Monday, July 22, 2013

Getting Started at Reymontowak -- 2013 edition!

On Friday evening I flew down from Gdansk to Warsaw and stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel at the airport. It's always interesting to see who else is there. I found a conference going on with people coming from around Europe. By the sounds I heard I thought it was either a religious revival of some sort or a huge selling project of some sort. I found the name of the organization on the meeting notices in the hotel and looked it up on the web. It purports to be one telling people how to make money, but suspiciously to me like a big scam. I was actually glad to get away from there.

There are ten of us on this new team, the most there has ever been on summer language camp team. The size of the team is due to an anonymous donor who sponsored 6 volunteers from the University of Central Missouri.

As always we were welcomed to Reymontowka with the bread and salt ceremony.

On Sunday we always do orientation activities taking some time out in the late morning in case anyone would like to attend mass at a nearby church. None of us chose to do that so we drove by later in the morning just as mass was ending and saw something very unique. This turned out to be the Sunday when cars and drivers are blessed.

The church shown above is chosen for the volunteers' attendance because it is nearby and also because the cornerstone was laid in 1776 which is an iconic year for Americans.

On the way we stopped too for everyone to see and photograph a stork's nest. Sorry no photo here. I didn't even get out of the van. I have a huge framed picture at home of a stork in the nest that I took on a service trip here about 5 years ago. Others were quite amazed!

I have seven charming girls in my class. Tomorrow I will ask them how old they are, but I think all of them are 8 years old. Having a great time.

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