A delightful Christmas 'movie'!!
Starring: Jay Bowyer, Colette Ladan,
and a cast of thousands.
Rated: Family
"Christmas in Poland" is a holiday picture to warm your heart this Christmas. The 'sisters from Canada' (as they are known by their Polish friends) are celebrating their first Christmas far away from home. The season is an interesting mix of the familiar with the unknown. The scene opens with snow falling in the city of Ciechanow while Colette and Jay play Christmas music and huddle around the space heater pretending it's a fireplace. They are carefully planning the festivities of the season.
It will all begin with a craft lesson for the community at the church's family day Sunday Dec. 13. This event brings in poor families from the community for a meal, some festive activities, testimonies and the Christmas story. Colette and Jay are perusing the supplies to ensure that it will be a craft with meaning for the holiday season. As we see them decorating their flat, we hear them discussing how it would be more important than they thought because they are hosting the church's 'Annual Women's Christmas Party' on Dec. 19. This is a time when the women sample one anothers culinary delights and Jay and Colette are excited because they will treat the women to authentic Canadian cider. The 'sisters' are also contemplating what to make for the all church Christmas supper Sunday Dec. 20 for this is when the congregation will celebrate 'Wigilia' (technically Christmas eve) early, together. This event turns out to be festive and focused on Jesus.
Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) finds them putting the finishing touches on the turkey they have prepared for their friends, Grzegorz & Alina and their two sons. (Christmas Eve is the BIG celebration in Poland, not Christmas Day) There is much excitement around this event as turkey and all the trimmings are not common in Poland, and the traditional meal is carp. Christmas morning we see them surrounded by their new adopted family of seven enjoying a traditional Polish Christmas-Day breakfast. The culmination of the festivities occurs in the afternoon as the two join their church family at a wonderful worship celebration of the Saviour's birth.
Then just as the year draws to a close, they are interviewed by the local paper about why they are in Ciechanow, and, their new English school which will open in January.
Throughout the month you can see them exploring holiday traditions in a new country, writing cards and letters to family back home, and praying for their friends, family and supporters. There is a strong sense of community and purpose as the two discover that no matter where you are in this world — Jesus is still the reason for the season.