Friday, 29, July 2022
Today we were given the privilege to tour Mińsk Mazowiecki, the home town of Anabaptist International Ministries. After eating a delicious, traditional Polish breakfast, we walked to the train station and rode from where we have been staying, to the “sleeping town” of Mińsk Mazowiecki. It’s given that nickname because it is home to a lot of people who travel to Warsaw for work. There are a lot of apartment buildings there. We divided into four groups to tour the city. Staff living there served as tour guides. For many of us, our tours included the Gateway to English School, an open-air market, parks and fountains, historical sites, food, and lots of walking. It’s nice to see what normal life is like for the staff. The parks are beautiful and peaceful. The history is sobering and makes us think. The food helped us keep on walking, especially the coffee and ice cream. Time seemed to fly by. In the afternoon we changing into our choir uniforms and walked to the local music school for our concert. It has a very beautiful auditorium that we found difficult to sing in. While it carried the sound to our audience very well, we found it harder for us to hear each other. I guess we were more used to a more reverberant atmosphere. The concert was well received anyway. We just pray that we might have been able to touch lives somehow. I’m reminded of the verses in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow. So neither the one who plants counts for anything, nor the one who waters, but God who causes the growth.” We never know what impact we might have, so we need to be faithfully doing our part and leave the rest up to God. Following the concert, we went to a pizzeria for supper. Again we dove into some delicious food. A bus took us back to Gustaw’s retreat center for the night.
Before the concert, we were challenged with verses from Psalm 96. Go read it. The Lord deserves all our praise. He deserves our best gifts and offerings. For the LORD is great and certainly worthy of praise; he is more awesome than all gods (Psalm 96:4). May we be willing to surrender our all to Him.
Thanks for your interest and prayers. Please continue to pray for us.
–Benjamin Barnhart
Simon sez;
Thak you much for these reports. Polly and Simon are very interested in keeping up with the Hope Singers and their schedule. For Darren and Lou, it’s grandma and grandpa keeping a check on them. I especially noticed your visits to those German camps of WW11. That happened in the days of my childhood. And some of us were deeply moved in personally hearing Corrie ten Boon’s story of being in one of those camps and sister Betsy not making it through alive.
Prayers for God’s blessings to rest upon you!