Thursday - Poland

What a wonderful day it was, this Thursday! Ellen picked me up at 10 in the morning after dropping off Lenna at pre-school, and Zoe, Noa and Ellen and I piled up in the car and went to town! First we stopped a bowling alley which seemed to be closed according to the sign on the building, but when we went to check it out, it was open for business! We changed into the notorious bowling shoes and started rolling those heavy balls... It took a little bit to get the hang of it again, as it had been a long time for the four of us. We gave it all we had and Zoe took home the price. The price just was the knowledge that she beat us all :-)! We encouraged each other to keep the ball straight on the alley, and tried to change the path of the ball by telepathy... to no avail. And yes, Edna had recovered enough from jetlag that she wanted to be in the middle of the action!

After an hour of bowling and with broken nails and blisters on our thumbs and fingers, we walked across the street to a beauty salon where the receptionist was so happy to see four people walk in the door that she did not really know what language to speak with us... we are quite a confused bunch of people communicating in three different languages sometimes almost at the same time. It was quite funny! There was only one lady who did nails and we spent quite a bit of time with her since all four of us had our nails done. She did a marvelous job and was truly an artist... she did some seriously beautyful artwork on our nails, with little tiny brushes, and pins and an incredibly steady hand! Then Zoe and Noa got themselves a haircut and it was just a delight to see their pretty faces light up in all the attention and doting. We were in the beauty salon for probably two and a half hours... time so very well spend!!!

After we were all dolled up and relaxed watching all the hustle and bustle in the beauty salon, we got back in the car and drove to the church office where Martijn was trying to work on his sermon for Sunday and also was keeping little Lenna out of trouble. He had been so kind to pick her up from pre-school while we were all busy with nails and hair. We, five girls now, left the office and walked to the city center to go to Ellen's bank and follow up on some business she needed to take care of. It was as if the people now really had gotten the message: Spring is on its way! The sun was out, the temperature was nice and most of the chairs on the terraces around the town squares were taken... people were smiling, having a good old time, and the street musicians came out to make some money! It was just delightful! After the bank business was done, the three younger girls went back to the church office and the two older ones explored some more of the really old town city center. We crossed some rivers and walked through very old streets with very old cobble stones and tried not to wreck our ankles. We came upon an old church with two towers, one of which we went up, some of it by stairs and most of it by an elevator (I was grateful for that:-)). Gorgeous views from the observatory deck around the steeple of the tower... we couldn't figure out though in which direction Martijn and Ellen's flat was located. In the mean time, Ellen and I talked about the meeting at church last night where I gave my testimony and how she had had conversations with some of the girls who were there and how it had spoken to their hearts. That made me so very grateful! Just the little bit that I have and that I am willing to give, the Lord can use and multiply and make fruitful.

When Ellen and I returned to the church office to get everybody and the car, it was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. We were all tired, we did not have the energy to make plans for Friday, my feet were hurting and it had been a great and fabulous day!