The 99

Hey friends!!

I think it is about time for another little update. I thought I would share what God has been putting on my heart throughout this training week. There is so much being packed into the 5 days here in Czech. It is so amazing the time being spent studying the Word. I am just soaking up information like a sponge!

The first night we all arrived Dave Patty, the president of Josiah Venture told us the story of how it all began. It is an incredible story and I am so blessed that God has sent me to be a part of it. I knew that I was embarking on a journey with an organization that God is using to reach Europe in unbelievable ways. The thing that stuck out most in what Dave said revolved around the story of the lost sheep in Luke 15. In case you need a refresher the story is about a shepherd who has 100 sheep and when one gets lost he drops everything and leaves the 99 other sheep to search for his one lost sheep. What really struck me  was when Dave said what if it is the reverse? In central and eastern Europe there is only 1% of the population who believes in Jesus. So what do we do when there are 99 lost sheep? 
The answer is clear. We are called to drop everything and go search for the 99. And this is Josiah Venture's vision for the coming year, seeking out the 99%. That is why we come as interns, that is why so many choose to serve here in these 12 countries full time, it is because we will not stop seeking after the 99.

I could go on for ages about what God is teaching me here in training but what I would ask all of you at home is to be in prayer for the 99. Pray for those who desperately need Jesus. Please pray that God would be with the interns, the full time missionaries and most importantly, the nationals. My prayer is that God would raise up leaders in Poland to share the gospel and to equip the other nationals. I have this image in my mind that just like at Pentecost the holy spirit would come down upon the youth all across Poland and that there would be a love for Jesus in Poland that would spread like wild fire.

I am so excited for Wednesday to come, to start my summer in Poland. I get the privilege to be on a team with 9 other amazing people who love Jesus and have so many different gifts to bring to the table. I could not ask for a better group of people to serve along side with.  Pray for us, pray for Poland.


- Kat

Blame it on the jet lag....

Well folks here I am officially in Malenovice Czech and I have survived the amazing race! (Well our three day version of it.) It has been a wild and crazy last few days... probably the most things and places I have packed into three days ever... maybe. My feet are hating me right now and so it is awesome being able to sit on my comfy bed gazing out at the gorgeous view of the Czech mountains. I am about to tell the tale of the Amazing Race 2012... if you are not interested you can skip the next large chunk.

So I will take off where I last left off..... after Munich I arrived with my team mate Jordyn in Krakow Poland at 4:15 pm on Tuesday. I did not have my luggage sadly but I was welcomed by the always cheerful face of my missionary friend Laura. After this about 10-15 of us latecomers were taken by train to the mall in Krakow. I met up with the other members of my team who were not late and we were required to put on a fashion show in front of the mall for all of the public to ridicule us. Especially the guys in dresses and heels. Quite the interesting way to get to know your team I must say.  From there we ran around Krakow to many places including the mall and the main square doing different tasks. We had to find a statue of Copernicus that apparently know one in Krakow knew about .. an hour or so later we found him and had to build an accurate model of the solar system  using fruit. (More difficult then it sounds.) Finally in the dark we completed and ran back through Krakow to stay at our hostel coming in 11th place out of 15 that particular evening.... not the best. 

Day 2 (As in Thursday) Wake up call was 7 and the teams all departed at staggered times over an hour from 8-9 am based on our arrival. We began the morning by chugging hot hot tea (as a common European experience) we then had to go to a park in Krakow and transfer a large bowl of m&ms to another using only a straw.. not so easy. We then raced to the other side of the main square to the house where Pope John Paul 2 stayed and we had to memorize part of a speech he gave. Other Krakow events included having a Polish childrens book read to us by a local, building a lego thingy in Wawel castle, putting on a puppet show about the local legend of the Dragon, counting items on 52 crests in the old Krakow market and finding the Schindler factory. In the afternoon when we got to the old Schindler factory we had time to tour it. It is now a museum about Krakow under the control of the Nazis  from 1939-1945. It was an amazing experience. From there we took the bus to Skoczw Poland and eventually after another road block walked on foot about 7 km to H2O camp which is owned by Josiah Venture in Poland. We arrived around 9:30 pm but that was not the end. We then had to eat blood sausage and sauerkraut. After wolfing down my portion when 2 other teams showed up I then at 3 or 4 teammates portions of sauerkraut (yay for my german background) ...ya that didn't sit so well. We ended day two in 6th place! Woohoo!

