BRRRRR!

Okay, so i am breaking in my "tights".  It was pretty chilly today and the tights really help to keep you warmer.  I have been doing a lot of walking, rather than riding the bus.  I don't know, call me crazy, but even if it is absolutely freezing outside, i just like to walk! 
Today my new friend Carolyn introduced me to borscht soup and "Polish Pancakes" at one of her favorite restaurants in the Old Market.  It was a fabulously delicious meal.  The pancakes are thin like crepes and it was filled with sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions, a mild white cheese, shaved pork and topped with a warm mushroom sauce and parsley.  Now, for those of you who don't like mushrooms....lay off.  I LOVE mushrooms and since hardly anyone in my family enjoys mushrooms, i hardly get to eat them, and the mushrooms they have here are native and delicious!  They also grow a lot of apples which makes me so bloody happy i could scream!  Apples and mushrooms.  I am at home here.  :) 
Our time together was really encouraging; just to share with one another the kinds of things we experienced growing up and what God has done in each of our lives was very special.  i hope to visit her in Warsaw.  She has even been to Arizona!  And loves Mexican food--she says it is the only thing she would eat when she came!  She hopes to attend seminary in the States which was exciting to hear.  Her father, Pioter, is the leader of the movement taking place in Poland to bring the Polish people into a personal relationship with Christ and has translated the Bible into the Polish language.  I have had the pleasure of meeting Pioter and his family, and now, have a found a friend in his daughter.  :)
I have been reading a book called "The Greatest Century of Missions" and it is really transforming my view of what it means to be a missionary and what it means to be a Christian in general!  It seems a tool of the devil that all of society seems so educated on the "downfalls" and "wrongdoings" done in the name of God by people who claim to be "Christians", and yet so unwilling or uneducated on all of the amazing ways people have transformed societies for the better in the name of God.  It seems to me that great social movements that have been traditionally presented as the result of one great man or woman who changes the world on their own strength, have been raised to a level of heroism that passes over the great doings of a man or woman who claims to have done what they did by the power of God and as a result of their true faith in the one true God.  And it seems that whenever i am faced with the accusation "Well, what about when the Christians did this? Or someone did this bad thing in the name of God?", i feel i must shrink back or defend or apologize.  But the truth is, those men and women were perverting and manipulating the truth--but God would not be mocked.  It is an evidence of the Truth in God, that those who began with such lies did not last, but were in the end, opposed by and defeated by those who truly were representatives of Christ.  And the truth is, there have been far more good things done for all of society, not just at a religious level but on the whole social level, by faithful servants of God, than bad things done by evil men who falsely represented Christ.  So we don't need to shrink back!  We need to get educated on the facts about our Christian history and be confident that the God we serve did not allow the evil done in His name to continue on any longer than was necessary to bring about a greater good.
It is now very late, and tomorrow is a long day for me, but a good long!  :)  i have even been invited to my first "college party"  lol.  Funny thing, i never went to a college party in the States!  But now i will go to my first and in a foreign country!  Such a great importunity i think, to meet some students and get to know better, the ones who have invited me!