GERMANY 2009 - Trip Across Europe DAY #1

Siegen, Germany
Monday, March 30, 2009
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Trip Across Europe DAY #1So every three months we need to leave Poland, and more specifically the Schengen Territory, in order to get our passports stamped allowing us to stay another three months in Poland. This time, we decided to drive across Western Europe to the U.K. in order to accomplish this. We also have some other things that we need to do, as well, on this trip. One of those things is to do some ministry along the way. We have been praying that we would be blown by the Wind of the Holy Spirit in this. It is simply amazing how God works.
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This morning we left the church, our home, in Piotrków-Trybunalski at 6:30 am. We knew that if we wanted to make it to the U.K. by Wednesday, we needed to really cover a lot of ground today. We drove through Wrocław all the way to the German border and made it there by just after noon. At the border, our vehicle was inspected, along with our passports, my international driving permit and the vehicle documentation. We were glad that the police officers spoke English as we don’t speak really much German at all. It didn’t take too long and they let us through.
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Some of the roads in Poland are pretty good, but many of them have potholes and are only one lane roads. It can be scary trying to “overtake” or pass someone as it can be hard to judge how far away the oncoming traffic is. The roads in Germany are very nice, but people here drive crazy fast as there are often no speed limits. I mean, there were times that I thought I was going fast, and then some German sports car just quickly is on your tail from out of nowhere as I am passing what I think are “slower vehicles.” I like the no speed limit thing, though. I felt like Jason Bourne from the Bourne Identity or something. It was a long trip today, though. I think we drove more than 950 kilometers (around 650 miles). One cool thing is that as you see signs with brown on them, you know to look for historic places along the Autobahn. The hillsides were dotted with castles, which Cho Nas did such a great job of capturing many of them on camera.

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Two days ago my good friend, and fellow missionary, Paul Ainslie got a hold of me on Skype. He said that we should stay in Siegen, Germany where he attended Calvary Chapel Bible College. So we prayed about it, and showed up on their door step just after 6:00 pm today. They were so gracious to us. We first met a girl named Veronica, (I think we interrupted during her devotional time) who knows Paul and is an intern at the Bible College. She brought us to Kata, a German girl who also knows Paul and is on staff here. She showed us around the Bible college, and then told us we could stay with another couple who is on staff at the Bible college. We followed her to some flats that Calvary Chapel rents out for staff where we met Nick and Jessie. They are an awesome couple from the east coast of the U.S. and are also on staff here. Nick is teaching apologetics at the college. We got to fellowship with them and pray with them tonight. We have a room that we have been given to stay at tonight. What a huge blessing! Tomorrow morning, we will join the staff and students for “devo’s,” or morning devotions where they have a time of worship and morning devotions. Then we will hit the road again with the hopes to stay in Calais, France tomorrow night before taking the Eurotunnel to the U.K. on Wednesday morning. We have talked about stopping back by Siegen on the way back to lead worship at their Tuesday night Bible study and stay the night again. God is so good!
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Christian Young