Lift your glad voices on high!

Lift your glad voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man cannot die;
Vain were the terrors that gathered around Him,
And short the dominion of death and the grave;
He burst from the fetters of darkness that bound Him,
Resplendent in glory to live and to save!
Loud was the chorus of angels on high,
The Savior hath risen, and man shall not die.

Glory to God, in full anthems of joy;
The being He gave us death cannot destroy:
Sad were the life we must part with tomorrow,
If tears were our birthright, and death were our end;
But Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow,
And bade us, immortal, to Heaven ascend:
Lift then your voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die.

The words that I highlighted here have spoken very powerfully to me this Easter Season.  I revel in the joy of receiving life today both spiritually and physically because of Jesus’ sacrifice of life.  He laid his life down to take it up again.

Christian Contemporary Music

      With some reservations I set forth my opinion concerning most of the Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) that I have listened to.  I have reservations because I believe that this music appeals to a broad range of people within the “gamut of Christianity”; to people I really love.   Many of them have been affected deeply and encouraged by the songs’ messages.  I don’t want to rashly throw words and crush a foundation or a precious moment for anyone.  I also realize the fact that I have listened to only the CCM songs that I’ve listened to; so that excludes all those that I have not heard besides all those I don’t know about.  Hah, hah.  On the other hand, I have a really hard time identifying Christianity with most CCM music that I have listened to.   It is not really the rock, rock and roll, or pop style that I have a problem with.  Music is sound (I know that is an oversimplification to some degree)  and there is nothing inherently wrong with sound.  (some are more beautiful than others)  I think however that the style of performances connected with many CCM performers/ artists/ worship leaders is more about being popular and appealing to an audience than meeting the audience’s heart cry, whatever that really is.   We will worship someone or something and I think that instead of being instruments of God’s message to others many of these performers seem interested in a stardom of sorts.  I think that is only natural although not justified.  However, it is our problem if we become part of the target audience who sit under the sound of their music and just allow ourselves to absorb them, their style, their persona, and their song’s messages without first thinking about how it is affecting us.   We will simply be pawns in the hands of Christian performers; groupies of the mass bonanza.  I think that it would be a real error to say that I should not listen to CCM for the solely mutinous desire of being counter cultural.  I think that it is much deeper than that.  Jesus talked the the Samaritan woman at the well about the day that will come when there will no longer be a sacred “place of worship” but that instead this new mode of worship will “be in the Spirit and in the truth.”  Finding truth (if you are so inclined; I am) and following the leading of the Spirit are goals.  I think that if I am settling for worship that is less than in Spirit and in truth, I am not doing well.  So, I say this because my feeling is that the worship/ attention that was meant for God and is alluded to in many CCM songs is really channeled to the wrong place/ wrong persons.  The repetition of key words about 50 to 100 times can possibly be really powerful if they are contemplated in their true meaning.  That is why some kinds of French musical chants were developed in the atmosphere of silence and contemplation. They were for the sole purpose of contemplation.  If I have a throbbing atmosphere around me I truly distrust my faculties to focus for any length of time on meaning of any kind.   It is on these grounds that I raise questions.

With Polski Rolski, this is Robin signing off.

Munich . . . a bit late

        Maria let you all in my family know that I went to Munich, Germany over our winter break.  She also told you to “stay tuned” to my blog for an interesting update.  Man, that raises the stakes pretty high.  I am not sure if you should bet on this writing:)  I will give it a shot because I really did enjoy our “vacation”.  We got off from school the tenth of this month for a week and a half. That next day we flew off to Munich Germany which really seemed quite surreal to me until the time we actually got on the plane for the flight.  Up until that time I thought about planning what was going to be coming next and had too little time to get excited.   However, by the time we touched down in Munich I was thoroughly excited and ready to go do some sightseeing.  We actually parked in the airport and at crackers and cheese first.

Being in Germany really surprised me in several ways.  For one thing I had this impression that most Germans would be really cold, but to the contrary they were so friendly and helpful.  Much more than Polish people I experience generally.  Also, all of the public transportation was so clean and fast.  The trains take off like sports cars and I would not be too afraid to eat off of the station platforms.  From the “get go” we (I) had a problem navigating the train systems because they have two kinds of trains that run above and below ground.  There were also many different train numbers running on the very same tracks so you have to be careful which train you get.  We ended up getting mixed up for about an hour on the train system before we actually got to our hostel for the night.  The hostel itself was really clean and nice, Caia.  It did not have a normal hostel “atmosphere” like the ones I have known with all the international people but it was really clean and we got our own room to ourselves; the four of us.

