Hi everyone! Thank you so much for all the prayer support following the request we sent out! We heard back from several of you personally, letting us know that you, and/or your church or small group would be praying. It has been a very strange few weeks, but Jesus has been with us.

We just wanted to take a few minutes and let you know…Drum roll… that the first Sweet Surrender Coffee House is officially open for business. After so many difficulties and trials we have finally achieved what we have felt the Lord has been leading our team toward for over a year now. Our Gdansk location held its Grand Opening on Dec. 6th at 11 a.m. We are very excited about the way the community welcomed us. One young lady came twice that day; first with family and then with friends!

We have been so thankful to have Tom and Linda Spalding (pictured below) with us. They served as missionaries in Bolivia for over 30 years. So, we just call them Mom and Dad. They have come onto the scene in Gdansk at just the right moment. The experience in "fix-it" ministry that they have has helped us in ways none of us could ever have imagined but God knew we needed. Without their help the shop would not have opened on time.

On that evening we had three young musicians sing for us. (They are pictured on page 2) Lindy Bennett was with us from the USA. Ania, our ever faithful assistant from Poznan came to Gdansk with us. Thea Hansen, our Mission Corps volunteer in Gdansk, also sang. Together they made some very impressive music and the people loved it! They sang Christmas carols and some old tunes as well as a few they came up with on their own. It made for such a lovely atmosphere in the shop.

Also, we thank you for praying for all of the inspections. There were some last minute changes that we had to make but it seems that the inspectors were impressed with what had been done. Dawid and Simona Berdowski have put many hours into the securing of paperwork and vendors to make such a place run. We are proud of them and happy that they can now settle into the ministry of Sweet Surrender. Please pray for them that this place will do well both in business but also in ministry as we reach into the community.

In a few weeks, we will begin the process all over again in Poznan. The South Texas WW team arrives on January 14th to begin the remodel here. We also are making plans to open a shop in Copenhagen, so there is much to be done. If you would like to bring a Work and Witness team to join us, at one of these locations please let us know. Should you wish to make a donation to Sweet Surrender Coffee House Ministries receive 10% giving status if sent through The Spencer Green Memorial Fund, and Northern European Partnership. – Rhonda

Just a Thought…

It was something that happened several weeks ago, but my mind periodically runs back to that evening. It must have been in September. Sometime after 11pm. Roosevelta was mostly an empty road. It was cold. Nothing like it is today, in mid-December, but it was cold. We were stopped at a light, when suddenly an old man began half running, half shuffling across the street. He was wrapped in a bedspread and wearing slippers. He sort of checked to make sure there were no trains coming and sort of made sure there were no cars, but mostly he was focused on the other side of the road and mostly he was oblivious to everything else. Rhonda noticed him first and felt we should do something to help him. So, Ania (who we were taking home at the time) and I got out and walked over to the old man.

By now he was a block or so ahead of us. We watched him go from one doorway to the next, speaking into the apartment intercom systems, kicking at the doors, occasionally rapping on the storefront windows with a magnifying glass and peering intently inside.

When we caught up to him, I put my arm around him and steered back around in the direction from whence he had come. When Ania was finally able to get his attention and talk with him, he said that he lived in one of these buildings and that he was just trying to find which one. He said he was 83 years old. One end of the bedspread was tied to a wrist, the other to an ankle. Underwear and slippers completed the ensemble. Cut to the chase…Through a series of guesses, deductions and near miraculous coincidences, Rhonda and Ania returned our friend to where he was living…about 3 blocks in the opposite direction from where he had been headed. When he found his house…where he lived alone…he was irked that no one let him in when he buzzed his room from the stoop outside. He shouted at the intercom that was calling his apartment, where of course nobody answered. I shook my head. We all felt badly for him, and for his situation.

His neighbor explained that our friend had been showing signs of Alzheimer’s for the past several months. So, obviously there was a rationale for his behavior. It was such an odd thing to digest; his image still clear in my mind as I think of it. And the capper; what made him the angriest, was that there was nobody home to fix the mess that he got himself into when he left the house. The idea that came to me was this: I wonder how often I have kicked at the door and grumbled at the night for shutting me out in the cold, when the decision to wander off into the darkness had been all mine. The truth is, it has happened more often than I want to admit, and I have no excuse except for my own selfish will. Through this late-night adventure in Poland, the Lord gave me an insight into my own behaviors that I need to deal with. Anyway…just a thought!