What's happened to those Fletchers???

I cannot believe that I have not updated this blog since December! I sincerely apologize, and I thank all of you who have prayed for us even when you didn't know our specific needs. I know that you are all praying for us, because we could not make it one day without all the prayer support. We pray blessings on you all for continually praying for us.


I am not going to do a lengthy, in-depth update for the past 6 months (I hear cheers...). I'll give a brief summary and then share what's going on with us right now. So, since our last update, we...

• celebrated Doyle's birthday
• celebrated a wonderful Christmas (mainly by talking about next Christmas being in Texas!)
• celebrated Tristyn's 13th birthday (2 teenagers in the house now...pray for us!)
• had a volunteer team from Union University
• Doyle completed his spring semester seminary course
• welcomed 2 new families serving in Krakow
• had our first baptism service with Compass International Fellowship
• had a spring egg hunt outreach
• celebrated Falyn's 15th birthday
• travelled to Ukraine and back in one day for visa renewal (this was so crazy you all wouldn't believe it)
• helped do a VBS program for Polish children
• had about 80 Polish lessons (but it only seemed like 75)
• celebrated Daegan's 11th birthday
• welcomed 4 volunteer summer interns to work with us here in Krakow
• had a volunteer team from Pioneer Baptist Church
• celebrated that Tristyn and Daegan have finished school for the year
• bought airline tickets to come back to Texas for stateside!

Now for the present...

We have many doctor appointments for all of us the next few weeks as we prepare to go back to Texas (kids and needles, need I say more?)

On Monday, Doyle will be seeing the doctor once again for his elbow. He has gone much longer this time, but it is painful. Please pray for him.

On Tuesday, Falyn will (much to her delight) be getting her braces off. She has endured so many different, painful procedures, and she is so excited to finally be finished before returning to the States. It's hard to believe that she will have been prepped for braces, received braces, and will have them removed without anyone from America ever seeing her with them. Seems like so long. Falyn is almost finished with school. This has been her toughest year ever! She must finish by Wednesday, and she still has quite a bit to do. She is working very hard, so please pray for her to complete her work quickly and finish well.

Tristyn has finished 7th grade and is enjoying his free time now. As a wonderful answer to prayer, God did provide a special friend for Tristyn here in Krakow. In April, we welcomed a new family that has a son a year younger than Tristyn. Their son is identical to Tristyn is so many ways that it kind of scares us and his parents a little. This was such an unexpected answer to prayer, and we are so thankful to God for always hearing our needs.

Daegan is ecstatic that school is over. I really worked the boys hard this year also. We had so many interruptions last year with all the travels and the move, so I didn't give them many breaks this year. Daegan loves being outside in the nice Krakow weather but sure does miss those Texas bugs.

On Friday, we will leave to go to Greece for a week for our annual mission conference. We are excited about seeing old friends from Russia, being spiritual refreshed, and seeing a beach for the first time in almost 4 years. And since our organization is occupying the entire resort, we won't have to see any Speedos or topless sunbathers. At least, I don't think we will see any? This will be Tristyn's first year in the youth program there. Please pray for our travels to and from Greece and for Falyn, Tristyn, and Daegan to be spiritually refreshed through their programs.

We return from Greece on the 27th, and then we leave for the States on July 5th. It has been over 3 1/2 years since we left the States, and we are so incredibly excited about our return. We miss our families, our church family, and all of our friends so much! We still have so many preparations to complete before our return. We have a "things to do" list everyday between now and then. Also, we will be bringing our little dog, Trixie, back with us. Please pray for all our preparations to go well between now and then.

As you may or may not know, the total giving for the IMB Lottie Moon Offering last year was significantly down, probably due to the poor economy in the States right now. The final total was somewhere around 30 million dollars short of the goal. This has had a huge impact on missions. The IMB has had to make some very difficult decisions. Some of those decisions include a restriction of new missionaries sent to the field for now. Also, the short-term missionaries (journeymen and ISC/Masters) now serving will be limited on renewing their terms. Personally, we have also seen a very big drop in the funds that are provided to us to help with personal expenses (food, clothes, etc...). Since January, we are in the midst of a decrease of 60% in these funds. However, please know that we also realize that every person reading this can probably say the same thing about their grocery money. Please pray that though the economy is troubled now, people will still contribute generously to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for 2009. 100% of these funds go for direct support of missionaries. Please share this need with all of your churches!

