even after I held him up to reach it and he couldn't "get" it. He was still very convinced it was a bug and he was very upset that he couldn't take it down. Though this makes me sleep better at night, knowing my apartment is bug free, I do feel bad for the amount of stress it probably builds up in his little kitty body. It made me want to find a bug just to let him kill one and stop obsessing over non-bug marks on the walls! But then I thought, "ME, go FIND a bug?! Don't be ridiculous, Shelley!" And so I didn't.

This reminds me of a time I volunteered at the Heard Natural Science Museum. It just so happened to be the day that the kids were learning about spiders. Oh, my favorite. (Unfortunately text doesn't afford the same opportunity to hear the sarcasm dripping in my voice, but please note that it's there). So, after I spent the whole lesson looking everywhere but at the kids and the front of the classroom, it was time for the hands-on part. I seriously considered leaving and never coming back. But deeply ingrained in my subconscious is my dad's voice, "You said you'd be there, so you better be there!" So the kids all go outside and start hunting for spiders. The activity was that they would catch them and put them in their little spider boxes and then bring them inside to look at them. I was appalled at the obvious lack of intellect in this most absurd activity. Rest assured, I stayed a safe distance from any of the children and kept a close eye on my watch- which seemed to move increasingly slower as my panic was rising. But, indeed, I've lived to tell the story. And no, I never went back to volunteer there.

So what was I saying? Ah yes. Focus. I need to get me some of that.

Last night I prayed that God would give me more opportunities to get to know my neighbors. I've lived in this apartment for 18 months and I don't know any of my neighbors. Mostly that's because I'm a big pansy and I'm afraid of the language barrier so I don't initiate conversations. But also it's because I never see them except in passing and that's just enough to say, "Hello". I do say hello, but that's about it. The girl who lives across the hall from me is really nice and I had a small conversation with her one night when I asked for the code to get into our building. I always use my key, but I had a friend staying with me and because I'm cheap, I only copied my front door key and not the building key. And then, of course, I couldn't find the piece of paper where my landlord wrote down the code to get in the building. So I went and asked the girl who lives across from me. And then there was the one time that the guy above me came down to complain because someone was playing the piano for about 5 hours everyday. It wasn't me, but he thought it might have been, (ha!). I understood enough of what he was saying to catch that the noise bothered him and he wanted to know if I could play it less often. I pointed out my living room (which does NOT have a piano) and said that I hear it too, but it must be the neighbors on the other side. Then he got much nicer to me and told me his name and offered that if I ever need anything I can come up to get it, even if it's just a cup of sugar. I smiled and said thank you, but never took him up on it... because I don't know what "neighbor etiquette" is here in Poland, especially between a foreigner and an older couple. Am I supposed to just walk up there one day and stumble through my Polish with this older couple who obviously doesn't speak English? Maybe. But I haven't. SO. That is the extent of both conversations I've had with neighbors in the whole 18 months I've lived here. I know, it's pathetic.

Anyway, so last night I was praying for boldness and for opportunities to talk to more of my neighbors. ...
And then this afternoon I let Solomon outside. He's a big baby and runs at every little noise. So he was outside for like 2 minutes and was already standing at the door to come in. I ignored him because I don't like to play the game of opening the door every 3 minutes when he wants to come in and then turn around and go back out. Well, Tesia started meowing and looking very concerned as she looked from me to the door. (I don't let her go outside yet because she's still too small). So I got up to see Solomon trying to climb up the door in his panic to get inside. I opened it and noticed the source of his fear. A mother and two small children were crouching down on the grass outside my balcony, trying to get the "white kitty" to come over and play with them. Haha! They obviously don't know what a big baby he is!! So once I was standing there, it felt rude to just close the door and walk away. So... I took a bold step and went out on the balcony and apologized that he's too scared to come out and play. The little kids were disappointed so then I said, "But I do have another cat, and she's not afraid!" So I let Tesia out on the balcony and she ate up the attention! The mom was holding up the kids so they could reach out and pet the little kitty. Tesia LOVED it! Then as they were walking away, another little kid came running from across the lawn because she also wanted to see the little kitty. Then her mom came over and started talking to me too! It wasn't the deepest conversation I've ever had, consisting simply of, "Her name is Tesia. She's 9 months old. She's really nice." I know, it wasn't much. But hey, it's a start! I feel accomplished today!