Day 3 we once again began our race at 8am at staggered times. We taste tested tea to find the flavour from the previous morning and we participated in the H20 Olympics. The events included shotput with balloons, and interesting relay, diving for Euros and kayaking for lego pieces. When we finished we booked it out of the camp and ended up hitchhiking back in Skoczw where we took a bus to Cieszyn Poland where we ran across the border to Cesky Tesin Czech and had to learn a traditional Czech folk dance. When we did it correctly we went on to the train to |Frydlant nad Ostravici Czech and after doing a word search we had our last txi ride to the finish line at the Malenovice Hotel owned by Josiah venture. At 1:30 pm in 9th place.  

So here I am .. there has been lots of running, lots of walking and lots of language barriers but I made it and I am so blessed for my team of 8  other interns and our Polish team leader. Team Polska is by far the best and I am so glad to have made 9 new good friends in 3 days! I praise God for our unity and for the amazing creativity of the Josiah Venture leadership. It has already been a blast and we have only just begun. So here we are at intern training for the next 5 days.. I am so pumped to be hanging out with 102 other awesome people! 

Well that's all for now... I'm ready for dinner

Do Widzenia

Kat

Wie Gehts from Munich!

Hey everybody!

So since I have an hour to kill here in Munich I thought I would post an update for you all!

Yesterday my trip got off to an exciting start as I got to meet two other interns on my Polish team and one intern from the Czech team who had a connecting flight with me from Toronto. Being together finally made this trip feel real! After some delays we took off and were blessed with a safe flight to Frankfurt Germany. It was awesome connecting with my team mates on the plane and together getting real excited for what this summer has in store. Unfortunately since we left late we then landed late and with 15 minutes to pick up my team mate's boarding pass, get through passport check and security........ we didn't make it. :(

But the adventure continued and so instead of Poland I am now sitting in Munich with my teammate Jordyn who is sleeping next to me :) . Please keep us in your prayers that we would make it safely to Poland in a few hours and that all our luggage will be waiting for us.

Today's itinerary in Poland is the beginning a three day Amazing Race where we will compete against the other country teams doing who know what and ending up Friday afternoon in Malenowice Czech to start a week of intern training with all 73 Josiah Venture interns. It is set to begin right before our new flight is  scheduled to land. Hopefully we will be able to find the rest of the Poland team when Jordyn and I land. Please pray for safety in the coming days. I am not too bummed about the extra detour it has made for a great way to bond with my team mate. God works in ways we don't always understand. Pretty sweet!


auf wiedersehen

-Kat

Philippians 4:19

"And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." 


Along with my personal thank yous I wanted to publicly thank everybody who has supported me financially making my internship to Poland this summer possible! I couldn't have done it without each one of you and your generosity means so much to me!

God has been so good to me in supplying the $4419 that I needed for my flight to Poland, all accommodations and any travel while in Poland. It is hard to believe that in two weeks I will be landing Krakow Poland and my internship will begin. But the adventure has already begun, from the moment I received word that I was accepted to the internship God began to take me on a wild ride. I have been learning to trust God daily and to have faith in His provision over me and my support raising. Although it wasn't always easy to trust my funding would come in, I grew and was constantly reminded how big my God is and that I have no right to doubt Him our put Him in a box based on my expectations. My prayer was that if God really wanted me to be a part of His ministry in Poland that it would be clear and my funds would come in. My expectations were blown away and within a week I went from having approximately half of my required support to all of it! Yes God sent me a message, this is where I am supposed to spend my summer and He does provide!

But it doesn't stop here folks! 
Although I raised the funds which are necessary before I am allowed to go to Poland I still have another $2000 that I can raise through Josiah Venture and this doesn't have the same deadline of May 1st. I am able to continue raising this even after I depart in two weeks. So if you feel called to support me financially that would so greatly appreciated. I believe that God will provide for me and I challenge you to be a part of my summer in Poland through both financial support and prayer.