Thank you all, once again, for always remembering our family in your prayers. We truly survive through prayer! We are so excited about seeing you all very soon.

Fun at the Rynek (Old Town Market Square)

Winter and Holiday Scenes

Last week, we took off from school and language studies to have some fun family fellowship time together, celebrating my 40th birthday and Thanksgiving. I know, I know, you can't believe I'm 40. I just don't look it at all, right? For my birthday, I just wanted to spend some fun time with my family. So we took a day trip down to Zakopane, a city south of us in the mountains. It was beautifully covered with snow, and we had a great day. We walked the main street, threw some snowballs, had lunch, and then the kids sledded down a small ski slope (the lift up the hill was closed that we had wanted to ride). I sledded once also, but it was a pretty speedy ride, and I gave it up.

Thanks to one of our team member's home church in the States, we were able to have some of our favorite Thanksgiving ingredients and dishes. Our team had one BIG dinner for Thanksgiving. We are so thankful to have such a wonderful family here.

For the first time in 3 years, we were able to get a REAL Christmas tree. The kids were so excited, so we put it up pretty early (possibly too early, we'll see). They love to smell the Christmas tree smell when we come into the apartment. Along with our Christmas decorations, we put out our nativity set that our church sent us a few years ago. Much to my surprise the next day, we had some additions to our nativity set. They sell these hollow chocolate eggs here with small toys inside called Kinder Eggs. Daegan and a friend had just enjoyed two of these, and Daegan decided to add his toys to the manger scene. If you look closely in the picture, you can see a rather angry looking horse and a baby dinosaur in half an egg shell. Don't ask me where they come up with the ideas for these toys for the eggs.

With my birthday and Thanksgiving behind us and all the Christmas decorations out, we are back to studying Polish. Please keep us in your prayers. Though this is a joyful time of year with all the holiday trimmings, it does make us miss friends and family back home even more.

Please send us your Christmas pictures, so we can keep up with your changing families! Also, don't forget that Doyle's birthday is Dec. 20th!

Quick Update...I promise!

Thank you once again for your prayers. We are all healthy at last! Nothing much new to report for now. We are looking forward to some fun fellowship time for Thanksgiving next week with our team, though we desperately miss our familes back home.

Please pray as our team has begun making plans for the volunteer teams for next summer. And please continue praying for our language studies. Also, we had a new journeygirl arrive last month to work with the Roma people here. Just days after arriving, she learned her grandfather had passed away back home. And then, this past week, her apartment was completely flooded from the apartment above, and she lost everything (including her cherished guitar). Please pray for Lindsay during this most difficult time. She is currently searching for a new apartment, but she has been unsuccessful so far.

Also, please read below what Tristyn wrote one day for an assignment a few weeks ago. We are quickly moving on to winter here in Krakow and expect our first snow within hours. The kids are excited.

Through the Eyes of a Child

Shining in the light of the sun, the fallen leaves turn red, then orange, then yellow, then finally brown. They gently sway in the wind, until now. Eventually, they fall off the tree until it looks bare. Just twigs and bark. The trees are nothing but wood now. Leaves litter the soil and concrete ground all around the once beautiful trees that held them to their branches. The trees that once bloomed with color, now standing bare. We should still see them as beautiful, although we don’t usually come to that thought when we look only a second or two at a wonderful piece of nature that God has given us to admire.

-Tristyn Fletcher

Studying...Studying...Studying!

Going for a walk by our neighborhood
Our building

Louise and Valerie from Ireland

It has, of course, been a while since our last post. We really do not have much to share, though. For those of you not in the path of Hurricane Ike, but you prayed for those who were, we thank you. Our families (and many of our friends) were all in the path of the hurricane, but everyone is well. Some had no electricity for quite some time, some had property damage, but overall, everyone seems to feel blessed that they did not experience worse damage.

