Ashley Weaver

CEF Camp in Wladyslawowo, Poland

Weaver — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:19:00 GMT

CEF Camp in Władysławowo, Poland July 20-August 2, 2008

Two weeks along the Baltic Coast--sounds like a great vacation, doesn't it? The only thing is, it wasn't a vacation! I was responsible for these 12 girls... and it was much harder than it looks!

Left to Right: Kasia, Zuzia, Gosia, Klaudia, Ola, Agata, Martyna, me, Asia, Eliza, Róża, Sonia and Karolina

The good news is, we all survived the two weeks--and after asthma attacks, missing inhalers, swimming off in the ocean, broken doors, seasickness, fights at mealtime and other adventures... it really is a good thing we all left healthy and safely. We spent time participating in sports and other various activities, at the beach or buying souvenirs, attending camp meetings, roasting kielbasa over a campfire, praying together and learning about the Armor of God from Ephesians 6. The two weeks were also full of great spiritual discussions. Three of the girls in my group made the decision to put their faith in Jesus! As one girl said, "Now I know that God will never leave me." (See Hebrews 13:5b)

original post at http://ashleyncorbywhite.blogspot.com

Junior Teen Camp in Wisla, Poland

Weaver — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:15:00 GMT

Junior Teen Camp in Wisła, Poland July 5-12, 2008

This was one of the best camps I've ever been a part of. It was extremely well-organized, and there were plenty of activities and attractions to keep the junior teens (ages 11-15) busy and growing in their relationship with God. The theme for the week was Expedition for Treasure, and throughout the week we studied the Armor of God. The teens participated in activities related to the theme, were challenged to learn Bible verses, and heard great lessons pertaining to each part of the armor mentioned in Ephesians 6.

Above: my group, Back, L to R: Karolina, Sara, Edyta, Kornela, Alicja

Front: me, Anita, Dorkas, Magda, Kaja, the knight and his helper.

Below is the entire group!

And don't forget the leaders! Possibly the best team of people I've ever worked with!

L to R: me, Kornel, Tomek, Monika, Danka and Jacek.

Original post at: http://ashleyncorbywhite.blogspot.com

Summer Missionary Training! 5-Day Clubs!!!

Weaver — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:31:00 GMT

http://ashleyncorbywhite.blogspot.com/ Click to read about Summer Missionary Training and 5-Day Clubs in Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland!!!

Auschwitz and JYC Instructor's Course

Weaver — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:46:00 GMT

See my new blog posts at http://www.ashleyncorbywhite.blogspot.com/ !

New Blog Posts...

Weaver — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:40:00 GMT

Rather than post all of my blogs twice, I'm just going to post a link here to my other blog site, where you can find out what I was doing with these people...

and read all about:

"God Will Bless You..."

"Trip to Switzerland"

"To the Mountains!"

and "A Special First"

Come on over! http://www.ashleyncorbywhite.blogspot.com/

[And in case you're wondering, that's "Ashley (Weaver) and Corby White" for now... we won't have the same last name until September 10, this year!]

Concert in the Nativity Scene

Weaver — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:14:00 GMT

Yes, that's right, I said IN the Nativity Scene. Every year in Lublin, the tradition is to set up a large wooden Nativity scene downtown, complete with animals and dressed-up characters. The area is large enough for local groups to hold Christmas concerts. The Thursday after Christmas, I had the opportunity to play my tenor saxophone with a local Gospel choir called "Gospeople". While the singers did an excellent job, I must say that the below-freezing temperatures did more than simply send the animals and actors home for the night, it also made things difficult for me and the two trumpet players. If you are an instrumentalist, you can probably imagine the impossibility of getting such a large, metal instrument in tune when the air around you is so cold. Methods like blowing warm air through the instrument, holding a hot pack on it (the heat didn't last long), or holding it under my coat when not playing, all fell short of getting me less than a half-step flat, so I ended up transposing in my head and playing everything a half-step higher than written. That's easier said than done! Then the trumpet players started breaking little pieces of ice off of their trumpets and we realized that some of the condensation was actually freezing inside the trumpets and causing the valves to stick. We really did do our best. And hopefully the electric guitars, drumset and electric piano drowned out any unpleasant notes! In addition to the choir pieces, there were also performances by dance/drama/flag group Kalejdoskop (Kaleidoscope), and a Christian rap routine by a group of teenage boys. There was a surprisingly large crowd attending, and all were challenged to accept the true peace that only Jesus Christ can give. Getting the message out in downtown Lublin was definitely worth the effort, and I'm so thankful to have had even a small part in this ministry.

Look at these pictures from the event! Please visit http://www.gospeople.gospel.com.pl/gal_pofarze_grudzien_2007/index.html If it comes up in Polish, just click on the first picture, and it will take you to a larger view. From there you can use the arrow keys, or click on the button to go through it as a slideshow.

Bowling=Outreach?

