We had our first day of prayer walking in Olsztyn with the volunteer team yesterday. It was really good. We started in front of one of the largest churches in Olsztyn which has built into the front of it this saying “Mother to your Son lead us” (in Polish of course). We say several things including the new Michelin tire plant, a school, a Pentecostal church, a prison, and hundreds of barking dogs. Later we headed to Sean and Lydia’s neighborhood and prayed for nearly the entire neighborhood. We prayed for some of the members of our English Club who live there. We prayed for workers in the harvest, that the word of God would spread through this area, and that God would draw this entire neighborhood to himself.

We also celebrated Sean and Lydia’s oldest daughter’s birthday. It was loads of fun! It had a mouse theme, so there was a mouse cake, chocolate mice, and hundreds of other mice!

Two links about All Saint's Day

All Saints Day

Halloween in Poland

Poland may extend Iraq mission

Poland may extend Iraq mission

All Saint's Day

All Saint's Day

This week we have a volunteer team coming from Central Baptist in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They will be spending the week prayer walking the city of Olsztyn. We have been trying to prayer walk all of Olsztyn and by the time this group leaves we will have finished this task.

One of the other big things that they will be doing is going to the cemetery on November 1st to pray for the people that are visiting graves. The above link is some pictures that Sean and I took last year. Please pray for this team as they prepare to come and minister here. Maybe as the week goes on we can post some more about this holiday and the importance of it.

Here is the latest picture or the baby. The doctor says that everything with both the baby and Emily looks good. It was really cool to get to see the baby moving around inside of Emily, and to see his legs and arms (he turned away from the ultrasound that�s why you can�t see the arms and legs in this picture). We continue to thank God for this blessing and continue to pray for health and safety for our baby. 

This is a good article about the state of Christianity in Czech and Poland. I ado not totally agree with everything that was said about Poland, but in general it's a pretty good summary of things here. This article makes it sound like the Church (capital C) in Poland is in a great decline, and though it may be declining some, I don't think it is as much as it makes it sound. Also it makes it sound like many churches are empty, but that is far from the truth. Most churches that I have seen are overflowing with people for nearly every Sunday morning service.

Brooks September Newsletter

Dearest Friends
and Family,

This has been an exciting month...

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Big News!

As many of you already know or can tell from the picture,
we are going to have a baby! If you are from Crawfordsville, Laura Ann
probably told you about it, since she has told everyone she has seen in the past
month! :) We are very excited about our baby, but we think that our parents
may be even more excited. We have been calling the baby Oliver because the day
before we found out, Sean and Lydia’s youngest daughter was playing with clay and
made a baby. She gave it to Emily and said, “Aunt Emily, you are going to have
a baby and his name will be Oliver. So here is baby Ollie.” Please pray for
Emily and the baby. Pray that the baby would continue to develop strong and
healthy.

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English Club

English Club has been going really well since the school
year started! We have had an average of 6 or 7 people and 2 new people have
started coming. We have started talking about different aspects of the
Christian life. Though only one of these people is a Christian, we have felt
like it was time to move the Bible studies in this direction. We have talked
about baptism, the concept of being salt and light, the fruits of the Spirit,
and prayer. These topics have brought up many great questions and conversations
and chances to share examples from our own lives. We are thankful for the
progress that our friends are making in their journeys to faith. Please
continue to pray for our friends, that the Lord would lift the veil from their
minds and hearts. Also pray for Isabel, she wants to know how to receive
forgiveness for sins. We had an opportunity to talk with her a little, and Sean
gave her “Steps to Peace with God” by Billy Graham, and will be talking more
about it with her this week. Pray for this conversation.

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Gosia's Baptism

We are so excited to be able to share this great news with
you! We know that many of you have been praying for Gosia for quite a while and
we are all praising the Lord for her salvation and obedience in baptism. She
was baptized on the public beach in Olsztyn; this is a very popular lake (see
the sail boats in the background). It was a perfect day for an outdoor baptism;
sunny, warm, and lots of people out. Several people for English Club came and
shared in this occasion, many of them witnessing their first Protestant
baptism. Because of this Gosia had the opportunity to witness to several of
these folks, and now many of them are asking really good questions and seeking
what Gosia has. There was even a priest there who was interested and set up a
time to meet with the pastor of the Baptist church in Olsztyn.

Please continue to pray for Gosia in her new found
faith. She has already experienced some hard times and opposition from
family. She has been a big help during English Club and will be helping
lead a discussion on prayer this week. Please pray for her as she is
preparing for this.

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Kids' Party in
Ketrzyn

The fourth Saturday in September we went to Ketrzyn to help our friends there
put on another party for local children and the children of students from the
English School in the church. We did a puppet show that talked about the birth
of Jesus, sang some fun kids songs, ate yummy sandwiches, had a fair where there
were games for prizes, and Sean did a really cool gospel presentation with
balloons. Here is an excerpt from an email that we received from Ania and
Michal, our partners in Ketrzyn and the directors of the English School there.

We asked the parents from our school about their
kids and they were very pleased about the event. While we were talking with
one of parents we saw that one little girl was drawing a sinful heart on our
white board. She was illustrating the story told during that evangelization.
So it had an impact on the children’s life definitely.

One of the 11 years old girl, I teach English to, is
a big fan of “the little Witch” magazine. She reads it very often and that
worries parents a bit. It also worries me when I see that she is wearing
strange necklaces on herself, like some spooky dragon. I just hope and
pray that the message she saw and heard during the evangelization would work
in her heart. I pray that the Holy Spirit would start drawing her closer to
the Lord and away from the magic. She is the girl for whom Sean made a
balloon heat.

Please pray for the follow-up that Ania and Michal will
be continuing to do. Also pray that they will have continued to
opportunities to share with the parents and children who were at the Party.

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Coming Up!

This Saturday we are having a party with our English Club.
There will be food, games, and Sean and Kevin will be playing music and teaching
some new songs to our friends. Please pray that we will have opportunities
to share our lives and faith with the people that come, that our friends will
bring some of their friends, and that God will continue to work in us and
through us!

At the end of this month, beginning of next we will have
another volunteer team from Central Baptist Jonesboro. They will be here to
prayer walk the city and in the cemeteries, for the living, during the holiday
of All Saint’s Day. Please pray for safe travel and fruitful ministry while
here.

As we told you last month, we are looking towards our
future, even more so now with a baby on the way. We will soon be looking for
jobs, cars, and schools. Our #1 choice for seminary was New Orleans Baptist
Theological Seminary. Because of the Hurricane we are not sure how that will
work out for the fall 2006. I read on their website today that they plan on
having the entire campus rebuilt by August. Please pray that we will have
wisdom in the decisions that we will be making. Please also pray that we will
trust in the Lord and his provision of our needs.

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For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His
mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the
west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

--Psalm 103:11-12

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