Thank you all for continually praying for us even when you do not know our needs. Our language studies are going very well. We are very pleased with both of our teachers. We study with one teacher for 3 hours/day two days a week and with a different teacher for 3 hours/day the other three days a week. We have been going at a very good pace, and the teachers have made the learning motivational. We know that the further we go along, the more difficult the material will be, but we thank you all for praying for our studies. The kids are all taking some Polish language lessons as well. Please continue to pray for us all as we try to learn the language of the people we are trying to reach.

Please continue to pray for the kids' schooling. They are doing very well, especially considering my time to help them is so limited with language studies. Falyn is enjoying her change this year to Northstar Academy. She especially likes it because it is an online school, and it has required her to have control of the computer for almost 24 hours a day. She loves that! -haha-

Several weeks ago, we were happy to have some guests over from Ireland. Two young ladies from northern Ireland (they put a lot of emphasis on "northern") were visiting Krakow for a few days for "holiday" (ie. vacation). They were looking online for evangelical churches to visit while they were here and found our blog. They contacted us, came to visit our international church on Sunday night, and even came to have dinner with us. We treated them to, none other than, Tex-Mex for the night. And Tristyn proceeded to teach them Dance Revolution, which they seemed to enjoy. Thank you, Louise and Val, for brightening our lives with some Irish culture (we still find ourselves calling things "wee" instead of small). Doyle says that now we can speak English, Russian, Polish, and a "wee bita Irish".

Thank you for praying for Doyle's seminary studies. His extension course finished up a few weeks ago. He made a week-long trip to Budapest, Hungary to finish up. We missed him while he was gone, but he did really well on all the tests and the term paper. He will return for another course in the spring. Please pray for him as he continues his studies with another course.

After having relatively no illnesses for so long, our family has been under attack lately. We have gone through sinus/allergy stuff, sore throats, coughing (my coughing lasted for 4 weeks), and fever. Tristyn is still feeling pretty miserable, and now Daegan has a fever. Please pray for their recovery and for better health for us all. Some of you may remember praying about Falyn's feet issues. It appears now that her feet are finally healed (after 9 months of different treatments)! Thank you so much for praying for her!

Though Doyle and I are deep into our language studies and our ministry is quite limited right now, Team Krakow ministries are pressing on. We have even welcomed new team members, one family and one single girl, in the past two weeks. They are studying language as well now. Please continue praying for the ministry of Krakow. Our team is involved in several new home Bible studies, some campus ministries, coffee house, ESL classes, new sports ministry opportunities, family Bible studies, and even a cooking class outreach. The IMB is also going through some structural changes, many of which will be announced at the next trustee meeting which will be in November in Houston! Please pray for our leadership and all those involved in making decisions worldwide.

I love checking out people's blogs or facebooks from time to time to get caught up on everyone's lives and see how everyone's kids are growing and changing. Please send us pictures, updates, blog sites, or add me on facebook (Karen Fletcher), so that we may stay in touch. We are counting down... nine months to go!

Endings and Beginnings

Solvay Day Camp

Zabiniec Day Camp

Falyn with her friend, Jacqui

Tristyn and Daegan at CSU Basketeball Camp
Charleston Southern Basketball Team

Daegan finds bugs (or spiders) wherever we go!
Wawal Castle
Married for 20 years!

Wisla River in Krakow


Doyle with his Big Girl

Falyn feeding a donkey (that bit her leg after this shot)
Daegan with a bunny

Doyle trying on a hat in Wisla
Kids having fun on bumper cars in Wisla

I keep telling myself that I'm going to be better at keeping updates regular and short on our blog, but it just hasn't happened. So, for the latest details, here goes...

