Seeing the Family!

I want to start by saying I don’t spend all my free time traveling around. I did, though, just get back from vacation with my parents and grandfather. On August 1, they spent 15 hours in a plane/airport to see me. We met in Budapest, Hungry, where we took a seven day river cruise up the Danube River. It was wonderful and relaxing. I loved seeing m parents and being able to see my grandfather. He is 87 years old and full of stories, I love it! We saw several cities and way too many Cathedrals, but it was worth it. The best part of the cruise was cruising during the day and being able to sit and see the country side. When the cruise was done we all came back to Poland, where my family got to see where I live and work. The four of us stayed in my little apartment and had a wonderful time with the “closeness”. They are somewhere over the Atlantic ocean now about half way through their 16 hour flight home, what troopers they are! I did not take a lot of pictures because my camera eats the batteries, so once I have gone through the 750 my dad took and left me I will put some up.
Other than that my summer has been good. I have spent most of my time, unless I am traveling, working on lesson plans. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and the tunnel should end in the next day or two. YEAH! School starts on September 1st and that is coming up very soon. I and very excited about the start of school and the fun we will have.
Other than that, not much is going on. We are still looking for a new and bigger place for us to live, still in town just in another part, so all the JM can live together (3 girls). And I am just waiting on school to start. Thanks for everything!

Welcome to Vacation!

Sorry it has been so long, but there has been so much to do these past few weeks. I had a wonderful time on my vacation in June. I was able to take a four day cruise with my roommate. We cruised around the Greek Isles. We stopped at four islands and even had a stop in Turkey. My favorite island was Mykonos and Santorini. I really just liked being able to HIKE up to the summit of the active Volcano that makes up the islands of Santorini. Mykonos was the picturesque spot for Greece. They had the white washed walls and blue roof and shutters. It was beautiful. The other islands had this too but they were nothing like Mykonos. My other favorite spot was Turkey. My roommate and I decided to do the tour of Ephesus while we were there. We went on a three hour tour of the ancient city and loved every minute. I loved how they were able to uncover so much and do their best to reconstruct a lot of the old city. Once the tour was done our guide took us to a Turkish Rug shop where we were shown how the rugs are handmade from the silk worms all the way to the finished product. We were given the chance to buy, which I declined due to the price. They were absolutely gorgeous though. The next week we hung around Greece and meet up with several friends. It was a blast. In Athens we were able to see all the sights and take loads of pictures. I love looking at the old ruins and learning as much about the history as I can. On our way home we had a nine (I know) hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland. Here we decided to go see the waterfall instead of hanging around the airport all day. The waterfall was cool to see but definitely not worth all the money. We had a wonderful trip seeing different places.

So that took up most of June, and now we have entered into July. I have started taking Polish Language lessons full time. My teacher says I am doing wonderful but there are times I feel as though I know nothing at all. I am slow when it comes to learning a language so I just keep with it. I did get the chance to “talk” with a Polish Deaf person the other day. I “spoke” in American Sign Language (ASL) and her in Polish Sign Language (PSL), but we were understood. She had gotten soaked by a car splashing water from a rain puddle and was wondering if a certain bus had come yet. I was able to tell her the bus had not come and that I was sorry. She continued to “speak” and I just stood in amazement at her. I love signing and really want to continue to learn how. Other than language I have been busy getting ready for the upcoming school year. I will have fewer students to begin with and then add as the year goes on. I start with a 3rd and 4th full time and a 1st part time (he’s in public school too). I then gain a 6th grader in October and my second 4th grader comes back in January. It has been a lot of fun looking through and preparing their lessons that I am ready to start.
Anyways, check out the photos below of my vacation in June…I recommend everyone go it was a blast! (I don’t like uploading photo so they are in no particular order without any captions; just enjoy the views, and sorry but they are from the end of the trip to the beginning.)

Photos of Vacation...

Check it out...

I just uploaded a ton of pictures on the TNEP blog, go check them out...(link on the left hand side of the page.)

May's monthly update...

GOD SAID, “POLAND, MK’S, AND ME”

Would you love my people group as Jesus loves them?

