Steve and Jenny Valentine

MARCH was still a bit cold and we walked on our frozen lake, got a weekend away to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary (our first time to Gdańsk), our first couples massage together, the beginning meetings for a new church start here, times with friends, Easter celebrations, and a positive pregnancy test (more on that later!). APRIL was still fairly cold, we cuddled, told the kids they were going to have another baby brother or sister (and got some interesting "pregnancy" snacks from our neighbor), Steve trip with our boss, bowling with the kids (and some friends) for the first time, and a family trip to Szczecin to work with some ministry partners. MAY we went on a retreat with the new church plant group with are working with and kids enjoyed a lot of time outdoors, enjoyed a visit with a missionary friend of ours who came to town, dance parties, seeing baby #4 on ultrasound, figuring out medical stuff for Jenny's pregnancy, outdoor ga...

We went over our pictures from the past eight months and as promised, here is a recap of what life has looked like for us...of course this will not be exhaustive, there's really no way to encapsulate eight months worth of moments in one (or more) short blog post. Enjoy! NOVEMBER was filled with pie making, commemorating Poland's independence, Silly moments with kiddos, new home workout program since our gym closed down and cold outside runs for Steve, Steve buying a new suit for a wedding he officiated (in December), a combined city-wide Evangelical service, creating our thankful tree for the month, welcoming friends from America (and Budapest) to celebrate Thanksgiving together with us (and trying to find a turkey to bake!), holiday markets in old town, our side street being paved and cute cafe visits. DECEMBER brought our first snowfall of Winter, putting up holiday decorations, playing "astronaut" in the living room, holiday light up in the square, receiv...

How do you come back from an eight month blogging hiatus? We know keeping our blog up to date allows us a convenient way to let our friends and family back in the States know how things are going here (about the things we experience, etc.)...however, we have found that posting about it, just takes a backseat to actually living those experiences. (Plus, if you're one of our Ministry Partners, you probably receive our regular updates via email or FB. If you don't receive those updates, please don't hesitate to message us and we will be happy to add you to that group of people we send updates to). We do want to write more on the blog, so hopefully we will make more regular visits and posts here, so... STAY TUNED! Next post will be full of pictures recapping our last eight months! Grace to you, Steve and Jenny

“Mom, My heart broke at school!” Exclaimed my 3 year old as she walked in the front door, daddy following behind. I quickly looked at him in sheer confusion, to which he helped me understand, it wasn’t her actual heart but rather the small heart craft that was sent to here from friends in America. She had taken this cute little craft with her to school to show her friends and her teacher this new treasure she had been given. She (and her brother) tried all afternoon to fix said heart craft but to no avail. She was just bummed. I told her we could work on it tomorrow.  So on the following day she was telling her daddy how all her efforts had not worked to fix her heart and that she had tried and tried and nothing worked. I called from upstairs and said, “Olivia, daddy will have to fix your heart for you!” Do you ever say things as a parent and then directly hear God say those same words to you? This was one of those moments.  You see we have a huge sin problem. ...

So today was way less than ideal (but this is kind of becoming a trend around here lately...ideal has long left us!) We woke up to our youngest having a fever (after our son had a fever the other day, we weren't surprised and thankful we had at least 24 hours without someone having a fever over our Easter Break)...and also our oldest who was coughing a bit, so it was a no brainer that we couldn't go to church. We were all pretty bummed, well not our youngest, she just wanted to be snuggled in mommy's lap-to which I gladly obliged. I admit, I was sad, disheartened and a bit deflated. Both Steve and I are weary of all the health issues our entire family has been facing for the past (well I don't even know how long anymore because it's been so long!) I was also a bit irritated this morning by the constant whining that was happening from all the little people and found myself apologizing a couple times for how I responded to their yucky behavior with my own yucky beha...

*Disclaimer* I (Jenny here) have a hard time sharing things personally (especially on a blog) but I like to write and it helps me process and it keeps our family and friends back in the States "in the loop"...so I make myself write about what God is doing in my life, even in the hard pieces. With that being said, if any of what I write seems slanted, confusing or jaded...it might be... (I also don't like being misunderstood, haha!) but also, I'm finding I just don't have the proper words (yet) to really explain all of how I have processed this whole move so far. I get words/thoughts in spurts...and so when I do, I will write. Steve and I want to be better at writing this coming year. Last year on the blog we spent a great deal of time telling stories and sharing pictures about what we experience here...this year, though, we want to be more wordy and give you a deeper level of our thoughts through the things we experience everyday. Some days will be funny and some...

Well here we are at last...finishing up the blog series "Poland 365". If you have missed any of the stories and pictures from some of the weeks we have posted, you can click on the label at the bottom of this blog "POLAND 365" and it will bring up all our blog posts in this category. Thank you for following along in 2016 (our first full calendar year living in Poland). We hope you enjoyed hearing more about our experience, the culture here and a glimpse of what life is like in Poland.  In this coming year, we will post more of our experiences through writing, telling stories and sharing experiences and the moments God is using to draw us closer to Him through our time in Poland. Without further ado, on to the last few pictures from 2016... December 23 - More cookie baking with grandma. Can you see the delight of decorating these sugar cookies on the kids' faces? Olivia especially enjoyed liking up the extra sprinkles that fell off each cookie ;) Dece...