At the time of our last update, we were in the middle of our Solvay day camp with the volunteer team here from Forestville Baptist. The week went pretty well. We had reserved a room at a culture house for this day camp, instead of having it outside in a park. We weren't sure exactly how the turnout would be, since we couldn't catch the attention of people just walking by. As it turns out, the weather was terrible that week, and we would have had to cancel the whole thing if we had planned it outside. Though the turnout was a little lower, God was sovereign and in control of the planning. One mom actually came to our coffee house that Friday night as well. Thanks so much, Forestville, for helping us out that week.

While that day camp was going on, Doyle and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary (and yes, we did get married young!). We were too busy with the camp to really go out, but our kids surprised us by making us a board game all by themselves. The next week, Doyle surprised me by making all the arrangements and taking me to a nice hotel overlooking the river. What a sweet hubby I have!

We then had our last day camp of the summer in our neighborhood, Zabiniec. We had a team here from Tennessee to lead that camp, and we had a wonderful turnout.

During that camp, Falyn was gone to the annual MK retreat, which was in Budapest, Hungary this year. She had a great time reconnecting with her friends from Russia and other countries. Sadly, during that week we lost a dear friend from our Russia field. Ed Tarleton, who is the leader over the entire Russia Field, lost his wife, Teri, due to a heart problem. Teri was 46 years old and a very dear friend of ours from Moscow. The Tarletons have Adam and Anna, who are in college in the States, and twins, Rebecca and Rachel, who are seniors in Moscow this year. Rebecca and Rachel were with Falyn at the MK retreat when Teri suddenly passed away. They have returned to Moscow after having the funeral in Oklahoma, but please keep the Tarleton family in your prayers during this difficult time of adjustment. If you are on Facebook, you can see more of this family in a public group entitled "Praying for Tarleton Family."

At the end of July, we had to say good-bye to our summer missionaries, Kate and Stacy. We miss them so much! We have made them pledge to come back (hopefully for a longer stay). We had a surprise farewell party for them, and they shared their summer memories with us. You two better stay in touch. You know you will miss Trixie (that's our dog).

In August, we decided to have a surprise birthday party for Falyn. Yes, her birthday is in April, but when her birthday was here, all her friends were gone, and once they were back, we were swamped with day camps. Plus, we've never done a surprise party for her. Let me just say, that we will NEVER plan another surprise party for her again. You know, there are those that you can do surprises for, and things just go smoothly. And then, there are those that just make surprising pretty much impossible. Falyn is the latter. Every detail we planned to pull off the surprise, she did not cooperate with. She was supposed to go to the mall with friends (so I could make the cake), but then decided at the last minute, she didn't feel like going to the mall. (Since when does she ever not feel like going to the mall with friends?!) Anyway, that's the way things went. Though it was complete torture for us, she was in the end, quite surprised and had a good time. You're worth it, Falyn. We love you!

Also, in August we had the basketball team from Charleston Southern University here to do a basketball camp. Tristyn really enjoyed the camp, and we made a ton of contacts. Every night they played a game in a gym here with a Polish team. It was really neat getting to go to a basketball game again. Doyle even had buzzer duty a few of the nights. I especially enjoyed visiting with the coaches' wives, Hope and Kari. Thank you so much, Hope, for sending me some women's Bible study materials! I actually get to do a Beth Moore study again (and with the audio CDs)! On the last day of the basketball camp, all of the campers and the basketball team went swimming in a pool next to the gym. Our kids haven't just swam in a pool since I don't remember when. They were pretty excited, but the water was really cold. Unfortunately, Daegan slipped getting in the pool, hit his head on the side of the pool, and had to get stitches. He handled it so well! And though we complain about the price of things here (our gas is around $9/gallon!), Daegan's entire bill (emergency room, doctor, local anesthetic, etc.) was less than $60. And the surgeon let us come to his house (free) to remove the stitches, since he lives closer to us than the hospital.

After finishing up with all the summer volunteer teams, we had a Team Krakow team retreat in Wisla (a small town in the mountains just southwest of us). We stayed at the baptist church's conference center there. It was a nice time to meet as a team and reflect on the ministries and discuss some changes and additions to our ministry. It was so beautiful there! One morning we were able to go to the indoor water park at a resort in the town for a few hours.