Welcome Summer, well for school at least. I finished school last Friday and the girls and I are ready for the break. The weather, though, wants us to think we are in the middle of spring with the late afternoon cold rain. Other than that the weather here is very nice. Now that school is done I hope to have some more time working with the team in the city telling others about Christ.
Language is still an on going process. I start going two times this week and then starting in July I will begin going to language three times a week. My teacher teaches at one of the “Middle” school’s here in Olsztyn, and their semester is not over until the end of June. Work in the villages is going great. The kids really enjoy having us out there. The past few weeks we have been focusing on reviewing the language they have learned. They enjoy the games and activities we come prepared to do. Next week will be our last week for the summer, and we will be having American week via the Volunteer team. The coffee shop is winding down for the summer, The beginning of the month we had one person attending and as it has gotten closer to her finals she has stopped coming. I am not sure if we are going to continue to have coffee shop through the summer, but we will if there is interest. We have started a new coffee shop on Monday afternoons out at the university campus. Hopefully more college students will be able to attend the one on campus.
Please be in prayer for the team as we begin our summer. Summers can be a time of little to do or more to do than we can ever get to. We have a Volunteer Team coming next week, who are coming to do village work. Please pray for their travels and for a safe and fun trip while here. The following week my roommate and I are on vacation in the Mediterranean Sea, then we head to Greece for our annual Business Meeting. Once that is done, I will be returning to Olsztyn for the majority of the summer. Please continue to pray for the lost we meet with, that their hearts and minds would be open to hearing what we have to say about Christ. The biggest barrier we have is tradition of the Polish people. Most Poles only do certain things due to tradition and for no other reason. Because of this it is very hard to ‘break’ that and help them to see who Christ truly is. I thank you for you continued prayers and I am truly indebted to you support.

Thank you again for your prayers and support,
Naomi DeVault, Olsztyn Poland

4000 Disrobe!

My mother sent this to me and I thought I woudl share it with you all...:)


4000 Monks Disrobe!
Wait! It is NOT what you think!!

I heard an incredible story this morning from colleagues in a country that are among the peoples in the South East Asia Affinity Group. It seems that over the past several years that the Gospel message has been finding root among Buddhist monks in a country rife with poverty and political oppression. It is a dark place spiritually and even the “spiritual leaders” have discovered the hopelessness of the Buddha!

Because of outreach and a strategy that employs scripture storying a significant number of these monks have “disrobed” (cast away their robes, walked away from the priesthood, and left Buddhism altogether) and committed their lives to the One who can bring them hope and meaning in such dire circumstances. The total number of monks who have left Buddhism is 4,000. You read it correctly—four thousand!! It has become such a problem in one area that a monastery that served a larger number of monks has closed completely—because there is no one left there who follows Buddha!

Meet the new additions...

Meet Thing 1 and Thing 2! The baby birds have hatched. The hatched about five days ago and the birds are very ugly. I know pidgins are ugly birds but I never thought the baby birds would be as ugly as they are. They are little and yellow. It took about a day for me to actually get a picture of the birds and by then they were both hatched so I got a picture of both. The pictures I have are from yesterday. The funny thing is about the time I took the first picture the mother bird came back and was mad. The only sad part of the baby birds is through the night one did not make it. It made me sad when I looked at them this morning and say that only one lived. The mother has been gone a lot today and I think she was only able to truly take care of one bird. The bird that has been sitting on the nest and is taking care of the bird is not the bird that laid the eggs. We think this bird decided to be even lazier than Bonnie and took Bonnie’s eggs and then “threw” her out of the nest. Anyway the bird that is taking care of the nest is even uglier than Bonnie and the babies are uglier still. Thing 1 is beginning to make some noise and move around, he opened his eyes today. Now we are just hoping by the time we get back from vacation the baby will be out of the nest and we can try to save the raspberry bush the nest is in. Here are the few pictures I took, I hope you enjoy them!

Here they are close up (they have huge eyes and beaks and are curled up together)

Here they are from a distance (you can really see how small they are)

Mad "momma" coming to see what is going on