The Mother Mission Trip to Poland and the Urkraine

A little over ten years ago my daughter, Rachael (of http://www.meanderingmaine.com/) and I took a trip to Poland and the Ukraine. Rachael had been there before on a missionary trip with her church in Baltimore, Maryland. (http://www.greatergraceworldoutreach.org/) She was in Bible College at Greater Grace and her studies required her to do some kind of "hands on" outreach. Rachael loves mission work so decided to go to Eastern Europe and visit a couple of the affiliated churches over there and assist where ever needed. Also, Rachael's maiden name is Galkowski and the Galkowski's are from Lublin, Poland. She really wanted to see the little town where her father's family was from. I thought it was pretty cool idea, too.

The reason I wanted to go on this trip was, of course, to see part of Eastern Europe and to meet all the lovely people from the affiliated churches, and to see the town where the Galkowski's came from. But, the biggest reason I wanted to go was because Rachael was in love with a Ukrainian man. Rachael was in her early twenties and had fallen in love with this Ukrainian man who was an assistant pastor at his home town church in Lviv. He was a nice enough man (I guess) but she wanted to marry him and live in the Ukraine FOREVER! This did not sit well with me for a multitude of reasons. I decided I needed to go on a Mother Mission and find out just what the deal was. So in early August of that year we set off for the very long flight to Eastern Europe.

The flight from Portland to London was 5 or 6 hours long. Once we landed at the Heathrow Airport we caught another flight to Warsaw, Poland. Perhaps that was a couple of hours long. We were met at the airport by several young adults who were part of the affiliated church in Warsaw. They were going to let us stay with them overnight. The next day we were going to meet up with Rachael's boyfriend and his friend. The plan was that they would drive us to Lviv, Ukraine.

We were quite jet lagged by the time we arrived as the time change was at least 6 hours ahead of us and we had not slept. It was early in the day when we got there and we were dying to sight see so we ignored our tiredness and forged ahead. It was well worth it as the group of young people who were our hosts were very kind and sweet and really wanted to show us their city. Warsaw is an amazing city full of history. It is a very old city and so very different from our American cities. We toured grand gardens of a past king that the city had converted into a park. The gardens were spectacular as you can see in the top photo posted. Rachael and our new friends are sitting on the bench. We also went to the oldest part of the city to see the Jewish Ghetto that had been erected during World War II. It was very sobering to see such a thing. The picture above is a photo of what was left of the wall that surrounded the Jewish Ghetto.

After a good night's sleep we got up the next morning, met up with Rachael's boyfriend and his friend and set out for Lviv, Ukraine. On the way, we did stop for a quick visit to Lublin, Poland. I felt like I was stepping back in time as the town was all cobblestones and very old buildings. The name of the Catholic Church there was the Vincent Paul, my oldest son's name. We thought that was pretty cool. The picture on the right is of some of the buildings in Lublin. Beautiful.

The road trip from Warsaw, Poland to Lviv, Ukraine was quite long, but very interesting. One thing that seems to stick in my mind is that I saw white storks everywhere and I also noted that many people had built some sort of tower beside their home. The storks built nests on top of these towers. I think it was sort of a good luck thing. When I saw that sight I suddenly remembered that when I was a little girl my mother read me a story that involved storks and the book had illustrations of these towers with the stork nests on top of them. To this day I can't remember the name of the book. I've asked many people including my mother and no one can seem to remember. Can you? I would love to know the name of that book. Please email me if you know what I'm talking about. I would love to solve that mystery.

I greatly enjoyed our little journey through the Polish countryside. It was an adventure that I will never forget. Then we came to the border of the Ukraine. Talk about interesting and a little scary! There was a long line of vehicles to cross the border. And the border control workers had all the power and loved and abused it (I think). You did have to show them your passports and all that, but what actually got you over the border into Ukraine was money. That's right, bribes! Whoever paid the most money got out of there the quickest. We had to wait an hour or so, but finally were allowed to cross. And, yes, we paid a bribe. No one gets out of there without paying a bribe, especially a car with Americans in it. I felt like I was in a movie.

I thought I could get the whole trip into one blog but I can see now that I've got to write a part two, maybe a part three to this story. So, I hope you will check in to this blog in a few days so you can know "the rest of the story" to quote Paul Harvey. Does Rachael marry the Ukrainian and live in Lviv FOREVER or does a mother's love win out?