Just before starting school (while we were still waiting on our school supplies to make it over from the States), we took some time to do some fun, touristy stuff. We went to the indoor water park here in Krakow for a couple of hours (you pay by the hour), to the zoo, to the Wawel castle here in Krakow, and went on a boat ride on the Wisla river. This weekend we also went to a lake nearby and got to go swimming at the beachy area. The kids loved it (wish we had thought of this before the end of the summer)! We did stand out there, however. Our males were the only males not wearing Speedos, and I stood out for not wearing a bikini. Oh well! That's one way we will NOT try to blend in here.

Last weekend, we had the privilege to go to a small church in a small town just south of us, Rabka. Doyle was invited to preach there that Sunday, and it was such a blessing to see the faithful worshippers who met in a tiny room of a school building. Doyle had prepared his sermon on the holiness of God and was prepared to deliver it with the translator. The neat thing, which we didn't find out till the end of the service, was that during the first part of the service, the pastor read a passage aloud and reflected on God's holiness. Another member prayed out loud during the prayer time remarking on God's holiness. Of course, we didn't understand any of this. So, when Doyle got up and said what his topic was, the pastor was just amazed. God does not work in coincidences. He had prearranged that all along!

Well, now that we finished up a summer full of ministry, our lives will now take a dramatic change. On September 15th, Doyle and I will begin full-time language study (5 days a week). Due to this schedule and our dedication to learn the language, our part in the ministry of the team will be severely limited. Doyle and I both have a hard time saying no to something that we really want to be a part of, so please pray for us-- that we won't let ourselves be distracted from the focus of learning the Polish language. The kids will also begin that same day taking some Polish lessons with a tutor that will come to teach them twice a week. Please pray for their language acquisition as well. Daegan wants desperately to speak the language and make Polish friends. Please also continue to pray for Doyle, as he is taking a seminary extension course and trying to manage those studies as well.

Please pray for the kids as they begin their school year. The boys will start on Monday, but Falyn actually started last week. Falyn has switched this year from the Bob Jones DVDs to Northstar Academy, which is an online Christian school. It has taken a lot of time and effort on both of our parts to navigate the whole system, but I think things are running smoothly now. She is very excited about doing Northstar this year, but she just feels a little overwhelmed right now. The school started officially one week before, but since we didn't have our materials yet, she started a week late. Northstar has extension time, so there is no pressure, but she just wants to be on schedule. So, she will work hard to try to get caught up to the calendar. The boys are excited about starting, but it can be difficult for them to adjust from total freedom to sitting and learning. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, to Russell and Heather Boyter in Chicago, for receiving all our homeschool materials and getting all 200 pounds of it sent over for us! You guys are incredible!

And, I've saved the good news for last (depending on how you look at it). We have begun the countdown now to come back for our stateside time. We have officially planned to return at the end of July 2009 and stay until mid-January 2010. We will be staying at a mission house in Kingwood, Texas. We are all very excited and can't help but visualize ourselves there everyday greeting all of you once again. We miss you all so incredibly much! If we could just have a calendar sign-up, and have you all take turns visiting us over here, life would just be grand! We will be doing some travelling while we are there (conferences, speaking at churches, etc.), but we just wanted to let you all know because several have asked us when? when? when? Now, you know!

Here's our current list of things (in no certain order) that the kids want to do in America:

• go to Disney World
• go to Fiesta Texas
• go camping
• eat honey buns
• eat at Casa Ole (big kid put that one)
• go swimming at Uncle Darren and Aunt Shawntil's pool (and any other pool available)
• see everyone!
• see Nala and Pixie (our dogs we left in the States)
• go to WalMart
• see friends from volunteer teams
• go to our home church (Grace Community Church)
• eat at Luby's
• play outside at Nana and Papa's
• go fishing
• have a Wendy's frosty
• have a snowcone
• eat a grilled cheese from Sonic
• eat donuts from Shipley's

I'm sure there will be more to come! What would you miss if you left America for 3 1/2 years? Something to think about.