The first night at the hostel Eric cooked spaghetti and then we talked about what we were planning to do the next day.  We got up to a really nicely set breakfast.  They had many varieties of break and fruit as well as cold cuts and yoghurt and granola.  I have never been at a hostel where they serve such nice food for a free breakfast.  After breakfast we followed our noses and a map into old town and visited a really amazing old Catholic cathedral in the downtown, it was the one with the two domes preserved during the war as a landmark for bombing raids, walked through it and even sang a few worship songs up near the pulpit.  Later on, we sort of ambled through the rest of old town going up into the clock tower over the main square and running down through vast halls in the lower rooms of the court house.  We shot some nice pictures downstairs and Eric and I sang song songs in the hall.  The acoustics were fantastic because the ceiling was domed concrete with marble walls.  For lunch we walked into a little town park and sat down with bread and cheese even though a cool breeze was blowing.  Interestingly enough a couple of US exchange students from Wisconsin and Oregon sat down beside us and we started an interesting conversation with them.  They were both in Germany because they were majoring in German language studies.  I was amazed at how little reason they had for studying German other than it seemed to them sort of a default option; better than taking some scientific based courses.  I just wouldn’t want to study very much if I saw no real point in it.  That evening we went to a free concert with a cellist and a pianist duo.  The cellist was a young Russian/ Ukranian man who was doing his senior recital on the cello.  I enjoyed his performance a lot.  The last piece was so incredible because his fingers were flying across the fingerboard and yet his eyes were closed, but then at the end of the piece he played some high notes that were so high that his fingers were “fretting” off the fingerboard.  I don’t remember who wrote the piece.

      Our next day we took a train into the northern edge of the Bavarian alps.  We wanted to visit a castle built by Ludwig II, the crazy king of Bavaria.  It was built in the late seventeen hundreds and was crafted by almost all native stone cutters and masons.  They must have been top notch in their craft because each stone is faced with a smoothing tool and then the mortar joint is finished off with a polished half inch taper down to the actual joint itself.  It took two hundred masons employed full time for nearly eighteen years to complete the outside of the castle.  The castle is built on a small peak in the beginnings of the alps which raise their snowy heads high into the sky above a rather starkly flat and treeless valley. On one side of the castle, a chasm drops away for some 8 -900 feet to a rushing torrent below.  The castle itself is a tribute to Ludwig’s dream to be a real duchal with a real castle in the most pristine places; surrounded by the sheer wildness of the mountains.  I guess I am also influenced by a couple of quotes of his that gave me an impression of his tortured life.  We toured the castle which was an absolute marvel.  He had a huge dance/ music room upstairs with scenes and characters from some of Wagner’s famous plays depicted on the walls.  He was a huge supporter of Wagner.  The castle took a lot of time to take in, but below it, nearer to the valley floor, he had built a castle for his in laws so we saw that too.  He had even rigged up some sort of telephone system between the castles for better communication.  Beside the lower castle there was a beautiful alpine lake frozen with about a foot of ice.  Surprisingly enough though, the day was quite warm and even balmy.  But above the main castle there was a foot bridge that crossed a waterfall rushing into a pool below, so we walked out on it as it was getting dusk and then climbed the hillside overlooking the gorge and ate some pasta salad Maria and I had made.  It was fun to eat the salad because I forgot to bring spoons with us so we had to fill our mouth with our hands or by sliding the noodles into our throats with our tongues.  Afterwards we hiked up higher off the trail until we were right on the verge of the precipice looking down into that gorge.  Maria and Alison sat together on the cliff and Eric and I walked on further.  There was a stiff breeze blowing but the view was so amazing that I hardly thought about the cold.  The whole time up there in the alps was really refreshing; I felt so free.

       We got back late that evening and we got to have an interesting chat with a man who works as a chef for MAN diesels of Germany.  The workers build trucks and engines and he feeds them.  The girls went to sleep on the trip home.  They were tuckered out. 

