Day 12 - Our Final Big Day

Saturday was our last working day in Poland. We woke up to find Elyse, Landon, and Nathaniel gone from the hostel and then shortly after devotions, we discovered that Bubu would be leaving us soon as well. We were all saddened by this news and wanted to make the best out of our last day with him.

Bubu is truly an amazing person. He has put in so much effort to make this endeavor to Poland happen and he is a great example of how a Christian should act. We will all miss his unique personality and his witty but "serious" humour. He has some amazing kids and an even more amazing wife, and we are continuing to pray that God will bless his church and make it grow and flourish.

To begin the day, we all dispersed from the devotions room to go to various places around town. Some of us wanted to stay in Old Town and help hand out flyers or do some shopping, while others decided they would make the 20-minute walk over to the mall and spend Bubu's last hours in Poland with him. After an hour or so of wandering the mall's shops, we gathered in a cafeteria and had some coffee and nice chats for 15 or so minutes.

At 10:30, we headed back to the town square so that we would be in time to sing at 11:00. We sang a couple times before our stomachs decided to make noises, and then we ventured down to Subway to eat a good lunch. While there, we were entertained by several breakdancers who had set up their station in front of the restaurant.

We bid our final goodbyes to Bubu and then went back to the evangelizing station to sing once more. After singing a few songs, we walked downtown towards the St. Mary's cathedral and received permission to sing in the church. It was truly an amazing experience singing in a place with such great acoustics. What was even more amazing was that we were singing Reformed hymns in a Catholic church. What a great way to minister to the Catholic saints of Poland! Afterwards, we invited a few of the members of our rather large audience of tourists and Gdansk residents to our final concert later in the evening.

Our spirits lifted considerably and we left to prepare for our last concert together in Poland. We held it at the outside theatre in Old Town again and we attracted several people, many of which had heard us sing in the cathedral. This was probably the best turnout we had ever had out of all our concerts. We made our best attempt to sing, even while sweltering in the unpredicted heat, and then listened as Mr. Unger preached a short but strong sermon that brought curious responses on the faces of many onlookers.

We were able to converse with a few people afterwards, and we felt blessed because of their willingness to receive God's Word. We even invited several of them to church the following morning, in hope that they would come.

Before dinner, most of us returned to the hostel to freshen up, while some of us walked along the harbour to look at several boats that had pulled in. There was a Russian boat, several sailboats, and even a large ship from a 1970's movie called "Mutiny on the Bounty." After these excursions, me met at the evangelizing station to walk to a restaurant for dinner.

Dinner was at a fancy Turkish restaurant along the pier of Gdansk. We had great food, fellowship, and much laughter on behalf of a few unmentioned members of the team. In between waiting for our food to arrive, we wrote in each other's journals and picked up some more great quotes for Peter's quote book.

The food was delicious, when it finally came, but most of us waited for at least 2 hours to get it. By the time everyone was ready to leave, Sam and Rebekah had still not received their dinner, so they went out for pizza instead, along with a few others. The rest of the group either went back to the hostel to relax after a full day, or they stayed in town to do some last shopping, listen to beautiful violin music played on the streets, or get colourful hair pieces braided in their hair.

We finished off the day with frisbee, an encounter with a hedgehog that someone named Trevor, and a UFO discovery. The "UFO" was actually a giant floating lantern that had burnt out, along with a number of other duplicates.

Sleep was the next thing on everyone's mind, as we all wanted to be rested up for worship at Pawel's church and great fellowship with the people there.