February 2007

Several new ministry opportunities are opening. 

Most recently, 300 prison inmates at a large federal prison in Wronki (about an hour from Poznan) asked to join an English Club.  The facility, built by the Prussians over 100 years ago, now houses about 1500 inmates. 

What began as a club of about 10 people has suddenly exploded.  It seems that someone decided to announce the club on the prison radio station.  Though prison officials will likely not allow that many inmates to participate, the huge response was a reminder that the Holy Spirit is indeed at work, often in places and in ways we don’t immediately perceive.

Joan will begin accompanying Jack to Wronki twice per month beginning March 1 to help with the club.  How exciting it is to think that a place in which thousands of people suffered (and no doubt many died) under the brutal regimes of the Nazis and later the Communists, is now a place in which the authorities are allowing the gospel to be preached.

November 2006

We just finished another round of English Clubs and are in the first weeks of a new season of Life Clubs.  This time around we have one Life Club in Polish and one in English.

These English Clubs were much smaller than we usually have, as we had a small team of only 5 Americans.  The smaller clubs, though, allowed us to connect on a deeper level with many students we’ve known for years.  Some of these students have recently started attending Life Clubs.  We hope to see many more faces as the Truth of Christ starts to take hold in their hearts and they begin sharing with their own friends! 

UPDATE:  In October God answered our prayers and sent Lisa Bartlett (originally from North Dakota) to help teach the Stockdale kids so that Jack and Joan can focus more time on learning Polish this year.  Lisa is doing a great job teaching Graham and Isaac.  She’s even doing the laundry!!!  Even after the first few weeks of intensive language study Jack and Joan are feeling more encouraged and are seeing progress in their language acquisition! 

June 2006

Jack and Joan are praying for/looking for someone who would come to Poland to help with schooling our kids for the 2006/2007 school year. As you know, Polish is a real “bear” of a language and they would like to commit as much time as possible to study it.

They are “borrowing” this idea from Missionary Nannies, an organization which connects missionary families with single women – usually widowed or divorced older women but increasingly they are working with college age women.

The idea is pretty simple. She serves on a volunteer basis. She is financially responsible for her plane ticket and personal spending money. The missionary family covers her room and board. She handles schooling, shopping, running errands, or whatever they need her to do. It would be a great way for someone to experience life with a missionary family as well as visit some interesting places on the continent of Europe.

Jack says the main points are:

• We would like someone who could make a two year commitment but we realize that’s asking a lot. We would take a one-year commitment.
• Although women especially tend to have an interest in something like this, we are certainly open to having a man.
• We would like him/her to start in the fall of this year around October 1.
• It could be someone middle-age or younger.
• Our two older kids are mostly self-directed in their studies and our youngest will likely be attending Polish schools. So responsibilities mainly would be centered on Isaac (11), a bright, eager, co-operative child and Graham (13) who is also co-operative but has some learning disabilities.
• A college degree is not a requirement (but patience and some organizational skills are!)
• The school year runs through the end of June.
• He/She would get off all holidays.
• He/She would not be required to learn Polish.
• He/She would not have ministry responsibilities (outside the home) per se but we’d certainly welcome her involvement.
• Arrangements could be made for this person to raise their support but costs would not be nearly as high as for a normal foreign missionary.
• We’d be quite happy to communicate over the phone or through email with anyone who may have further questions.

May 2006

Krista is currently in Canada for a time of reflection and to pray about her future ministry in Poland. She has greatly enjoyed her time in Poznan and treasures her relationship with our team, but feels the Lord may be leading her on from here. She has a passion for youth and athletics and is currently praying about how that can be used best in Poland. Please pray for her and for our team during this time of transition.

April 2006

At the end of March we ran our annual Spring English Clubs with the help of West Highland Baptist church! The week was full of English and fun “Canadian Style” with over 90 students who signed up to participate. They learned more about Canadian culture, like the beaver is a “truly proud and noble animal”, participated in a CN Tower building contest, sampled maple syrup and ended the week with a floor hockey tournament between the different clubs (which were each given an NHL team name!) Again it was an opportunity to share the love of Christ with students, through our lives. It was also great to see the Lord working in the lives of the Canadian team members, giving them a greater appreciation for the gospel of grace and the freedom that is ours in Christ. God was also at work in the lives and hearts of the Polish students. After the week of clubs one of the Polish girls we have known for a year or so, met with Jack and his wife, who shared what it meant to have true life in Christ. Later that night she made a decision to follow Christ!! This was just before Easter weekend and as most of Poland mourned Christ’s death on the cross, she was celebrating her new life in Christ!!

February 2006

For several years we have partnered with short-term teams from U.S. churches to provide free English Clubs here in Poznan. The Clubs are a way to meet and connect with students while providing quality conversational language with native speakers. It has been a dream of our Ukrainian teammates, Sasha and Anya Zubenko, to have a team from their home church come and assist with Russian Clubs. On Jan. 21, this dream became a reality as a team of 7 arrived from Spring of Hope church in Kiev, Ukraine. The following week we connected with 21 people through our first Russian Clubs. It was an exciting week to see Eastern European believers reaching out to fellow Eastern Europeans. Though Ukrainian and Polish cultures do have differences, they are more similar than American and Polish cultures. It was a time for Poles to see that this message of God’s love and salvation is truly a message we get from the Bible, not just from our Western culture. It was also a time for us to experience fellowship with these Ukrainian believers. We found it encouraging to see their lives and hear how they had come to fully rely on Christ despite having grown up in a country where talking about God was illegal. The Ukrainian churches are seeing many new believers commit their lives to Christ and we pray that the future of this church will tell a similar story.

May this verse one day describe the church in Poland:
”And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God.” 1 Thess. 1:8-9

January 2006

The New Year started off for us with a big bang in Amsterdam. A group of 12 of attended GCM's first Europe wide conference AWAKEN! A friend of ours on staff with Zolder50 in Amsterdam had been praying that it would feel like a family reunion and that the Europeans would feel like they were attending their own family reunion and not someone elses. Can you imagine worship in 7 languages, messages simultaneously being translated into 5 languages, people from across Europe uniting in Christ. Indeed for me it did feel like a family reunion but also like just the beginning, the beginning of something great. Europe is a continent in deep need spiritually, while once filled with great cathedrals in Amsterdam less than 2% of the population attends church and in Poland less than 0.2% of the population are evangelical Christians. AWAKEN brought great hope that God is at work here, yet there are many countries, cities and towns without much of a gospel witness.

Back in Poland we continue to press on and meet as a small home fellowship. We are building relationships and unity and continue to pray that God would build his church here. January 23-27th we will have our first ever Russian Club outreach. This is an exciting time for us because the short term missionaries coming to help us are from our neighbouring church in Ukraine, Spring of Hope!! People said of AWAKEN that it was history in the making and the answer to over 30 years of prayer for Europe. Likewise these Russian clubs are indeed history in the making, Europeans mobilizing missions to reach Europe with the Gospel!! Please pray that this time would be powerful and effective.

While the Awaken conference was taking place in Amsterdam, the Stockdales attended the Faithwalkers conference at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. Jack had the privilege of speaking in one of the main sessions to the 1500 believers who had gathered. He teamed with one of his heroes, Herschel Martindale for the first Main Session message entitled "A Great God, a Great Commission, and a Great Power." Later in the week he presented a seminar which he called Get Out of the Boat! You can listen to these and other messages from the Faithwalkers Conference by going to http://malexmedia.net/faithwalkers_2005_teachings.