         Our third day we got up early once again.  I decided to check into the option of touring the BMW plant in Munich, the company is headquartered there, even though I had read on the internet that tours were only allowed if they were pre registered for.  However, we found that tours ran on the hour and so we decided to do it.  It was one of the most interesting things we did, I thought.  We got a really good first hand look at the quality that goes into building a BMW car.  They are really an example of super good engineering; German engineering.  I “test drove” a simulator in the display area.  It was supposed to be the version of their all wheel drive intelligent traction system which senses traction control via computers “sensing” each wheel individually.  Incredible!  Every car that leaves the plant is custom designed for a specific owner and has been fitted with options and additions to suit their whims.  Even the girls loved it.  Alison and I were watching the body “dipping” process and the rest of the group left us behind and we did not know which door to go through to catch up.  So, our tour guide was calling for us and we did not know where she was because we could hear her all the time through our headsets but couldn’t talk to her.  Finally we opened the right door and got back with the group.  I thought that the robots were the best part of production.  To see the robots work together was amazing.  They function in such limited spaces and yet the repeat their tasks with incredible precision.  We ate lunch and then dispersed to do more individual things.  I wanted to go to some English gardens . There was not a whole lot to see there because it is winter, but I loved watching people going about their weekend lives.  We walked back to the hostel to try to get tickets for a performance of the “Riverdance” which was happening in Munich.  We tried but the tickets were just too expensive: nearly ninety American dollars.  So we settled for some tea and coffee in a nice little bar/ restaurant on the south side of town.  It was warm and cozy and we talked and shared and just generally hung out.  It was a nice way to sort of “top off” our time together in the city.

Flying back to Poland was not easy, but I did realize that part of my heart is there.  Once again, I called it home.  With Rolski Polski, this is Robin signing off.

The Maluch is Running

Yes, this past week we finally put the finishing touches on the registration of our Maluch and finished the registration in John’s name.  I was absolutely ecstatic.  It is a token to me of how much love people have shown us (shown me).  Love does not equal money, but I am really, really thankful for the gifts that made it possible for us to buy and drive this Fiat. Thank you all very much.  We “dedicated” our car the other day and asked God to bless us when we use it.  We especially asked God to give us opportunities where we can use our car to bless other people and not just use it simply for our own benefit.  The other night we had such an opportunity.  I got really excited; mostly after the fact.  We were heading out of town, leaving the street lights behind and pushing through the darkness towards home.  When I flipped on the highbeams, they caught a young man standing on the side of the street who was ‘thumbing’ for a ride.  I say “thumbing” because Polish people do not “thumb a ride” but instead they sort of outstretch their right arm and “flop” their hand loosely at the wrist.  It gives me a strange feeling almost like the person who is asking for a ride is totally ashamed and that getting a ride doesn’t mean too much to them.  But that is not the case.  In all actuality, the young man seemed grateful to get a lift when he slouched into the front seat that Eric had just vacated or partially vacated.  Eric’s leg was still stuck between the two front seats and it took a moment to get him “unstuck” and start down the road.  It became evident that the young man was quite drunk when he opened his mouth to speak; the alcohol fumes were overpowering. But he was nice enough and we exchanged our names above the roaring techno music from his cell phone.  He even invited us over sometime for a beer.  I did not say that I would take him up on the offer, but I said that I would like to visit him sometime.   That is enough for today. With Polski Rolski, this is Robin signing off.

Revival

       You know, I am not a big fan of most Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) even though I know a lot of folks who are really devoted to this particular genera of music.   Music is an important part of my life and I listen to music from many different genres and by different artists,  but I guess that in a recent talk with a friend of mine I realized again about how crucial it is for me to think about my music and how it is affecting my life.  Back to theCCM songs.  If I am honest the vocal and musical style does not appeal to me many times, and so that is why I do not like some of these songs.  I feel unsettled by the really “breathy” vocal style of some of the singers.  Maybe I should search in the depths of my brain and specify why exactly I am not comfortable with this style but couldn’t I just leave it by saying that I think the “breathiness” really accentuates not only the importance of the message the  singer is trying to convey but also something very visceral, physical about the singer.  What is communicated ends up being more about the experience of the singer and less about the actually message of the song.  So having said all of that I would like to introduce a song that has meant a lot to me in the last year and a half.  I guess that he is my namesake or else I am his namesake.  His name is Robin Mark.  From what I understand, he is a man of God dedicated to the renewal of men in soul and body.  Here are the lyrics to his song “Revival”.

Revival

I hear the voice of one calling, prepare ye the way of the Lord.
And make His paths straight in the wilderness
And let your light shine in the darkness
And let your rain fall in the desert.

