So I have finally arrived & have gotten settled in my new home - Radom, Poland. I arrived in the evening on Wednesday the 25th, but we (Laura & I) just went straight to the place we were staying & to bed. We were able to stay in a room above a church in Warsaw, which was only about $15 - cheaper than the local hostels. Thursday we ran around - a couple of visits to the visa office for Laura, a little bit of sightseeing, picked up my luggage from the airport (it had decided to stay in the DC area longer than I...but was delivered so no harm done), and took the train home. I was met by Steve & Bernatka, and Bob & Vera...our whole team in Radom.

Since then, Laura has taken me around to get used to the bus system...and I have developed a daily ice cream habit...their soft serve ice cream is soooo good - it tastes like cream. Luckily, by the time I go up & down our stairs I burn off any remaining calories - we are on the 3rd floor of our apartment building. We went to a welcome BBQ (yes, we had kilbasa) yesterday & watched some high schoolers play American football amongst the cows in the field. Today was church which is about 2 hours long & luckily was translated for us - though that will not be a common occurrence. Tonight, I was able to make sandwiches & go to the local park & pass them out to the homeless there along with kava & herbata (tea & coffee). We are building relationships in the park since most of the homeless are alcoholics - the men on the Radom team have been going to the men's homeless shelter as well on Sunday nights. Currently, we are not allowed at the women's shelter but we are working on that. Once we build relationships, we will start up the Celebrate Recovery program - a Christ-centered program for those who struggle with addictions.