Weaver — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:15:00 GMT

In my home group from church, we try to think of creative, fun events that we can do as a group and invite non-christian friends. So last week, the activity was bowling. I had invited two people, but was disappointed that neither was able to come. Others from our group, however, had more success with their invitations. We had a very fun night at the bowling alley, which is a bit different from all of the bowling alleys I’ve been to in the United States. Here it is located in a large, new mall downtown, and is set up more like a club, with well-dressed people at the door who looked to me like “bouncers”, European-style disco music, soft lighting, a game area with chandeliers overhead, and waitresses who come right to the lanes and take your orders for refreshments, including the yummy hot chocolate I had in between my turns. The video screen in-between the screens for our scores was showing a rodeo (clearly in the United States). I was told that bowling is an American game, and although you can’t tell by the way I play, for one very rare time in my life, my score was not the lowest out of the whole group. In fact, I did pretty well, compared to the rest of the group… although for most of them, bowling is a new experience. We purposely mixed ourselves up, so that it wasn’t just “our group” on one side of our three lanes and all of the “guests” on the other side, and we were able to get to know new people, talking and laughing together as we played. Then this week we had a guest speaker from the USA join us at home group, and later we hope to organize a movie day that we can invite our friends to. Pray that I’ll be able to make better friends with people who I can invite to events like this… and that they will come and hear about Jesus as well!

America, Africa, Europe and Asia

Weaver — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:16:00 GMT

Polish classes have started up again, and I am now in the advanced class, along with 5 other people. On a break between classes on Thursday, four of us walked downtown to an internet café. On the way back, as we were walking down the steps basically in a line, Sylvia noticed that the four of us are from four different continents: me from North America, Peter from Africa (Cameroon), Sylvia from Europe (Hungary), and Miwa from Asia (Japan). To make it even more interesting, we communicate with each other in Polish! This evening I invited Miwa and Sylvia over to my house, along with another missionary who is also learning Polish at KUL. We had a nice time cooking, talking, and eating “American” food (sloppy joes and apple pie). Next time we’ll have a Japanese or Hungarian food night. Please pray for me as I am in class, and especially as I get to know these girls, that I would be a good friend to them and be able to show them the love of Christ.

CEF Camp in Wladyslawowo

Weaver — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:49:00 GMT

For two weeks at the beginning of August, I traveled north to the Baltic coast for camp with Child Evangelism Fellowship. The trip there, 9 ½ hours on a train with 4 children I was responsible for, was only the beginning of the excitement. At camp I helped as a counselor for the older girls (ages 12-14) and taught elective English classes for beginners. It was tough being “on-call” and using Polish all day, and sometimes felt like I wasn’t much help, but I had a wonderful time and saw improvement in my language skills during those two weeks, especially since I was the only non-Polish person there! In the middle of camp, I started to not feel well, and ended up going to the doctor and then having to stay in my room for a couple of days to get better. I was eager to get back to work, though, as Monika (the other counselor I was working with) was responsible for all 17 of our girls while I was sick! During camp I stretched my language-learning even further by sharing my testimony with the entire group of 89 children in one of our evening meetings! Later I shared a more detailed testimony with our group of girls in our evening devotional time. By the end of camp I was exhausted, but it was worth all of the work, knowing that several children (at least 10 that we know about) left camp as new believers in Jesus Christ!

5-Day Club in Lublin

Weaver — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:37:00 GMT

With the help of teens and adults from my home church in Lublin, Pojednanie Christian Fellowship, I recently had the opportunity to hold a 5-Day Club (Bible club for children) in the area near my apartment. When I invited the children from my neighborhood, they seemed very excited to come. Later, however, their parents forbid them from attending, since the club was not associated with the Roman Catholic Church (it actually was associated with Child Evangelism Fellowship, which isn't a church at all). So the first day we had one little girl, the daughter of some born-again friends of mine. Bad weather forced us to shorten the meeting. The next day, several children from my neighborhood were spotted sneaking around the building, hiding behind trees, and eventually they came out and sat on some nearby steps, observing what was going on. how cold it be that a group of adults and teenagers (and one very little girl) were having so much fun playing games, singing songs, and listening to Bible lessons? They weren't on the steps long, though. One by one, their parents came and took them away. Nevertheless, they had heard a bit of the Gospel message when I was teaching the song. By the end of the week, though, one of the girls from my neighborhood was given permission to come, and a few other children and even adults were sitting on their balconies and observing. On Friday we had another visitor. An older man from the area, who is either always drunk, or has had so much alcohol in the past that it has badly damaged his mind, came by and wanted to participate. There were enough adults there, and he was "well-behaved", so he wasn't a danger to anyone. I was nervous about it, but in the end it was actually a lot like having another child there. By the end he was even able to recite the Bible verse from memory.

While we can't see the results of our efforts right now, we pray that God's Word will continue to work in the hearts of the people who heard it. Already several girls from my neighborhood have asked when the next club will be, so I am thinking of possibly starting something slightly less-threatening to parents, maybe an English Club, with the understanding that I would use Christian songs and the Bible. To parents here, anything not associated with their church is perceived as a cult--and of course you wouldn't send your children to something like that! So please pray that God would break down those barriers and allow the children, and their parents, to hear what the Bible says about Jesus!