As sure as gold is precious and the honey sweet,
So you love this city and you love these streets.
Every child out playing by their own front door
Every baby laying on the bedroom floor.

Every dreamer dreaming in her dead-end job
Every driver driving through the rush hour mob
I feel it in my spirit, feel it in my bones
You’re going to send revival, bring them all back home

I can hear that thunder in the distance
Like a train on the edge of town
I can feel the brooding of Your Spirit
“Lay your burdens down, Lay your burdens down”.

From the Preacher preaching when the well is dry
To the lost soul reaching for a higher high
From the young man working through his hopes and fears
To the widow walking through the veil of tears

Every man and woman, every old and young
Every fathers daughter, every mothers son.
I feel it in my spirit, feel it in my bones
You’re going to send revival, bring them all back home

I can hear that thunder in the distance
Like a train on the edge of town
I can feel the brooding of Your Spirit
“Lay your burdens down, Lay your burdens down”.

Revive us, Revive us,
Revive us with your fire!

I will write more later concerning why I am affected and inspired by this song.  With Rolski Polski this is Robin signing off.

To move into a house of one’s own . . . almost

         Eric and I have moved from our home, my home for the last year and three months and his for the last almost three months, to a small cabin sheltered by the growth of pines and solitary leafless birches.  The steps to reach that place still remain a fog in my mind although I do know that it took a great deal of energy to finish insulating the house and to get the place somewhat livable.  You see the cabin had been filled to the brim with discarded clothing, couches, and other nameless odd items.  Les did everyone the favor of removing this junk and stowing it behind a nearby shed while waiting for a dumpster.  The dumpster has not appeared yet so a forlorn couch still waits encrusted in ice and the ever present hoar-frost.  We torn into the cabin this past summer to find vestiges of carpet padding in the walls to insulate against prevailing winter winds.  In other areas the insulation simply did not exist.  So, while Les refitted the cabin with new windows and doors, the rest of us fell to the task of removing all wall covering and adding five inches of insulation.  None too much, but better than the lack thereof.  The bathroom was getting tiled in late October and my friend, LeRoy, fitted the cabin with plumbing.  Towards the beginning of November, Laura, Alison, and Maria squared away the final touches of painting and cleaning.  Now, we are living there.

The cabin is a great and lonely place.  It is equipped with almost everything two bachelors need to stay alive; all but the food.  However, it is also a place where I have experienced some real frustration over the last month.  First, our well pump completely succumbed to entropy.  The motor burned up because one of the phases shorted out, and then when John got the motor rewound and re-reinstalled the pump just dribbled water out of the bottom and refused to pump.  So, we were without water at all for three or so weeks.  John faithfully hauled water over to us in bottles in the back of his van, but I was not always a happy trooper.  During this time the wood we were trying to burn was totally green wood which only sizzled and smoked in the fireplace.  It was downright cold to come home after a day of teaching and to watch your breath drift away in a white cloud towards the ceiling.  I bought a splitting maul and Eric and I fell upon the wood with viciousness (being cold makes you vicious) until we had split most of it into kindling sized pieces that would burn.  And the wood burned much better this way and made a lot of smoke.  So, those were our troubles with water and heat.

Now we are learning to cook.  Whow, look out!  Here come the yo, yo . . . two . . . two. . . who thought they was coo’ . . . they cook up some chow . . .  think they’ve got it dow’ . . . try ‘gain, try ‘gain, I say . . .we do it again . . . forget about the soup . . . do the loop . . . split some wood . . . think we done what we should . . . but then, yo, we smelled . . . oh . . . no . . . got the stuff in the pot . . . got it way too hot . . . wish a breeze would blow low . . . broths on the flo’ . . . the lentils are black . . . smell! you know you lost track . . . go to the fence . . . try not to dance . . . with the rage in yo bones . . . you done bad . . . ain’t got the lentils, wish you had . . . read on the web . . . know what a woman said? . . . she said . . . yeah she said . . . go to bed . . . don’t fret . . .  just open a can u spam . . . forget about it, man . . . but man, my stomach’s in a jam . . . ate nothing since one . . . won’t be no fun . . . hit the sack with no grub . . . no man, ain’t no chub . . . just want some food . . . anything good . . . don’t matt’r its hot o not . . . not really ready to eat  rot . . . but, hey, got to be a way . . . to live in the day . . . listen to uh (her) . . . she’s got somethin’ ta say . . . its the mother . . . it’s the sister . . . they know how to do it . . . they cook it, they stew it . . . wish I knew how to do it . . . but wait fo’ a minute . . . take a moment . . . be silent, brotha . . . give them the honor . . . speak really tender . . . it’s a gift, man . . . a gift from the Fatha . . . they do it . . . but I forget it . . . leave the table . . . blew it . . . forgot the meaning . . . the sacrificial love . . . sent from above . . . its the cook . . . just give her a look . . . yo, that food was top . . . remember L M Alcott . . . keeping house . . . ain’t no joke