If you are interested in sending me support you can give me cash personally contact me at katharinakeddy@gmail.com before I leave or the better option you can send a check to Josiah Venture's office in Alberta. Please make out your checks to "Canadian Centre for World Mission" and put my last name in the memo line. The address to send it to is:



Josiah Venture/Summer Intern
PO Box 38001
Calgary, AB T3K 5G9


Let me know if you would like to support me so I can get a response slip to you which provides information to Josiah Venture so that you will get a tax receipt.

I cannot thank all of you enough, let me know if you want to receive specific prayer updates or you can continue to check this blog for prayer updates. God is so good and that is something that I am reminded of daily. I will leave you with one last verse:

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." -Matt 6:33


- Kat

The Two Lost Sons

As I  prepare to head off to Poland in 3 weeks I have been reading a book called The Prodigal God by Tim Keller. It is a book that we will be studying during our intern training when I arrive to Poland and God has really been using it in my life.
God has clearly been sending me a message. You know those moments where everything around you seems to say the same thing and it feels like God is just holding a big neon sign trying to get you attention? This weekend I had one of those moments.
My devotions, the sermon at church and the book I began reading were all reminding me of two very important things.
1) God uses the weak, and accepts sinners as we are because there is nothing we can do.
2) God hates when we as Christians act righteous and boast in ourselves.

Maybe you read that and found that to be fairly straight forward and extremely obvious but I believe that I can forget both 1 and 2 in my own life.
In the book The Prodigal God, Tim Keller reminds us that the parable of the lost son is really a parable about two lost sons and this I feel is often overlooked. Seeing the recklessness of the younger brother I am reminded of my sin and how just as the son I do not deserve the love of my Father. The older son's bitterness reminds me that I can be judgmental and proud as a Christian which also makes me unworthy of my Father's love. So where does that leave me then if I have all of this sin? The incomprehensible truth is that I have a gracious Father in heaven. Keller reminds us of this, "Jesus is showing us the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us his children. God's reckless grace is our greatest hope, a life-changing experience.." Jesus is telling this story to a group of pharisees and religious teachers meaning he is speaking to a group of "older brothers". I think I so often imagine this story written for those like the younger brother, the brother who is lost with his rebellion against his father but Jesus specifically uses the attitude of the elder brother as a reflection of the religious teachers in his midst. These were the people who couldn't comprehend why Jesus would eat and associate with sinners.
I was reminded of this again on Sunday when the guest speaker at my church (Brett McBride) spoke on Matthew 9; the calling of Matthew as a disciple. Just as the parable in Luke 15 we see two different people. Matthew the tax collector or sinner and the religious teachers who don't understand why Jesus would associate with this horrible sinning man.

But the beauty of it all is that we are all sinners, we are dirty and lost and we do not deserve the love of Christ but He accepts us just as we are. He uses the weak, He loves the broken, the rejected and the despised. If that was not so I would not have any hope.
I love verse 12 when Jesus says, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous but the sinners." 
One thing that stuck in Brett's sermon was when he said: " Its not just a call to relationship its a call to missions." Jesus used Matthew as His disciple as a missionary to others who were sick, and broken and despised. And so I am reminded that I have been called as a sinner to minister to other sinners this summer in Poland. I read through 1 Corinthians 1 the other day and I was once again reminded of my weakness, it is by God's grace that I have been saved through faith not by works so that I cannot boast. 1 Cor 1:27-31 has been a constant reminder for me, " But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being may boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" 
So in summary I have been reminded that God has chosen me this summer to serve Him, not because of anything I can do, but despite my sins and failures He has chosen to use me to share his gospel in Poland. So I give my weakness over to God and I come as I am, as his servant ready to follow him wherever He takes me this summer.

-Kat

Twenty Six Days and Counting...

It is official everybody... I leave for Poland in 26 days! It is such an incredible feeling and it is finally hitting me that this is happening and very soon! Sooo I thought what better to do at 1:30 in the morning when you are so excited that you can't sleep than to start my blog for my summer internship to Poland!
This is the place where I will be updating everybody about my trip and all of the amazing experiences that God gives me! God is so good and he has made everything fall into place so far! My funding has been provided for in ways that I could not even imagine! I am so thankful for everyone who has supported me, I am so very blessed! I have my ticket so it is official, on May 29th I will be boarding my flight at Pearson Airport off for my summer adventure. So this is just a little introduction for every body. Stay tuned for more updates and posts as I get ready and take off on this wild adventure God is taking me on!

Dobranoc!

Kat