Vacation?

Weaver — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:40:00 GMT

Well we thought it was vacation... then we found out we were supposed to be speaking "only Polish" all week. It didn't really turn out that way, though. While hiking, walking through the tourist market, eating ewe cheese (very yummy), ice skating, playing games, etc., we used Polish, English, sometimes even German to communicate with our fellow students from language school... but definitely Polish whenever our director was within hearing!

Many times, though, the conversation turned to spiritual things. Everything from "Did God really create the universe in 7 literal days?" to "What are the differences between Catholic & Protestant beliefs" was brought out for discussion. Along with two other girls in my class who are American missionaries, we tried to keep bringing the focus back to Christ and what the Bible says about Him. It was very interesting to hear the different ways that people described their faith and its importance in their lives--and also very interesting to see how they put it into practice in their day-to-day vacation life. It seems we had an entire range of people who called themselves "committed believers"--some who cheerfully made sure they'd be able to go to church first thing Sunday morning and spoke out against the immoral actions of a few others... to others who were too hung-over from the night before to make it in the morning, but managed to get to an evening service before the day was over. People who give themselves a religious "label" but say they never attend church. People with great knowledge about their church doctrines--who read books and study and attend church regularly and who say that their faith is important to them--who then make fun of the week's "Jesus talks" in their drunken stupor the next day.

I returned home with a heavy heart for some of my friends & aquaintances. They've heard God's word, but do they really know Him? And what about me? If I'm going to go around telling people I'm a Christian, am I living in such a way as to back up that claim? Just because I left behind a fiance and moved to Poland to be a "missionary" doesn't put me on a higher level than anyone. Can people see from my life that Jesus has really made a difference in me--that I don't just "behave myself" for the sake of being a good person, that it's out of the love He has for me and my love for Him?

It's a lot to think about... would you join me in praying for my friends and the people I met on last week's trip? And pray that God would speak through my life and words, that He would use me for His benefit.

Church with "Inebriated Fellows"

Weaver — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:31:00 GMT

That’s right, I’m talking about drunk men coming into our church meetings. It happened last week that during our music time, a man came in and took a scrap of paper up front to the man who was leading the meeting, saying that it was an “announcement”. When his announcement wasn’t read (in fact it there was nothing written on it) he decided to make the announcement himself. I didn’t quite understand what he said, but I wondered how the church would respond to this interruption. A few months ago during a church meeting, someone had made a comment about the drunk people outside the building where we meet—we prayed for them from time to time, but had anyone ever spoken to them or invited them to come in? Later, someone had told me that many of the people outside had in fact been invited but none had come. So here was such a man, in front of our church… what would the people do? First, as the announcement grew longer and showed no signs of slowing down, one young man went up front and put his arm around the man, and in an agreeable way tried to usher him out of the center of attention. That being unsuccessful, an older lady in the middle row said, “here’s a seat, come sit by me”. Everyone else agreed, yes, come sit down, join us. So he did. And so did his friend, another man who unfortunately was also drunk and had been watching from the doorway. Someone handed them a songbook and we continued on with our service. They made a few contributions after that, including an interesting prayer during our prayer time, and then lost interest and decided to go somewhere else. When the first man returned this week, drunk again, the church people didn’t miss a beat in greeting him, welcoming him back and showing him a seat where he could join us for the few minutes that we kept his attention. Alcoholism is a big problem in this country, mostly among men. Please pray for these men, that God would break through their bonds and shine His light into their lives. Perhaps He would grant them some memory that people from our church were kind to them and did not push them aside, and show them that He does not want to push them aside either.

Jesus Film... in Polish

Weaver — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:18:00 GMT

Friday night, one of the local churches in Lublin showed the film Jezus. They invited my church and others to come and bring their friends, so I went to see it and invited a girl from my language classes to go with me. While we didn't understand all of the Polish, we both knew the story and were able to follow along with the film. At the end was a section that gave an overview of the message of salvation and an invitation for people to receive Jesus as their Savior. Ater the film, the church that hosted the event had coffee, tea and cookies and invited people to stay and discuss the film. The girl who came with me is from Germany, and shared with me her perspective on her country and how unpopular it is when she tells people that she attends church. She said that many people in her area take their children to church only long enough to have them baptized, and then the child never sets foot in a church again.

Prayer Requests: Pray for Poland, Germany, and other spiritually "dark" countries in Europe. Also, I saw two young people from my church at the film with friends they had invited. Pray that their friends would be open to hearing more about what the Bible says about Jesus and that they would enter into a real relationship with Him.

Welcome to Poland

Weaver — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 21:30:00 GMT

I've been in Poland for about a month and a half now, and am busy, getting into a routine of language school, church, home group meetings, and other various things that come up! I've got my apartment all set up and looking like "home" (I'll put some photos on the website soon) and am enjoying getting to know people from my church and finding out how they do ministry and outreach here in Poland. Pray for me as I learn the language and seek to build friendships with Polish people!