Life is much easier now, we have enough pressure from our pump to get water in the sink even warm water sometimes.  John and I got some dry apple wood that has been burning much more reasonably than anything so far.  Christmas is upon us and past.  I want to thank God for his Son and for the peace on earth that He came to give.  Men will always fight but there can be peace in our hearts because of Him.

With Polski Rolski this is Robin signing off.

“Smoke when you can, snuff when you can’t.”

This evening I was part of an interesting discussion with my private students talking about Britain’s recent decision to use gory pictures of tobacco smokers’ decaying bodies as a means to discourage existing and potential smokers from cigarettes. During the course of our conversation, I asked them what they thought about government infringing on the “rights” of people to smoke/ making them feel guilty. They seemed to think that it was okay for the government to do this although one of them expressed some doubt as to the effectiveness of banning a personal habit. Then he started talking about an interesting practice that I thought had been lost in the folds of history, only remembered by little metal boxes for sale in antique shops; relics of that forgotten era. But I am wrong. Several years ago, the government in Poland tried to ban the use of snuff based on a pretext of health concerns. However, one particular part of Poland has had a “snuffing” tradition for generations and refused to give up the practice saying that it was taking away their cultural tradition to do so. This got me quite interested. I thought snuff was something that wealthy merchants and businessmen “used/ did” in sixteenth century England and Portugal. Now I learned that it is in fact a very old practice but not an obsolete one. In fact, it is really growing in popularity in some circles due to recent court rulings banning public smoking. Hence, snuff companies have capitalized on this social quandary to put in their own bid for satisfying the nicotine crave in public places.

I read a bit about the manufacturing and the use of snuff and found it to be quite informative. The grinding of the tobacco into powder at least the consistency of flour is difficult. It is done in mechanical mortar and pestles, but if the leaves are too dry the powder will become airborne and be lost. Talk about being in an environment where you would be “doing snuff”! So, the moisture content must be low but not too low allowing the product to disappear. After the grinding process is completed, the snuff is mixed with different natural oils, fragrances, and sweeteners to give it a particular signature flavor. To use the end product, the addict puts a pinch of the snuff under each nostril and inhales. the fine powder is sucked up onto the mucus linings of the nose where the nicotine is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream and the addict smells the fragrance and feels a nicotine boost for twenty minutes or so. I am sure you all have read classic English stories about a conversation between to aristocrats who “took snuff and sneezed together/ in unison”. This must mean that the tobacco irritates the lining of your nose enough to give you the urge to sneeze. I really don’t know if these guys were too nervous to be “doing snuff” properly but some sources say that if snuff is taken properly there will be little if any urge to sneeze. In the remote chance that the urge suddenly arises, I suppose the snuff user would do well to carry a heavy weight bandanna to catch that sneeze. But make it a red or green or blue one. Not white.

In no way am I condoning the use of tobacco.  With Polski Rolski, this is Robin signing off.

This is Badel and I

I enjoyed having Badel, Samantha in our home so much.  She and I are good friends.

Of Les’ Departure and Arek’s Coming

I wanted to write a tribute to my room mate and fellow “guy” here in Poland. There is a lot that I admire about Les. He is not a really tall guy but he’s got so much character to make up for his physical stature. His devotion to language study here is unmatched by any young person so far. Sometimes it got frustrated watching Les listen to a conversation and interact with it almost like he was speaking his native language. But there were those amazing times when I would say to Les, “You know what, man, I really did not get anything they just said.”And he would say to me, “Me neither.”  Les is also a man of really deep spiritual knowledge and he is willing to share that with those around him; to love them and to quietly stand beside people in their lives.  I really feel blessed to have shared time with him in Poland and in our “guy den/ hole”.  Some things that I loved doing with Les.

-riding our bicycles to Treblinka the day after Christmas.  It was really cold and we packed very little in the way of trail food or provisions, so we were counting heavily on stocking up from roadside skleps.  Little did we know that skleps are not open the day after Christmas.  So, here we were trundling down endless roads with very little to eat or drink.  We came into one small town and asked for a hint as to which might be the right road towards Treblinka and whether or not any stores were open.  A couple of bedraggled old fellows in long trench coats broke their mutually shared silence for a moment to mutter a bit in response.  We pushed into the little wodka bar on the side of town to ask if they might have a liter or so of liquid to sell us, preferably not alcohol.  The cigarette smoke hung low over the counter and gray, woolen clad men stared vaguely up at us.  Several shifted their half liters to the other hand and resumed their composed study of us.  Silence was predominate.  We bought two liters of orange juice, clinking our sweaty zlotes on the grimy counter.  Must have been a strange pair,we two.  Les was wearing his red down vest and I had on a streamlined cycling helmet . . . and bid them farewell.  We got to Treblinka only to be severely blasted by cold wind and snow.  The trip was a total of one hundred and fifty kilometers or more.

-we took Rich hostage when he was visiting Cor.  It was very successful and we ended up really having a good time with him.   They were always hanging out and the guys had no time with him, so we made time

-Listening to Les talk about relating to other people and having long discussions about evangelism, love, meaning, dreams, trucks, music, words, and we go on.  We had some really fun times watching movies together or lighting candles on cold winter nights, after midnight and sitting there talking with mugs of coffee or hot chocolate . . . our room was cold too

-going on a walk with Les in the forest just after it had rained; walking through the mist and enjoying just being together.

-searching for tickets, scrambling for options, and then deciding about going to Ireland; carrying it out and having a splendid time together; But YOU drove on the wrong side, man!

Yes, Les, I do consider you to be a brother and a real friend.  Thank you for your friendship.

Now, to my friend Eric, Arek, welcome.  He is a really great guy.  A singer, a really caring friend, a visionary, a person who wants to live in harmony and still have fiber in his food.  I am so glad he is here.  I expect that a few things will happen when we put our heads together:)  Yessir, get ready!  This is a great picture of Eric and his huge heart for people. Eric and Samantha, Roy and Elizabeth Yoder’s little girl, are hanging out. Cheers, man.

My Friends . . .

   Several of my friends came to visit me in the last months.   They are each great people because they are unique and because they all really want to make a mark on the world; to give to those around them.  First of all, I will recognize Beatrice, Lois, and Janelle.  They are my friends from Faith Builders, and they came here to see me.  I know that sounds conceited, but it is partly true.  They play off each other in the humor that they create.  Sometimes they can’t even stop laughing at the jokes they share.  Seems like that is why they never slept the night before they left They made themselves very wonderful guests by they pitching in and working on whatever was going each day.  They even made us a scrumptious Mexican meal. Next comes Kendall, the guy, he is the one who I really felt like I got to know much better this time than I ever have.  We had some really great conversation about commitment in marriage and in singlehood (0f course he is dating so this is a very relevant subject:)), about music, and about some other important and goofy things as well.  He helped the guys dig the footers for the house and then to wire up rebar for the footer itself.  I really enjoyed having him here.  (The picture here is of Kendall with his turban on after we were walking around Krakow late at night during our Krakow-Auschwitz trip). Thank you for coming to visit!

Now my friend, LeRoy, from my home community of Gap Mills WVa is here for two months to help work on the house for John and Laura.  He has been really fun to get to know again; a real man of God and principle.  I have also loved to watch him jive with the Polish culture.  The first week he was here he started making it his business to explore the town and systematically lose himself in his “free time”.  He has this ancient old cruiser of a bicycle that he trundles around town on.  Building a basic Polish vocabulary for himself has not seemed to be too much of a problem even though he communicates by acting when he wants to buy something.  A great phrase that he and his boss learned and use effectively during building is: “Mam prace dla ciebie!” (I have work for you!)  LeRoy and I went on a jaunt down to Prague the other day when we were waiting on materials.  We had a great time snooping around the city and seeing many of the ancient architectural wonders.  One of LeRoy’s favorite places was the orchard on the hillside below the Strahov Monastery.  We ate supper there one night and laughed hysterically watching a man throw sticks into one of the trees trying to knock out a few green pears, only to knock down a bunch of leaves and nearly “bop” himself on the head with the stick.